Mitzvah day participants adorned blankets for special recipients from infants to the elderly thorugh Jewish and Family Services. James Sabo of Matawan, below, was one of many volunteers who donated blood.
Press release from the Monmouth Reform Temple
Premature babies born at Riverview Medical Center will have cozy homemade knit caps to wear, thanks to a set of volunteers who knitted them during the annual Mitzvah Day held at Monmouth Reform Temple (MRT), Tinton Falls, on Sunday October 29.
Mitzvah Day is a day to “make a difference” in the community, says Rabbi Marc Kline. “The work of Mitzvah Day is not a one and done set of projects. Our congregation is committed to many projects of Tikkun Olam (healing the world) throughout the year.
From press materials by Family Promise of Monmouth County
While Monmouth County is considered one of the more affluent counties of the Garden State, the issue of family homelessness remains a very real problem here and throughout the area. Beginning on the evening of Friday, October 15, a local place of worship will serve as host location for an interactive “friend and fund raiser” event designed to raise awareness of this often little-discussed cause — by giving participants the opportunity to experience spending the night living inside a cardboard box.
Sponsored by the nonprofit Family Promise of Monmouth County, the area’s only emergency shelter for families — and presented “rain or shine” on the grounds of Monmouth Church of Christ (312 Hance Avenue in Tinton Falls) — the eighth annual fundraiser begins at 5 p.m., and offers participants an opportunity to raise a minimum of $100 in pledges and contributions, by sleeping overnight as a resident of “Cardboard Box City.”
The setting was the Collins Arena on the Lincroft campus of Brookdale Community College, as The Ranney School Class of 2017 celebrated its commencement on May 25.
The Tinton Falls-based school graduated 82 seniors, of which 31 were known as “Ranney Lifers,” or students who had attended the school for 10 or more years. Next fall, the entire group will head off to attend some of the most prestigious colleges and universities across the country, including Columbia, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, and Notre Dame, where they will pursue their individual passions and interests in fields ranging from the visual arts and theatrical production to finance, law, and medicine to robotics and information technology.
We bear witness to the vandalism of Jewish Cemeteries and the bomb and terroristic threats on Jewish institutions. We bear witness to the burning of mosques and the harassment of Muslims in America.
We bear witness to the violence inflicted upon our minority populations. We bear witness to the community-destroying finger pointing that accuses innocent and guilty alike, for the pain felt because of the growing and unanswered violence that plagues our nation.
Torah mandates that we respond and bring people together in prayer and support of our common dream for peace and equality. And on Monday night, March 13, Monmouth Reform Temple invites the community to come together to pray and share grace and support as people of faith from a spectrum of religious traditions.
Left to right: Ranney School junior Mike Longo, senior Charlie Fabricant, sophomore Luke Denver-Moore, and senior Caroline Epstein hold their certificates and gavels from the recent Harvard Model Congress competition.
Press release from Ranney School
Students from Red Bank and Rumson were among four Ranney School upper schoolers who brought home recognitions — including two Best Delegate honors — at the annual Harvard Model Congress event, held February 23 and 24 in Boston, MA.
Luke Denver-Moore of Red Bank, Ranney Class of 2019, was recognized by his committee chair as the Best Delegate for his ability to guide his committee as they successfully passed a number of bills, including the Autonomous vehicular Ingenuity and Development Act, which he co-authored and pushed through both the House and Senate during the two-day event that provides select students with a working model of the federal legislation process.
Natalie (Cocchi) Gorman, a soccer standout and graduate of Red Bank Catholic High School, has been named by Ranney School as its new Athletic Director, effective July 1.
A native of Ocean Township and currently an assistant coach at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, Mrs. Gorman was a Shore Conference star during her own high school years at RBC. She went on to play soccer at West Virginia University (WVU), where as team captain she earned a NSCAA national ranking of #7, a Mid-Atlantic Region ranking of #1, led her team to a spot in the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight, and won the BIG EAST Conference Championship in 2006 and 2007—all while being named BIG EAST Player of the Week six times.
On February 1, Ranney School held a dedication ceremony for its new Mann Student Center, a 1,700-square foot renovated space (previously used as a Distance Learning Center) that features mobile work pods, cluster seating for group discussions, a large retractable projection screen for presentations and lectures, and a small café.
The open floor plan is modeled after today’s dynamic workplace designs, and provides students in grades 6-12 with a space to collaborate, socialize, and study. The center will also showcase student, alumni, and guest art exhibitions throughout the year, beginning with Ranney’s Global Citizens installations on global education, and the works of the school’s 2017 Scholastic Art Award winners.
