By JOHN T. WARD

A Navesink couple is the latest in a string of wealthy donors to write a whopping check to help pay for a new surgical center at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, the hospital announced late Tuesday.

Richard Saker, the third-generation CEO of the Saker ShopRite chain, and his wife, Laura, have donated $1 million to the cause through the business, the hospital reports.

The commitment pushes the hospital’s campaign for the 22,000-square-foor surgery center “well past” its $15 million goal, the nonprofit said in its announcement.

Prior donations have included $5 million from Bob & Joan Rechnitz, founders of the Two River Theater Company, and $1 million from George and Vita Kolber of Locust. Hospital workers themselves ponied up nearly $375,000, officials said at the center’s opening last month.

The hospital did not immediately say how the campaign surplus would be spent. [Update: Riverview spokesman Tom Paolella tells redbankgreen via email that the Saker contribution "continues the significant momentum and support from this community that has us ahead in our plans for a second phase of growth for Riverview that we will be sharing with the community shortly."]

Here’s the full announcement from the public relations office at Riverview, one of the hospitals in the Meridian Health universe:

Red Bank, NJ – April 17, 2012 – Riverview Medical Center today announced a $1 million charitable donation from Saker ShopRites to Meridian Health to benefit the Life.Changing. Campaign for Surgical Excellence at Riverview. The donation will help support the construction of Riverview’s new 22,000 square foot center for surgical excellence, and effectively vaults the campaign well past the $15 million fundraising goal. The project, which is currently underway includes: two sophisticated specialty surgical suites, renovated post-anesthesia care area, relocated and renovated surgical day stay, and a state-of-the-art conference and educational center. This advancement will allow patients to continue to receive advanced surgical procedures close to home, without having to travel to New York City or elsewhere.

The Saker family has spent a lifetime sharing their blessings. Richard currently serves as a member of the Riverview Medical Center Foundation board of trustees. As president and chief executive officer of Saker Holdings Corporation, and Saker ShopRites, Inc., Richard has harnessed the power of this huge enterprise to benefit countless lives and the quality of life for the residents of Monmouth and Ocean counties. Together with his wife Laura, a professional educator, dancer, and choreographer, they have both helped to raise millions of dollars to benefit the hungry, and many other worthwhile causes.

“Our family is extremely proud and honored to be a part of a project that is going to have such a life-changing impact on the surrounding communities,” said Laura. “We feel it is important to support the community we call home,” said Richard. “Laura and I have always had a deep affection for Riverview Medical Center where our children were born and where our family members have always been well cared for. When we heard about the new center being built, we wanted to do what we could to help make it happen.”

Richard serves on the boards of Wakefern Food Corporation, the New Jersey Food Council, the Academy of Food Marketing at St Joseph’s University, and the Joan Dancy and People with ALS Foundation. Both Richard and Laura have been recognized by singer Andrea Bocelli for their charitable work with the Vision of Children Foundation and are steadfast supporters of the FoodBank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties. In the past year alone, over 1,500 Central NJ organizations have benefited from Saker ShopRites charitable donations. In addition, Saker ShopRites supports the “ShopRite Partners in Caring” program, a charity dedicated to the fight against hunger, where this year over 1000 charities have received a portion of the $2 million donated by “ShopRite Partners in Caring”.

As third generation in a family business, Richard remains loyal to his roots in Monmouth County and to his hometown of Freehold; site of the first family owned and operated Saker’s market, established in 1906 by his grandparents. Together with Laura who serves on the boards of the Monmouth County SPCA, Two River Theater Company, Monmouth Conservation Foundation, and the Drumthwacket Foundation, they have maintained a decades-long Saker family tradition of giving back to the community in which they work and live.

“We are grateful for the long-standing commitment to Riverview Medical Center by one of Monmouth County’s most charitable families,” says David Flood, president of the Meridian Health Foundation. “This gift is a tangible affirmation of our commitment as the healthcare heart of our community and provides critical support for the programs and services we are developing. Thanks to their generosity and vision, the Sakers have put this campaign over the top, while contributing to a momentum that has us ahead in our plans for a second phase of growth for Riverview that we will be sharing with community shortly. This great community demands and deserves superior healthcare, and Riverview is committed to delivering just that with every dollar invested.”

