The crowd outside Lunch Break for the grand opening celebration. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Gwendolyn Love, whose very last name tells the story of the place before which she was standing, could barely keep her voice from cracking.
At a grand opening celebration for the expanded and rebuilt Lunch Break, Love, the Red Bank nonprofit’s executive director, addressed the volunteers, staff and hundreds of clients it serves every day.
“We see you, you matter and you deserve a functional space,’ she said before the crowd of more than 100 people gathered in front of the building Thursday afternoon.
Now, after a two year, $12 million renovation and rebuild, they have it.
Cynthia Todd Takeyama (left) and Coralie Todd, daughters of the late Lunch Break Founder Norma Todd. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
Besides the space to help more people and bring all its myriad services under one roof, the new digs contain nods aplenty to the legacy, spirit and sense of community behind its founding and growth.
Among them, the ceremonial renaming Thursday of the corner on which it stands as “Norma Todd Way” way after its late founder.
Todd’s daughters, Cynthia Todd Takeyama and Coralie Todd, had arrived earlier in the day to see the new facility for the first time, including the new mural on the exterior that includes their mother’s likeness.
“I’m in total awe,’’ Coralie Todd said. 
Still, more than one person who knew Norma Todd remarked that she would likely have had little patience for all the fanfare. If she were there, they noted, she would probably just be telling everyone to get back to work.
“I know my mother is smiling down,” Coralie Todd said. “But I also know she’s saying “you named a street after me? The street was okay before that.”
Started as a soup kitchen in 1983, Lunch Break has grown into a full service social service agency, providing food, clothes, life services training, English classes and many other forms of assistance to those in need.
Among the messages in a video montage featuring clients and volunteers was one from comedian Jon Stewart, whose wife Tracey Stewart serves on the Lunch Break Board of Trustees.
He summed it all up:
“(Lunch Break) is a place of community where all the needs of the community can be met in this one area and be met with such warmth and humanity and such dignity. It really is an incredible place and finally it has a building large enough to contain its heart.”
Scroll down for more photos of the event.
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