Special guest speakers, music, prayer services, a walk and a talk with local law enforcement professionals are all on the agenda, during an extended Social Awareness Weekend keyed to Martin Luther King Day, and hosted by Pilgrim Baptist Church and Monmouth Reform Temple.
[See UPDATE below]
While the calendar of federal holidays marks just one official day to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — this coming Monday, January 16 — Red Bank’s Pilgrim Baptist Church believes that King’s work is too important, and still very relevant to our time, to be encapsulated within one 24 hour period. That’s why, beginning on Friday evening and following through the next three days, the Shrewsbury Avenue congregation sponsors a “Social Awareness Weekend” that carries forward a special collaboration with another long-established house of worship: Monmouth Reform Temple of Tinton Falls.
It’s a relationship that’s formed the foundation of a local tradition in recent years; one that continues for a third annual edition on January 13 with a Friday evening Shabbat service at MRT — a 7 p.m. all-welcome observance that features special guest speaker Diem Jones, executive director of Voices of Our Nations (VONA) Arts Foundation.
Students from Christian Brothers Academy (Lincroft) and Trinity Hall (Tinton Falls) teamed up to prepare and serve dinner to more than 240 attendees last Tuesday, raising over $7,500 in the process.
Press release from Christian Brothers Academy
On December 6, the Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) chapters of Christian Brothers Academy and Tinton Falls-based Trinity Hall teamed up once again for their 10th annual “Dinner for the Troops.”
Convening in the CBA cafeteria, students handled all the preparations and cooking for 240 guests, while raising over $7,500 in the process. All funds raised will go towards supporting servicemen and servicewomen stationed overseas. The evening also featured guest speaker Sgt. Melissa Leist, a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, who shared her thoughts on military service.
The video for “Fighter,” a new song by singer-songwriter Taylor Tote of Tinton Falls, features young cancer survivors, including six-year-old Natalie Grace Gorsegner of Middletown, who with her nine-year-old sister, Hannah, helped Tote write the song.
Recorded primarily at the Middletown Fire Department Company’s Station 8 on Route 35, the video pays tribute to kids who have survived or are battling cancer, 20 of whom appear in it.
All proceeds from sales of the song, available on iTunes, will benefit pediatric cancer research.
Beginning this Wednesday, November 2, Monmouth Reform Temple will be offering an 8 week “Introduction to Judaism” course at the temple, located at 332 Hance Avenue in Tinton Falls.
Conducted by Rabbi Marc Kline of MRT (pictured), the course continues weekly (with no class scheduled on November 23) through December 21. Classes will run from 7 to 8:30 p.m. and will be offered free of charge to all members of the community.
The Holiday Express band performs at one of its annual Town Lighting public concerts in downtown Red Bank.The humanitarian organization behind the big traveling band is putting out the call for volunteer “warehouse elves” at their Tinton Falls facility.
Every year for the past several decades, Holiday Express founder and co-frontman Tim McLoone leads his big traveling band in a special keynote to the most festive of seasons, as the assembled musicians and singers preside over Red Bank’s annual Town Lighting ceremony with a free open-air, public-welcome concert.
The “Black Friday” tradition is merely one of the more visible manifestations of the musical humanitarian organization that performs dozens of concerts at places that exist well below most people’s radar — the nursing homes, rehab centers, homeless shelters, psychiatric facilities and other locales whose audiences are made up of what McLoone calls the “adult orphans” among us.
While the veteran musician, businessman and entrepreneur observes that the Holiday Express orchestra is the aspect of the organization that “makes the most noise,” he’s quick to point out that the energizing engine is backed up by a formidable freight-train of volunteer support personnel, drivers, techies, and donation/gift processing workers at the nonprofit’s Tinton Falls warehouse facility (938 Shrewsbury Avenue in Tinton Falls). And, effective immediately, the Express is putting out a call for just such a crew of “warehouse elves” — a call that includes, for the first time, an online sign-up.
From press materials by Family Promise of Monmouth County
While Monmouth County is considered one of the more affluent counties of the Garden State, the issue of family homelessness remains a very real problem here and throughout the area. Beginning on the evening of Friday, October 14, a local place of worship will serve as host location for an interactive “friend and fund raiser” event designed to raise awareness of this often little-discussed cause — by giving participants the opportunity to experience spending the night living inside a cardboard box.
Sponsored by the nonprofit Family Promise of Monmouth County — and presented “rain or shine” on the grounds of Monmouth Church of Christ (312 Hance Avenue in Tinton Falls) — the fundraiser begins at 5 p.m., and offers participants an opportunity to raise a minimum of $100 in pledges and contributions, by sleeping overnight as a resident of “Cardboard Box City.”