“The Saker’s generosity is inspiring,” says Tim Hogan, FACHE, regional president of Riverview Medical Center and Bayshore Community Hospital. “People rightly acknowledge that Riverview has had an exceptional past. But exceptional isn’t going to be good enough for the future; as healthcare moves forward we need to be at the forefront of patient care. The campaign provides an opportunity for any and all community members to put a personal stamp on this historic project — one that will provide state-of-the-art healthcare for generations to come.”

To learn more about the center for surgical excellence, or to support the Life. Changing. campaign visit www.RiverviewMedicalCenter.com/LifeChanging.

About Riverview Medical Center

Riverview Medical Center, a member of the Meridian Health Family, is a 463-bed not-for-profit community hospital located on the Navesink River in Red Bank, New Jersey. Riverview Medical Center provides health care programs and services in all major medical disciplines including: maternity, oncology, orthopedics and rehabilitation, neurology, thoracic and vascular surgery, cardiology, renal dialysis, diabetes management, and emergency and critical care services. Riverview’s Jane H. and John Marshall Booker Cancer Center offers comprehensive cancer services close to home, while Riverview’s Jane H. Booker Women and Children’s Center combines expertise and convenience to address preventative health, diagnosis, treatment, and support for women of all ages. Riverview Rehabilitation Center is Monmouth County’s only fully-accredited inpatient rehabilitation facility, and Riverview is a designated Primary Stroke Center and has also maintained prestigious Magnet designation for Nursing Excellence since 1998. Riverview is the only hospital in the region with the groundbreaking CyberKnife® system, offering new hope for patients with inaccessible or inoperable tumors. For more information about Riverview Medical Center and Meridian Health, please call 1-800-DOCTORS or visit www.riverviewmedicalcenter.com.

Local-history librarian Elizabeth McDermott, below, with a custom-branded Eisner lightbulb in the second-floor New Jersey Room of the Red Bank Public Library, once the home of industrialist Sigmund Eisner. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

On April 15, 1937, the Red Bank Public Library – for decades an itinerant but growing collection of books and archival material – finally found a permanent home, relocating from a downtown storefront to a mansion at 84 West Front Street.

Three months earlier, the heirs of Sigmund Eisner – mass-manufacturer of uniforms for the Army, the Boy Scouts and other organizations  – had donated their late father’s mansion overlooking the Navesink River to the library.

The shared hope of H. Raymond, Monroe and J. Lester Eisner was that the house would provide a warm and dry place for reading, but also that it would function “as a bit of a museum, too,” says local-history librarian Elizabeth McDermott.

Next month, the library will celebrate its 75th anniversary in the house with museum-like displays that highlight Eisner and his transformative impact on Red Bank as an industrialist and philanthropist.

The event, says McDermott, “is completely about” Eisner.

The ornate first-floor parlor of the Eisner mansion, above, and an undated photo of Sigmund Eisner, below. (Click to enlarge)

Valued at $25,000 at the time, the house was donated partly furnished, according to a Red Bank Register account of the opening. Wicker chairs provided welcome indoor seating overlooking the river.

The house had been home to Eisner and his wife, Bertha Weis, a member of a well-established Red Bank family. An Eastern European immigrant who “came to Red Bank as a peddler,” Eisner set up a sewing machine in a rented house near Broad Street and eventually built an manufacturing empire that employed 5,000 people at its peak during the first World War, said McDermott.

Eisner’s complex of factory buildings at the West Front Street and Bridge Avenue was reported to be the largest uniform factory in the world, she said.

Some of that property is now the home to the Galleria at Red Bank, a collection of restaurants, shops and offices. Another portion, on the northeast corner of that intersection, is home to the Antique Center of Red Bank.

