The final event on the the multi-town Pink Week calendar is a Zumba workout in Holmdel on Saturday. (Click to enlarge)

The Broad Street salon gave 50 $7 children’s haircuts in four hours to raise funds for the medical care of Duwayne Powell, a 9-year-old Red Bank Primary School student suffering from a heart ailment. (Photo by Stacie Fanelli. Click to enlarge)

Tickets are $20 each, and the raffle will be held at the store at 4 p.m. on May 20.  (Click to enlarge)

Off-and-on drizzles and downpours made for a damp day for participants in townwide yard sales in Red Bank and Fair Haven Saturday.

Still, redbankgreen found plenty of plucky sellers and buyers.

To enlarge the photo display, start it, then click the embiggen symbol in the lower right corner. To get back to redbankgreen, hit your escape key.

As the headline suggests, the weekend that awaits is jammed with the potential for good times.

We’ve got the fifth Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale, this one making a migration from fall to spring.

We’ve got one of the inaugural events of this year’s weeklong Paint the Town Pink festivities to raise awareness about breast cancer and the importance of early detection.

And capping it all off, rain or shine, is the first-ever Red Bank International Flavour Fest, an outdoor celebration of the wide variety of cuisines available year-round at Red Bank restaurants.

And Mother Nature appears to be in a mood to cooperate.

Details, as they used to say when that was still a two-syllable word, are just below.

SATURDAY: Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale
Location: all over town. Maps available at the Red Bank Public Library and at many of the participating homes.
Time: Officially, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., but sellers can set their own hours.

From an email update from Beth Hanratty, president of the Friends of the Red Bank Public Library, which has hosted the event since 2010:

lots of records, books and air conditioners

SATURDAY: Pink Hat Tea Party
Pilgrim Baptist Church
172 Shrewsbury Avenue
Doors open 10:30 a.m., Event 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Don’t miss this important Paint the Town Pink event, presented by Riverview Medical Center. Gather all the special women in your life to join us for an educational and entertaining Pink Hat Tea, with a hat and apparel fashion show courtesy Geneva’s Boutique of Neptune, a speacial presentation from Adi Smolinsky, M.D., a Riverview Medical Center OB/GYN, education about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of the importance of annual mammography, and more! Refreshments will be provided by Jameson’s Ultimate Southern Cooking Restaurant in Neptune. Don’t forget to wear your pink hat!

*Pink Sale Event. Deck your pink all year long with our exclusive Paint the Town Pink gear and goodies for sale at this signature event.

This event is FREE but registration is required. RSVP: 1-800-DOCTORS

SUNDAY: Paint Everything Pink Community Day
Riverview Medical Center parking lot
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Pink your town, pink your house, pink your family. Everything is pink at our family-centered, free Community Day! Featuring many of the same pink “zones” families have come to expect as well as exciting new ones, this year’s event will feature:

Kids’ Fun & Games: Rides, arts and crafts, face painting – all the things your kids have come to love! And don’t miss photos with Dr. Bernard from the Pawsitive Action Team at
K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital.

Pink it Yourself Man Cave: In line with this year’s theme of Men in Pink, our “man cave” will offer the men in your life an area just for them. Activities will include DYI demonstrations from the Home Depot, interactive games, and of course our exclusive Real Men Wear Pink t-shirts.

Rockin’ Country Thunder 106.3: Bring out the country in you! With live music from a local country artist, this local-favorite station will have you dancin’ in your boots. Your kids will love our pony rides and everyone can enjoy some good old fashioned root beer!

And that’s not all! Enjoy some snack-food favorites and other sweet treats, and beverages from a number of local pink partners, and don’t forget to stop by our educational tables to pick-up important information about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of raising awareness of the importance of annual mammography.

Special Pink Cotton Candy and Snow Cones presented by Arrow Limousine.

SUNDAY: Red Bank International Flavour Festival
White Street Parking Lot
12 p.m. to 7 p.m., rain or shine

Here’s the National Weather Service forecast:

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind between 10 and 13 mph.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind around 9 mph.

By JOHN T. WARD

Kathie Panepinto was leading a tour of the Red Bank Primary School property and lamenting the heavy growth that hides an adjoining pond Monday when groundhog that had been sunning itself in the grass scooted across her path and into the brush.

“Oh, look at that,” she said said excitedly, noting that up-close sightings of deer and other wildlife are common at the school, which sits on landfill in a former wetlands abutting the Swimming River.

It was the kind of moment that for decades has inspired talk of the school’s potential as natural sciences learning center. And it underscored the value of ongoing efforts by Panepinto and other volunteers in their most ambitious effort to date: creating a permanent physical link between the school and the inaccessible pond.

A concept plan shows a walkway out into the pond that the foundation hopes to win funding for. (Click to enlarge)

Since its revival from dormancy four years ago, the nonprofit Red Bank Borough Education Foundation has focused its efforts on small-bore projects: leading cleanups of the 17-acre primary school property, lending a hand and a few dollars to installations such as a butterfly garden, a small greenhouse and a human sundial clock.

