Its lineup of shows canceled under the near-lockdown we’re living with to slow the spread of COVID-19, the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank has repurposed its marquee.
The marquee now displays messages of “optimism from our local heroes,” the Basie said in a press release. They include quotes from part-time borough resident Jon Stewart and other New Jersey stars.
More below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
No walk-ins will be allowed at the blood drive. Below, an American Red Cross letter addresses safety concerns. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
A blood drive employing “extreme precautions” is scheduled for Thursday in Red Bank to help address a shortage worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
A ‘drop & go” food drive will be held at the same time.
A program of free breakfasts and lunches for Red Bank students got underway Monday, along with school closures and other efforts to limit transmission of the COVID-19 virus.
The paper products shelves at Red bank’s Foodtown were nearly bare Thursday evening. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge.)
Here’s a quick look at some impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on local programming on the Greater Red Bank Green.
This list is far from comprehensive and does not include school schedule changes previously reported by redbankgreen.
Lunch Break children’s cooking class students Emily and Jack Pearsall with, from left, Oceanic Free Library Board President Carolyn Miller; Cups & Cakes owner Denise Kelleher; and Cups & Cakes pastry chef Maggie Condon.
It wasn’t just the luck o’ the Irish that helped the Lunch Break children’s cooking class take first place in the Oceanic Free Library’s Irish soda bread-making competition.
Olivia Diana of Marlboro High School, above, and Jack Geary of Ocean Township High were among those taking advantage of a promwear givewaway Monday at the Woman’s Club of Red Bank.
A long-vacant former real estate office in Shrewsbury is getting a sprucing up. What’s Going On Here? Read on…
A long-vacant house next door to Lunch Break in Red Bank was razed in recent days.
The front yard of the former Red Bank home of the late Norma Todd, who co-founded the soup kitchen Lunch Break, now sports a “little free library” in her honor.
Inspired by an interfaith breakfast held at Brookdale College in the spring, members of Red Bank’s Lunch Break community plan to host a “Hope for Humanity” candlelight vigil Thursday, September 21.
The annual Canterbury Art Show unfurls its Labor Day weekend “Tapestry of the Arts” festival beginning with a reception and preview sale Friday.
It’s an event that regularly draws the participation of nearly 100 area artists, and a display that boasts an inventory of more than 600 creative works in a myriad of media.
Going up in Rumson this weekend for its sixth annual edition — the fourth since making a well-received move to the Labor Day holiday interlude — the festival known as the Canterbury Art Show…a Tapestry of the Arts is also a forum in which several of the artists put themselves on live-action display, and in which the grandest work of art just might be the host venue itself.
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Darlene Love, above, and not-so-secret Santa Brian Kirk, below, return to the Count Basie stage for their respective holiday shows this Friday and Saturday.
A holiday tradition bit the fake-snow dust in 2014, when a retiring David Letterman hosted musical guest Darlene Love in her umpteenth and final annual performance of the soaring “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).”
But Red Bank audiences can vouch that Ms. Love and her Christmas-pop signature are alive and well. And when the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer returns to the Count Basie Theatre stage this Friday, she’ll bring along some special friends with a Jersey Shore connection — while kicking off a weekend that boasts another special sleighride from a locally homegrown Santa: Brian Kirk.
Friendly competitors from Little Silver and Shrewsbury took part in the 15th annual White Road Cup game last Friday, with the flag football contest raising $10,000 for the borough-based nonprofit Lunch Break.
Press release from Culinary Communications
The recent Black Friday marked the 15th Anniversary of the White Road Cup, the annual flag-football fundraiser that pits players from Little Silver against their neighbors from Shrewsbury Borough.
First played in 2002, the event has grown to become a festive, well-attended community tradition, featuring contests for children, men, and women. These hard-fought games are exciting for all (and of course, bragging rights are important), but the true winner is Lunch Break. This year over $10,000 was raised for the organization, which helps to put food on the table for thousands of families in need (the charity flag football event raised $10,000 in 2015 as well).
It began as a friendly flag-football rivalry between communities based at either end of White Road’s east-west artery — a “symbol of bestowed superiority” in which “one town’s dream is realized while the other’s is pushed to a shattering state of sorrow.”
This Friday, November 25, “The White Road Cup” marks its milestone 15th anniversary with a series of games for children, women and men, hosted on the turf at Red Bank’s Count Basie Field.
Kicking off at 9 a.m. and continuing into the early afternoon, the match-ups between “The Shrewsbury Tigers” and “The Little Silver Warriors” will be generating the expected volume of “playful trash-talking” and passionate partisanship among spectators on the sidelines — as well as a substantial fundraising effort for a worthy community-based cause: the educational/vocational programs and charitable endeavors of Red Bank’s own Lunch Break.
Once a year, the Curchin Group in Lincroft, a CPA practice, moves its desks and files aside and transforms its Half Mile Road office into a miniature golf course, where it hosts a fundraiser called the Curchin Open.
This year’s edition, held last Wednesday, generated $18,000 for two charities: Mary’s Place by the Sea and the Monmouth County SPCA, which brought two rescues (including a pup named Coco, right) to the event.
redbankgreen was there to document the fun, which included a packed clubhouse bar, a buffet and games. Be sure to click the “read more” for additional photos. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
“The Women” by Ellen Gavin (above) and “Pear Box” by Mary Beth Ober (below) are among the works represented at the annual Canterbury Art Show, the three-day “Tapestry of the Arts” that returns to St. George’s Church this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
It’s a local tradition of relatively recent minting, despite the historic setting and a name that evokes the lore and legend of centuries. But when the Canterbury Art Show…a Tapestry of the Arts event returns to St. George’s by the River Episcopal Church in Rumson for a fifth annual edition (the third since making a well-received move to Labor Day weekend), it will take its place as one of most eagerly anticipated harbingers of “local” summer on the Greater Red Bank Green.