Antique Center owner Guy Johnson is lending some of his collection of Eisner and old Red Bank memorabilia to the library display, including uniforms and a lightbulb branded with the Eisner name, probably for use in the factory, McDermott said.

The event will also highlight the reopening of the library’s New Jersey History Room. For many years, an ornate front room trimmed in ornate Gothic woodwork served as the repository for reference and archival materials about Red Bank, Monmouth County and the state. But the rarity and delicate condition of some of the materials, including one-of-a-kind atlases and directories, called out for a dedicated, controlled-access space, said McDermott.

That space is now a second-floor room of several hundred square feet that is open to the public from 2 to 4 p.m. each Tuesday afternoon, and by appointment at other times. McDermott said it is available to anyone, and is particularly helpful to people interested in researching family and property histories.

McDermott herself has been immersed in the materials as she assembles the exhibit, she said. And one regular visitor, a volunteer in the effort to put together the exhibit, has been known to exclaim, while going through old photos, “Oh my god, that’s my great-grandfather,” McDermott said with a laugh.

The goal of the exhibit is to create “a kind of timeline” about Eisner, a philanthropist who left money in his will to his factory workers, as well as to a host of churches of various persuasions, said McDermott.

“He didn’t have any barriers,” she said.

The building got a $1.6 million renovation in 2007, reopening after a problematic 15-month closure in January, 2008. In the interim, the library operated out of retail space donated by Hovnanian Enterprises.

Here’s an article from the January 6, 1937 edition of the New York Times announcing the donation of the house to the borough: Eisners deed house to library

And here’s the announcement about next month’s event:

On Saturday, April 14, 2012, from 2 – 4 PM, the Red Bank Public Library will celebrate 75 years as the Eisner Memorial Library with a Ribbon Cutting and Reception in our newly restructured New Jersey History Room.

Our New Jersey Collection contains many unique and valuable items pertaining to the Library, the Borough of Red Bank, and Monmouth County. The Library building itself is a special place, having been previously the home of Sigmund Eisner, businessman, civic leader and philanthropist, and his wife Bertha, an influential businesswoman and civic organizer. Presented to the Borough of Red Bank in January 1937, the former mansion was opened as a Public Library on April 15, 1937, thanks to the generosity of the Eisner sons, Raymond, J. Lester, and Monroe Eisner.

Please join us on April 14, as we celebrate this historic anniversary in our beautiful building on the Navesink River. For more information, please feel free to contact the library at 732-842-0690.

By JOHN T. WARD

Heeding the sound of Red Bank’s rattling tin cup, a fifth nonprofit has made a cash contribution to the town lieu of taxes.

Habcore Inc., which provides shelter and other services to the homeless and disabled  on South Pearl Street, has cut a check for $9,900, Mayor Pasquale Menna said Wednesday.

In addition, a comparable sum has been pledged by another charity that he could not yet publicly identify, Menna said.

Habcore’s donation follows a renewal by Menna of a campaign to relieve borough taxpayers of some of the costs of supporting social service and religious education facilities that benefit an area beyond the town’s borders.

Menna has floated two proposals: tax nonprofits for newly acquired properties in towns deemed to be “regional centers” where at least 15 percent of the land area is now exempt; or create a mechanism whereby such towns would be compensated for hosting charities, either through state or Monmouth County coffers.

The sum given by Habcore exceeds what it would have owed the town if its holdings were not exempt from taxes.

Habcore officials could not be reached for immediate comment.

On South Pearl, Habcore  has a 4,400-square-foot residence with an assessed value of $632,900. Property records show Habcore also owns 119 River Street, valued at $358,900. Combined, at the current local tax rate of 51 cents per $100, Habcore would only have owed the town $5,058 had those properties been on the tax rolls.

Red Bank also gets annual contributions from Riverview Medical Center, the town’s largest nonprofit, which gives $200,000 a year; the Monmouth Boat Club ($5,000); the Navesink River Rowing club, though it does not own any property ($2,000); and Wesleyan Arms senior citizens’ housing project on Wall Street. Wesleyan Arms contributes a fixed percentage of its rent collections, Menna said, though he and other officials did not have the sum handy Wednesday night.