Now, though, the all-volunteer group is raising its sights with a proposal to build an outdoor classroom in the form of a pier and observation deck on the pond. The structure would enable students at the K-3 school to see land and aquatic habitats up close, and “to do wet and muddy samplings,” said RBBEF member and Councilman Ed Zipprich.

“Most folks don’t even know there’s a pond back there,” said member Susan Berke.

“The idea is to make access to the pond not just for science, but for reading, writing, art,” said Panepinto, an RBBEF officer.

No cost estimate for the project has yet been worked up, and foundation members don’t even know if they would need and might obtain permits from the state Department of Environmental Protection for the structure, which may be subject to limitations on building in coastal areas.

Still, they’ve begun the process of trying to win a grant for as much as $460,000 from the National Science Foundation, said foundation president Doug Winning, an architect. “We’re going for the full enchilada,” he said.

Meantime, the organization has raised about $10,000 in each of the past two years through art auctions held at the Atrium at Navesink Harbor. This year, no such event is planned, though members hope to put together an Antiques Roadshow-type event for 2013.

Meantime, the group has produced a reusable canvas shopping tote featuring Red Bank student art that will soon be available around town for $5. For $10, residents get the tote and membership in the RBBEF.

“We’re still taking baby steps at this point, but we’ve got momentum going, and that’s the important thing,” said Zipprich.

Like the past two autumn Oysterfests, Red Bank Flavour’s new International Flavour Fest on Sunday will bulge at the belt line of the White Street parking lot. (Click to enlarge)

It’s panning out to be a busy spring for Red Bank Flavour.

The promotional partnership of borough-based bistros, bars, boites, bakeries, breakfast nooks, banquet halls and better take-out vendors heralded the turn of the season with the return of the Dine Downtown campaign in March. Then in April, the culinary alliance presented a special Broadway in Red Bank showcase that reinforced the notion of the town as dinner-and-show destination.

On Sunday, the Flavour pack joins with Red Bank RiverCenter and a host of local and corporate sponsors for an event with a broader, even global, reach: the first annual Red Bank International Flavour Festival.

Dublin native Steve Reilly and Shore reggae masters Random Test help lend a global vibe to the Red Bank International Flavour Fest, this Sunday afternoon on White Street. 

Presented in the White Street municipal parking lot (scene of September’s Guinness Oysterfests) from noon to 7pm, the rain-or-shine shindig is pitched as “an international culinary experience” that also boasts “international beer and wine,” plus family-friendly activities and a full menu of live music on two stages.

Some 30 of Red Bank’s most proactive purveyors of fine foodstuffs will be offering attendees samples of their wares, as “culinary cultural attaches” for the likes of France (Bienvenue), Ireland (The Dublin House), China (Temple Gourmet), Thailand (Siam Garden), Mexico (SurfTaco), ever-eclectic America (Dish) and points well below sea level. There’s also the expansive international vision of Gary the Soupmeister and Readies, plus gourmet pizza (with other Italian favorites) and the kind of sweet-tooth diplomacy that recognizes no national borders. A full listing of participating vendors (with website links) can be found here.

In a further flavourful twist, the featured entertainment also carries with it an World vibe, with an International Stage showcasing reggae partystarters Random Test, Dublin-born rocker Steve Reilly, Latin/ Salsa showstoppers from The Funktion, and a round-the-world performance by the students of Red Bank’s Kathryn Barnett School of Dance. An All-American stage features local favorites Quincy Mumford and Kirk & The Jirks, as well as Bon Jovi-likes Runaway (take it here for a detailed music schedule and links).

Admission to the Red Bank International Flavour Festival is $5.00 for adults (kids 12 and under free), with proceeds benefitting Red Bank RiverCenter and the Red Bank Regional Buccaneer Athletic Foundation.

The Flavour keeps on lasting, all this spring and throughout the summer, as the grassroots alliance plots the return of the monthly Red Bank Food and Wine Walk promotions, the first of which pounds the pavements on Sunday, May 20 — and about which more to come in the paperless pages of redbankgreen.

It started six years ago, in a place called Pink Bank.

It quickly caught on in the nearby communities of Pink Haven (Fair Haven, that is) and Pink (Monmouth) Beach. And in 2012, you’ll find it happening everywhere from Pinkbury (Shrewsbury), Pinkson (Rumson) and Little Pink (Little Silver), to Pinkdel (Holmdel), Atlantic Pinklands (Atlantic Highlands) and possibly other coordinates on your G-Pink-S.

Beginning Friday, May 4, and continuing through May 12, Riverview Medical Center invites residents of the greater Green to participate in a campaign that’s designed to encourage women aged 40 and older to schedule an annual mammogram — as well as to fund mammography services to our uninsured and underserved neighbors — with a pledge to Paint the Town Pink.

If, as it’s been said, it takes a village to turn a town pink, then this year’s nine-day campaign promises to be “bigger and pinker than ever,” with a gala reception, celebrity appearances, large-scale public events, and the centerpiece of the schedulE: the mass “pinking” of homes all over this side of the Garden State Pinkway.