Children of five families from the River Plaza section of Middletown have been using their summer vacation to grow, and collect from neighbors, produce that they donate weekly to Red Bank’s Lunch Break.
Dubbing their effort “Fresh Start,” the members of the Brett, Carson, Passo, Pipercic and Grissom families have delivered more than 270 pounds of fresh produce to the 33-year-old free kitchen. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
The bagpipes will blow and the leprechauns will leap when the fourth annual Rumson St. Patrick’s Day Parade commences this Sunday afternoon.
It seems like one of those traditions that’s been a part of community life for generations, but the Rumson St. Patricks Day Parade is but a wee chiseler of just four years of age.
Still, the minty-fresh event has very quickly taken a place of prominence here on the Greater Red Bank Green as a signifier of a year-round local love affair with Celtic culture, even as those Shamrock Shakes may come and go. Read More
It’s more than just music when Holiday Express pulls into Lunch Break, one of 81 stops the organization will make this holiday season. The Grinch, below, is always along for the ride. (Photos by Kate Beckett, above, and Susan Ericson, below. Click to enlarge)
With the Turning Point restaurant providing food for 400, volunteers from Holiday Express plan to make a special stop in Red Bank Saturday.
The non-profit purveyor of music, food, gifts, financial support, and human kindness during the holiday season has scheduled a full-band visit to Lunch Break from 10 a.m. to noon.
The annual Canterbury Art Show returns to St. George’s Church this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Works by painter Lee Jamieson, including one below, are included. (Above photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge.)
Returning to St. George’s by the River Episcopal Church in Rumson for the fourth consecutive year — and making its sophomore stand on Labor Day weekend — the annual Canterbury Art Show… a Tapestry of the Arts event commandeers the historic landmark house of worship for a three day event that’s become something of a best-kept secret among locals, and a harbinger of the season beyond the beach-traffic throngs.
The Docs of Rock — a band of moonlighting medical professionals and educators, led by Dr. Lawrence Sykoff, Ed.D. (fifth from left) — take it back to the Downtown on Sunday for a fundraiser for Lunch Break.
They’re called the Docs of Rock — a classic-rock combo of medics and academics, one that collectively boasts more legit degrees than Bruce or BonJo can claim honorary doctorates. And when the pager sounds for a good and worthy cause, the members of this sheepskin’d showband lose the white smocks and suit up for action — as will happen this Sunday when they return to the Downtown in Red Bank for a fundraiser for borough-based Lunch Break.
Layonne Holmes (right) and the Motor City Revue roar into Sandy Hook as the up-next act in the summer beach concert series. Weather permitting, Tuesday night marks the twice-scheduled debut of Red Bank’s Dog Days of Summer.
[UPDATE, July 20, 2 p.m. Once again, the Dog Days event is being postponed, this time because of high temperatures, RiverCenter announced. The event is tentatively scheduled to be held Wednesday, July 22, at 6 p.m.]
Gripe all you will about summer traffic, summer crowds, summer expenses: the season for warm-weather diversion can seem especially fleeting when viewed through the frosted panes of our extended polar-vortex winters. And between Tuesday evening and Thursday afternoon, we’ve got a whole range of excuses for getting out of the house, beginning with the latest in the 2015 series of Red Bank Dog Days of Summer .
Top interior designers and favorite local restaurants join forces for The Giving Tables, an exhibit of themed table settings on display at Town & Country Kitchen and Bath, with proceeds going to benefit the borough-based charity Lunch Break.
Press release from Town & Country Kitchen and Bath
On the evening of Thursday, June 4, Red Bank’s Town & Country Kitchen and Bath Showroom will host an opening reception for The Giving Tables, a fundraiser event featuring the work of participating designers and catered by local eateries. Remaining on display through June 12, The Giving Tables spotlights 12 table settings, each incorporating a seasonal theme and crafted by area designers.
The third annual Rumson St. Patrick’s Day Parade commences this Sunday afternoon, March 8, capping a season of celebrations that extend into the week to come.
Those minty Shamrock Shakes may come and go, but Celtic culture on the greater Red Bank Green is a year-round affair that traces a path through Irish Tenor concerts and Riverdances; Green Christmases and the appearance of Guinness Oysterfest in September.
That said, the recently minted flagship fleadh of the calendar year has got to be the Rumson St. Patricks Day Parade, the third annual edition of which commences this Sunday.
Clockwise from top left: Jinglebell fundraiser concerts featuring Tim McLoone’s Holiday Express (December 18), Brian Kirk and the Jirks (December 20), Darlene Love (December 21) and Bobby Bandiera (December 22) provide the driving soundtrack to the holiday homestretch in the nights ahead.
The countdown to Christmas 2015 represents anything but a wind-down at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre, where a fast-moving flurry of high-profile benefit concerts promises to keep the place buzzing like Santa’s workshop-slash-fulfillment center during the holiday homestretch.
From the most big-hearted of local music mainstays, to the vintage hitmakers whose records landed on many a Boomer-era wish list — and on into the next generation of Shore scene stalwarts — the Basie boards will resound with a Wall of seasonal Sound, every note of it dedicated to a great cause and an all-’round generosity of spirit.