[UPDATE AND CLARIFICATION: Steven Heisman, executive director of Habcore, says that organization's payment to the town is not new. Habcore, he says, has been making payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) to Red Bank for 25 years under contract, including one signed in 2005 and expiring in 2015. It does the same in Asbury Park, where it also owns property. "We do use borough services, and so we should help out," he told redbankgreen Thursday morning. "I don't want people to look at Habcore as a drain on the community."

Heisman said he had written Menna a letter recently to remind him of the agrement because Menna had called out other nonprofits that made payments to Red Bank without mentioning Habcore.

Asked Monday why he had framed the payment as a new contribution, Menna, however, said he was unaware of the PILOT contact between Habcore and Red Bank. "I don't look at every single tax notice, he said.]

By JOHN T. WARD

It’s become a familiar refrain of Red Bank officials: the borough is choking on nonprofits that provide services to a wide swath of Monmouth County’s citizenry but return nothing to the town’s coffers.

For all the societal good they do, a sprawling medical center, various churches and other do-good institutions occupy land that might otherwise generate tax revenue – and they increase the load carried by borough taxpayers each time they expand, says Mayor Pasquale Menna.

“Our residents have to pay for the deficiency,” he said. “That societal good is borne by those who are the least able to pay for it.”

Menna says that this year, he’ll be dialing up efforts to address what he considers a fundamental unfairness. But having gotten nowhere with earlier efforts, he’s retooled, and is now pitching a provocative idea: Make nonprofits pay when they acquire property now on the tax rolls.

The suggestion, Menna cautions, is just that. Though other media coverage of the proposal has focused on the controversial notion of upending a longstanding exemption from taxes for charities, Menna tells redbankgreen that the idea is merely a conversation-starter, and that he’s open to other mechanisms by which towns like Red Bank are compensated.

The problem, he says, came to the fore with the end of state aid to all but the most distressed cities in New Jersey, and it could be addressed by having Trenton, or the county seats, recognize and steer money back to towns that serve as regional centers, such as Red Bank, Morristown and Princeton.

“Basically, it’s an invitation to the legislature to start thinking outside the box,” he said. “There has to be a program that recognizes there are some municipalities that are not distressed cities” but provide essential services to a broad region.

Menna says that nearly 25 percent of Red Bank’s land is tied up by non-profits, four or five times the average of nearby towns. And every time they expand, they put increase the burden on their own neighbors.

“You can’t continue to have one-quarter of your tax base be tax-exempt and have your residents carry that burden,” he said during his annual state of the borough speech at the government reorganization meeting Sunday.

His foot-in-the-door proposl is not a call for taxes on existing holdings, Menna said. Nor is he gunning for government entities like New Jersey Transit, which has a large swath of real estate in town, to contribute.

Rather, he said, property taxes would apply to properties acquired by nonprofits in towns where 15 percent or more of the land in a town is exempt.

Menna said he is shopping around for legislative support for a yet-to-be-written bill. So far, he’s getting at least a slightly warmer reception than a proposal pitched by Councilman Michael DuPont in 2010 calling for taxation of nonprofits.

That request, to the town’s three Republican reps in Trenton, was met with a “get-your-own-finances-in-order-first”-type reply. Now, however, the Asbury Park Press reports that state Senator Jen Beck is “researching” the idea, which she says may require a constitutional amendment, and Menna says Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon is interested in the idea.

If such a law existed, it would not impact St. James RC Church plan to buy the former borough hall at 51 Monmouth Street from the Community YMCA, That structure, which is exempt by virtue of the Y’s nonprofit status, is valued at $1.9 million, though the assessment appears to include the Relief Fire Company home, which is part of the structure.

The most eagerly anticipated touch football event of the season takes place on November 26, when the annual Turkey Bowl raises funds for Jason’s Dream for Kids, at Thompson Middle School in Middletown.

Maintaining the available blood supply here in the most densely populated state of the union is serious business — which is not to say that the dedicated staff at  Central Jersey Blood Center doesn’t get to have a little fun at certain times of the year.