This weekend, rising-star singer and songwriter Taylor Tote of Tinton Falls will be performing at an unusual venue: the “Headdens Corner” headquarters of Middletown Fire Department Company 1/ Station 8 on Route 35. It’s there that she’ll be shooting a video for her new song “Fighter,” an anthem dedicated to cancer survivors of all ages — and created with 9 year old Hannah Gorsegner, whose 6 year old sister Natalie Grace (pictured below left with Taylor and Hannah) is herself a survivor. Backing Taylor for the occasion will be a chorus of 20 kids (all of whom have waged their own battles with cancer) and an all-star assembly of local firefighters. Take it here for more background on the song and video, slated for release in September (with all profits dedicated to childhood cancer research) — and here for details on a Natalie Grace’s Wish Event fundraiser, scheduled for October 6 at Tim McLoone’s Pier House in Long Branch.
In the words of Rabbi Marc Kline of Monmouth Reform Temple, Rabbi Uri Regev commands respect from Jews (and non-Jews) from all walks of the spectrum.
“As one of the founding strong voices of the Israeli Religious Action Center, now past President of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, and now as founder and executive director of Hiddush (a multi-cultural activist think tank), Uri’s name has become synonymous with progressive egalitarian change,” Rabbi Kline explains.
On Saturday, May 7, the internationally renowned Rabbi Regev will give a series of free talks at MRT, 332 Hance Avenue in Tinton Falls. The public is invited to the special event, scheduled from 3 to 8 p.m., and a buffet dinner will be served.
In an announcement earlier this week, Monmouth Reform Temple announced that social activist and motivational speaker Keshia Thomas will be the special guest speaker at the Shabbat evening service on Friday, March 11. During the service that begins at 7 p.m., Ms. Thomas will speak on the topic of “The Power of One.”
Keshia Thomas gained national prominence as a teenager in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 1996, in an incident pictured here, she threw herself on a white man to protect him from the beatings of an angry mob who believed he was a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. A high school student at the time, she chose to become a human shield for a man she did not know. That moment propelled her on a path of social justice that reverberates through her to this day. Last summer, she participated in America’s March for Justice, walking the entire 1000 mile path from Selma, AL, to Washington, DC.
In an announcement earlier this week, The Arc of Monmouth named Linda Mayo, MSW, MS as its new executive director, following the recent retirement of Mary E. Scott. Mayo was selected by a search committee consisting of five board members and one served individual of The Arc of Monmouth, the borough-based nonprofit support organization for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“Linda brings over two decades of leadership and experience in non-profits to The Arc, with all the necessary skills and vision to build on the fine legacy of Mary Scott and move the organization forward,” said Board President Joyce Quarles.
A free screening of a documentary on Rabbi Joachim Prinz (left, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) is among the events scheduled during a weekend-long MLK Day observance, presented jointly by Monmouth Reform Temple (Tinton Falls) and Pilgrim Baptist Church (Red Bank).
Press release from Monmouth Reform Temple
Continuing a recently established tradition, Monmouth Reform Temple of Tinton Falls and Pilgrim Baptist Church of Red Bank join forces for a weekend-long slate of activities honoring the memory and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The observance begins on Friday night, January 15 with MRT Shabbat services at 7 pm, featuring special guest Dr. Everett McCorvey, chair of the Opera Department at the University of Kentucky and Director of the National Chorale. Dr. McCorvey grew up in segregated Montgomery, AL alongside Dr. King’s children, and has risen to national prominence as a soloist, conductor, and educator.
The weekend will culminate with a noon MLK service at Pilgrim Baptist Church led by Pastor Terrence Porter on Monday, January 17 at noon. Rabbi Mark Kline and Cantor Gabrielle Clissold of MRT will participate in the service, along with a joint performance by the PBC and MRT choirs. All events are free and open to the public.
Besides sharing his name with the always civic-minded Captain America, videographer Steve Rogers maintains a not-so secret identity as the creator, producer, host and high-mileage guy behind the wheel of Driving Jersey, the hyperlocal public television series that rolls into its fifth season on New Jersey Public Television this fall.
Like Vic Rallo’s Eat! Drink! Italy and other independently produced regional PBS programming, Driving Jersey depends entirely on the support of regional sponsors, with a much greater emphasis on contributions from “viewers like you” than what commonly funds nationally broadcast fare like Masterpiece and Nova. And, at the start of a season that promises a portrait of “an extraordinary public music teacher from Tinton and the amazing results she gets from her students using a ‘unique’ teaching style that emphasizes courage, love and inspiration,” captain Rogers is giving a curbside call-out to area residents who appreciate the opportunity to see themselves and their neighbors in a setting that reclaims the concept of “reality TV” in a way that’s refreshingly devoid of scripting, manipulative editing and the studio-bound same-old.