‘Apprentice’ winner and motivational speaker Bill Rancic (seen with wife and breast cancer survivor Giuliana) makes a May 7 appearance at the Count Basie. Below, line painter Mark Arnone laying down Broad Street’s pink strip in 2009. (Click to enlarge)

Having received their Paint the Town Pink Starter Kits from the event organizers, entrants in the house decorating contest have been busily planting lawn signs, raising flags, hanging up bows and ribbons, and using their imaginations to transform their domiciles into displays that range from respectful breast cancer survivor tributes, to playfully pink’d examples of creative energy. A panel of judges will visit all decorated homes on the first weekend of May, awarding honors in three categories (Most Creative, In Honor of a Survivor, Pinkest House) to registered entrants in each of the eight participating towns.

Meanwhile, hundreds of area business are expected to offer in-store specials and other special events keyed to the campaign, while scores of individual volunteers, community organizations, medical professionals and local officials will be working side by side in what’s being called “a grassroots initiative that is changing lives in very tangible and meaningful ways” — with the common goal of raising awareness of the importance of annual mammography.

With that in mind, the event organizers have called in the “Men in Pink,” the theme of this year’s campaign, and an acknowledgment of the guys who have played an integral part in Paint the Town Pink since its inception; from Mark Arnone (the man who’s painted that famous pink line down the middle of Broad Street every year since 2009) to Bob McKay, co-founder of Red Bank-based McKay Imaging and the “man behind the Pink Lens.”

On Monday night, May 7, the Count Basie Theatre will be the venue for a visit for another well-known Man in Pink, when Meridian Cancer Care presents An Unplanned Plan: An Evening with Bill Rancic.

Famous as the Season One winner of Donald Trump’s The Apprentice — as well as a motivational speaker, best-selling author, and the entrepeneur behind Cigars Around the World — Rancic is also familiar from the Style Network series Giuliana and Bill, the reality show that he shares with his wife, herself the co-host of E! News and Fashion Police. Having shared the details of their fertility issues with a nationwide audience (the couple is expecting a baby via a surrogate this summer), the Rancics announced in the fall of 2011 that Giuliana, who had been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, had undergone a double mastectomy.

Tickets for the 7:30 pm presentation — in which “Bill will candidly share his story of his marriage and family, his career, and his wife’s recent breast cancer diagnosis and all the unplanned things in life that happen when you are busy making other plans” — are priced at $39 general admission, with a limited number of VIP premium tickets (including a post-show cocktail reception with the guest) available for $100; take it here to reserve.

There’s much more to be found on the Pink slate, of course, beginning with a “Party for Pink” fundraiser gala at Middletown’s Navesink Country Club on Friday, May 4, and a “Pink Community Day” of activities and awareness at Riverview on the afternoon of Sunday, May 6. Meridian’s Bayshore Community Hospital in Holmdel will host the inaugural “Pink Zumbathon” on Saturday, May 12, and Red Bank nightspot The Downtown will get into the act with a special edition of “Girls Night Out” on Thursday, May 10. Full details and updates on each of these events (as well as about Paint the Town Pink in general) can be found right here, or on the organization’s Facebook page.

Sophie Shea, center, and Kristina Taylor, right working their roadside bake sale with friend Willow Nicolaides on Saturday. (Click to enlarge)

By STEPHANIE SCHROEPFER

What began as a curbside nickel-and-dime lemonade stand turned into a fundraising phenomenon in Rumson this past weekend.

Decorated in red, white and blue, homemade goodies sold on Ward Avenue in Rumson Saturday and Sunday raised more than $2,000 for the Great American Bake Sale, a national anti-childhood hunger campaign.

Leading the effort were Kristina Taylor, 12, and Sophie Shea, 11. And they had their families baking all weekend.

Kristina’s a foodie who wants to be a chef and “watches the Food Network all the time,” according to her mother, Kathryn Taylor.

A lemonade stand Kristina and Sophie ran outside the Taylor family’s windmill on Ward Avenue was a neighborhood staple that eked out a small profit, “but we never really came up with a cause,” said Kristina.

When she saw the Great American Bake Sale promoted on the Food Network, she enlisted Sophie to help.

On their first day of selling lemonade for the effort, they grossed $30. The next day sales went up to $60. After that, the pair felt they could handle a bigger challenge, so they upped their goal and broke out the secret family recipes of pinwheels, hot fudge, lemon bars, chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal cookies.

They promoted their effort online, which enabled friends, family and fans to donate without attending the bake sale. They also placed some posters around town, told their lemonade stand customers and notified local news sources, but they were still surprised to start selling out within the first hour of selling on Saturday.

Online donations caused them to repeatedly increase their goal: $300 went to $600; $600 went to $1000. By the close of the weekend, they’d made $2,002.65.

“I can’t believe our goal was $300, and we raised over $2000,” Kristina said, as her mom was inside the house making a fresh batch of caramel. “I feel happy and proud.”