Following a Halloween interval in which they helped Phoenix Productions preview the bloody operetta Sweeney Todd and solicited donations from the thousands who marched and shambled in Asbury Park’s NJ Zombie Walk, the CJBC van returns to Red Bank today, November 11, for a Veterans Day blood drive hosted at the Pearl Street location of Arrow Limousine.

Scheduled for 9am to 2pm, the blood drive offers an additional incentive to registered donors: a chance to win a “Dare to Dream” prize package that includes a chauffered Thanksgiving family excursion for up to six people, with tickets to see Disney On Ice at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford.

Donors can register or obtain additional information at 732-747-4844 — and we’re serving up five more full courses of Done Good right around the corner.

SATURDAY: Spaghetti Dinner at K of C Red Bank. Even as not-for-profit organizations continue to brainstorm ever more star-studded, sophisticated and creative vehicles for fundraising, there’s no denying that the good old Spaghetti Dinner (and its early-to-rise cousin, the Pancake Breakfast) remains a favorite for a good reason, and any number of Done Good causes.

This Saturday evening, November 12, the Knights of Columbus Red Bank Council 3187 twirls the fork for their annual dinner event, with the public invited to enjoy sketties and meatballs in a community dining experience at the Council’s hall (which happens to be in Fair Haven). A $16 per person ticket — discounted to $11 for seniors and children under 12 — also includes salad, dessert, coffee, wine and soda, served up between the hours of 5 to 8pm. Proceeds support the K of C’s charitable efforts in the greater Red Bank community throughout the holiday season and beyond.

Friday, November 18: Silver Chef Throw-Down at McLoone’s. The event’s title suggests a crossfire of airborne paring knives, pots and pans straight out of Hell’s Kitchen. But while the competition is no less intense, this entirely civilized fundraising event will see a trio of contestants face off toward a mutual goal: the Education Foundation of Little Silver and its efforts “to purchase very specific pieces of technology for use at the two public schools.”

In the 7pm event hosted at McLoone’s Rum Runner in Sea Bright — owned, of course, by Little Silver’s Tim and Beth McLoone — LS teachers Tim Russoniello and John McGrade will enter the friendly field of compote combat against Joe Racioppi, executive chef at McLoone’s Pier House in Long Branch. It goes without saying that the borough’s kids will be the winners, with ticketholders enjoying the best of the participating chefs’ kitchen kung fu. Email for tickets and additional info.

Saturday, November 26: 12th Annual Turkey Bowl in Middletown. After Turkey Time and all the attendant trimmings, it becomes necessary to work off the excess stuffing —  and nothing fits the bill like Monmouth County’s largest touch football tournament, fielding its 12th annual edition for the benefit of Jason’s Dreams For Kids Foundation, the Red Bank-based nonprofit that grants wishes to terminally and chronically ill kids.

Presented by the athletic charity event foundation Play 2 Win and hosted this year on the playing field at Thompson Middle School in Middletown, the Turkey Bowl is “a seven-on-seven, two hand touch, bracketed football tournament that has become a local tradition and can’t-miss event” for scores of “armchair quarterbacks, weekend warriors, and those looking to revisit their glory days.” It’s also an institution that’s evolved from a neighborhood game into a fundraising vehicle that’s collected more than $250,000 for seriously ill children since 1999.

Approximately 20 teams of 10 to 16 adult players are scheduled to take part in the rain-or-shine tourney beginning at 9am, with each team donation of $1,000 getting team shirts, knit caps, and food and beverages courtesy of the American Culinary Federation (ACF) Jersey Shore Chef’s Association. To register a team or for sponsorship opportunities contact Jeanne Moir at 848-456-3055, or email info@play2winfoundation.org.  For more information about the Turkey Bowl, take it right here.

Sunday, November 27: 11th Annual Navesink Challenge. Not to be outdone by the armchair quarterbacks and weekend warriors,  the Jersey Shore Running Club (JSRC) — another organization that’s not afraid to get out into the brisk late-autumn air for a worthy cause —  teams up once more with the Middletown Youth Athletic Association (MYAA) to host the eleventh annual Navesink Challenge.

