It was totally an act of love...”

Maryann Corey

HONESDALE, PA — A store owner in downtown Honesdale has broken the record for world’s longest necklace. Stretching more than six miles in length and weighing more than 3,000 pounds, the necklace took five months and more than 4,000 people to construct.

Local school students, children and counselors from local summer camps and community members all helped in building this necklace, made up of more than one million glass beads and weighing in at over a ton.

“It was totally an act of love,” said Maryann Corey, who runs Bloom, the jewelry and gift store on Main Street hosting the necklace. She got word last Thursday from Guinness World Records that they had successfully set a new record.

Corey said she undertook the endeavor in order to raise awareness and support for LonaKana, a retreat in Forest City for women fighting cancer. “It’s a place [for women] to recharge and make good memories with the people they love,” she said.

LonaKana is run through the Portable Playhouse, a nonprofit organization Corey founded in 2000 that provides art therapy for women and children undergoing cancer treatment.

Over the weekend and during the Roots and Rhythm music festival on June 15, part of the necklace was displayed outside of Bloom, where people could take pictures and learn more about the program and retreat. Lengths of the necklace were wrapped around cable spools.

Corey is now trying to raise enough money to expand the retreat by building a new facility on a 15-acre farm, which she said will be more accessible to patients with disabilities.

Pieces of the necklace —“love beads”— are now for sale. All proceeds go toward supporting LonaKana.