From press materials by Family Promise of Monmouth County
While Monmouth County is considered one of the more affluent counties of the Garden State, the issue of family homelessness remains a very real problem here and throughout the area. Beginning on the evening of Friday, September 25, a local place of worship will serve as host location for an interactive fundraising event designed to raise awareness of this often little-discussed cause — by giving participants the opportunity to experience spending the night living inside a cardboard box.
Sponsored by the nonprofit Family Promise of Monmouth County — and presented “rain or shine” on the grounds of Monmouth Church of Christ (312 Hance Avenue in Tinton Falls) — the fundraiser begins at 5 pm, and offers participants an opportunity to raise a minimum of $100 in pledges and contributions, by sleeping overnight as a resident of “Cardboard Box City.”
Rabbi Marc Kline of Monmouth Reform Temple (at left, with torah) recently joined 150 Reform Rabbis and the national NAACP in a 40 day, 860 mile march from Selma, AL to Washington, DC. Tracing the route of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1965 march on its 50th anniversary, “America’s Journey For Justice” was designed to “take a stand against the bigotry that proliferates” and “the segregation that…currently rears its ugly head unabashed in our country.” Rabbi Kline, who led the 2000 march that resulted in the Confederate flag’s removal from the South Carolina Statehouse dome, will lead a special “visual Shabbat” service at MRT on the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.
Press release from Monmouth Reform Temple
In remembrance of the events of September 11, 2001, invites all members of the community to a special visual Shabbat service on the fourteenth anniversary of that day — an opportunity to “come to reflect, come to remember, come for feeling and wholeness.”
Scheduled for 7 pm inside the Temple at 332 Hance Avenue, the contemplative service (which “may not be appropriate for children under 13”) is part of MRT’s “Seeds of Spirituality: A Visual Approach to Prayer” series; a ritual offering that “allows the worshipper to experience beautiful visual imagery directly connected to Shabbat prayers, enhanced by evocative musical settings of our prayer text,” in the words of Cantor Gabrielle Clissold.
Zach Gilstein, Holmdel, was recently installed as the new President of Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls. He is pictured (center) with former MRT President Jay Wiesenfeld, Lincroft, (left) and MRT Rabbi Marc Kline (right).
Groundskeeper (left) and Animaudio (right) are just two of the local bands participating in the first joint Spring Connection Band Night partnership between three area churches Friday night.
Press release from Park Church
Three area places of worship — First Baptist Church of Red Bank, Park Church and Tower Hill Church — are bringing their middle and high school youth groups together for the first ever Spring Connection Band Night on Friday, May 29. The concert and the after-party are at Park Church, 31 Park Road in Tinton Falls.
Scheduled to begin at 7 pm, the event is free with a donation of a non-perishable food item to help the Red Bank based nonprofit Lunch Break. All middle school and high school age students of Monmouth County are invited to attend the concert, which features such local bands as Groundskeeper, Animaudio, Dogwood Laine, Good Vivations and more.
Tikkun Olam,the Jewish tenet of “Repairing the World,” will be on full display in May during two major social action events planned by the Monmouth Reform Temple (MRT) in May. On Monday, May 11, MRT members will join congregants at Saint Anthony of Padua Church (121 Bridge Avenue in Red Bank), to launch the Shine A Light program to install bicycle lights for members of the Red Bank community.
The program was the brainchild of MRT member Dean Ross, who seeks to improve the safety on the roads for the nighttime bicycling community. The Red Bank businessman explains, “We have had a few accidents, and some near misses in Red Bank with residents on bicycles at night who do not wear reflective clothing or have any kind of light and motorists don’t see them until they are just upon them.”
He adds, “This is what Judaism is about, getting other people involved to help others.”
The Monmouth County Park System is looking for volunteers to become docents at the Fort Monmouth Recreation Center, Tinton Falls. Are you 21 years of age or older and enjoy interacting with people? You may have what it takes to step into this exciting volunteer position. Volunteer docents welcome visitors and answer questions about the facility.
Those interested in becoming a docent are invited to attend an orientation sessions from 9-10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, January 13 at the Recreation Center. Once trained, docents will be asked to volunteer during the week from 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
Mitzvah day participants adorned blankets for special recipients from infants to the elderly thorugh Jewish and Family Services. James Sabo of Matawan, below, was one of many volunteers who donated blood.
Premature babies born at Riverview Medical Center will have cozy homemade knit caps to wear, thanks to a set of volunteers who knitted them during the annual Mitzvah Day held at Monmouth Reform Temple (MRT), Tinton Falls, on Sunday October 29.