Billed as one of New Jersey’s premier running events, the Challenge traces a scenic path along the Navesink River, with the tree-ringed precincts of Middletown’s Bodman Park a lovely start/finish point for an event that includes a 15K run (start time 10am) and a 5K run/walk that commences immediately after. There are several awards for participants, as well as an official Navesink Challenge long sleeve technical shirt for each contestant — and all participants and guests are welcome at “the most fun post race party in New Jersey,” hosted at Navesink Hook & Ladder, Monmouth Avenue in Middletown. Register online here, or in person at Road Runner Sports in Shrewsbury on Saturday, November 26 between the hours of 1 and 4pm.

Wednesday, November 30: Friends of Different Learners at RFH. The Lower Library inside Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School will be the setting for a special discussion on the challenges of ADD/ADHD in adulthood, presented by the school’s Special Services Department in conjunction with the PTSA committee Friends of Different Learners. Presented free of charge and open to all area residents, the presentation “will work to dispel the myths surrounding ADD/ADHD, to help parents and families become aware of the challenges for their children who are or are becoming young adults with ADD/ADHD, and to discuss the strategies and supports available.”

Guest speaker for the 7pm event will be Eva O’Malley, Founder and Coordinator of Monmouth/ Ocean CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) and a Certified Parent to Parent Teacher whose workshop “will aim to help families address the changing needs their child experiences as they move beyond high school and into post-secondary learning environments and the workplace.” Contact PTSA Special Education Committee Chair Sarah Maris at 732-747-6922 for more information.

Zeet Peabody, executive chef at the new JBJ Soul Kitchen, which features crisp design inside and a vegetable and herb garden out front. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

The star power at Wednesday’s opening of the JBJ Soul Kitchen in Red Bank belonged, of course, to the restaurant’s main sponsor, Jon Bon Jovi.

But while the the telegenic pop star may continue to volunteer his time washing dishes at the Monmouth Street pay-what-you-can eatery, patrons will be on intimate terms with Zeet Peabody, the restaurant’s executive chef.

Along with his kitchen crew and wait staff, he’s the one who’ll be there most of the time. More importantly, he’s be the one who’ll decide what goes onto the plates, and how those dishes will elevate the eatery to destination status.

After all, this is “not a soup kitchen,” Bon Jovi said at the opening. With its knife-sharp appearance, it doesn’t look like one. And the people behind it don’t want it to function as a dole for the down-and-out. The goal, they emphasized, is to make it a restaurant for all, no matter what’s in the customer’s wallet.

So amid the hubbub of the opening, redbankgreen isolated Peabody – who’s been a personal chef and consultant since closing his Bistro Zeeto in Atlantic Highlands a decade ago – for a few minutes to get his input. Here’s our quickie interview.

redbankgreen: As the executive chef, are you hoping to do anything special here?

Peabody: Well, we’re making this healthy and delicious food, and we’re nourishing their stomachs and their souls at the same time.

redbankgreen: Is the garden out front going to be a significant factor in what you do?

Peabody: We’ll use as much of the garden as we can, absolutely.

redbankgreen: Are you focusing on local ingredients?

Peabody: We are focusing on local. We’re also working with Whole Foods to have a relationship with local purveyors they use – typically, New Jersey farmers.

redbankgreen: Will you be buying from the Red Bank Farmers Market on Sundays?

Peabody: We will.

redbankgreen: In terms of dishes, will you be doing anything you haven’t done before with your other ventures?

Peabody: Oh, sure. There’s a brand new interest in vegan cooking, so we want to make sure we offer that. We want to make sure we offer children’s menus, because we want to encourage people to come with their families. And we want to have nutritional options to that, as opposed to stuffed and fried mozzarella sticks and things like that. Your kid will get a real piece of roasted chicken.

redbankgreen: Is there an educational component to what you’ll be doing?

Peabody: Oh, absolutely. Even the way the menu is set up. It’s set up as a prix-fixe, so right from the get-go, it’s portion control, and so we want to know that you get a healthy soup or a salad, and you have a choice of your main, you get a dessert that is not an over-the-top gloppy thing. So you have three courses, you’re nourished, you don’t feel stuffed. So completely underlining from the beginning, it’s about portion control as a way to deal with health issues that come afterward.

The celebration, which called out the work of volunteers at the Lunch Break soup kitchen, featured song and dance as two preachers stressed the importance of giving to others as a means of strengthening a community. (Photo by Elyssa Clement. Click to enlarge)

Plans for an official opening of the eatery have not yet been finalized, a Soul Foundation spokeswoman tells redbankgreen. (Click to enlarge)

Foam-mattress maven Michael Fux (pronounced ‘fyooks’) pulled off his hurricane-delayed exotic car show in downtown Red Bank Saturday afternoon, showcasing 52 cars from his collection of 114 top-end Rolls Royces, Lamborghinis and Ferraris in a bid to raise money for two of his favorite charities.

Owners of another 25 or so exotics supplemented the event, which also featured actor Tony Sirico (‘Paulie Walnuts’ of ‘Sopranos’ fame) posing for photos with anyone who asked. The borough government closed off the north end of Broad Street for six hours for the event.

redbankgreen was there, and grabbed these 25 shots.

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.

A taste of vrooms to come, as seen outside Blue Water Seafood Company last Friday night. (Click to enlarge)

Foam-mattress maven Michael Fux, right, has been making the rounds in downtown Red Bank in recent days.

A car collector with tastes so lavish that Rolls Royce named a paint for him, Fux (pronounced ‘fyooks’) has been visiting merchants to drum up support for a charity event he’s bankrolling this Saturday afternoon: an exotic car show and entertainment extravaganza that will close a portion of Broad Street for five hours. [UPDATE: Event rescheduled for Saturday, September 10, because of Tropical Storm Irene]

But he’s also been trying to quash what he says is a mistaken impression: that the event is a grand opening event for two-month-old Blue Water Seafood Company, in which he’s an investor, and outside which some of his favorite toys are often lined up on Friday and Saturday nights.

Fux’s collection includes dozens of exotic and racing machines. (Click to enlarge)

The notion was bolstered by an item on the Red Bank Council’s July 27 agenda, which said the street shutdown request was from Blue Water “to celebrate their grand opening.”

“I don’t think we need a grand opening,” he tells redbankgreen. “We’re filling the place just fine.”

No, the idea behind the nameless event is to drum up money for two kidcentric organizations: Operation Smile, which provides surgeries all over the world to correct cleft lips and other facial deformities; and the Children’s Cancer Caring Center, which offers chemo treatment and more to children of families without health insurance. Fux contributes to each through a philanthropic foundation in his name.

Fux said he was asking store owners to run special promotions through which they might help him raise funds for the charities. But “I’m picking up the tab” on the cost of the event itself, says Fux, who grew up “very, very poor” in the Weequahic section of the Newark but hit the jackpot when he turned something called Memory Foam into a runaway consumer bedding product.

“I’m a regular guy who got lucky, that’s all,” he says. “I’m a merchant, a marketer.”

Getting lucky has enabled the the Atlantic Highlands resident to indulge in a passion for high-end autos, of which he owns dozens, including a brand new “drophead” Rolls-Royce” in rich purple. He’s also got one in taxicab yellow, and another in candy-apple red that that the car manufacture named in his honor.

A number of Fux vehicles, including Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Aston-Martins and more, will be showcased. The event will also feature appearances by some big names in the sports, music and television worlds, live auctions, food and music by Son Go Son, Fux said.

The event runs from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, August 27 on upper Broad Street, which will be closed to traffic from West Front Street to Monmouth Street.

Because of its similarity, Hamilton Jewelers has canceled what would have been its fourth annual Ferrari rally, scheduled for October 9, a Red Bank RiverCenter official tells redbankgreen.

xx