By John Burton
RED BANK – It’s really beginning to look like the holidays. If you have any doubt, check out the tree in Riverside Gardens Park.
Workers on Sunday cut down this year’s holiday tree, as Red Bank RiverCenter calls it, from the property of the family donating it and installed it in the West Front Street borough park. Strings of lights have been added in preparation for Friday’s tree lighting, Santa’s arrival in town and Holiday Express concert, now in its 22nd year.
Brandon Clay and his family made this year’s donation, offering RiverCenter the approximately 30-foot blue spruce tree from their Holmdel home’s front yard.
“It is gorgeous,” said James Scavone, executive director of RiverCenter, the management and advocacy organization for the borough’s business special improvement district that is responsible for the annual holiday concert and street decoration in the district.
Clay said the family planned to remove the tree to make way for an addition to their home. “I started making calls everywhere,” hoping some group would be interested in taking the beautiful tree for the holidays. “I was so happy,” when RiverCenter agreed to accept it, he said.
Clay said he and his wife Julie and 15-month-old son, Zander, were amazed as a crew of about 15 used electric saws and a crane to cut the tree down and place it on a flatbed for transport to Red Bank. “It was really pretty cool,” Clay said, especially for his toddler son. “You should have seen his little face.
“It’s like a perfect Christmas tree shape” with full, symmetrical branches. “It is kind of special. I can’t wait for so many people to enjoy it,” he said.
The added joy for Clay is that it’ll be so close to home in Red Bank, a place he said he spent a considerable amount of time in while growing up.
Over the course of more than two decades, most years RiverCenter relied on area homeowners to donate the tree.
“It has to meet a very particular criteria,” including being a certain height and having accessibility for those removing it, Scavone said.
RiverCenter covers the cost of cutting the tree down, transporting it as well as the electricity for its decorative lights, totaling in excess of $1,000, Scavone said.
For many of the years the organization obtained sponsorship for the tree cost with Investors Savings sponsoring this year’s edition.
RiverCenter gets about six or seven calls a year from people wanting to donate a tree. But, if there isn’t an acceptable one offered, it has to purchase one, which has been the case during the last three years. That adds to the cost of the entire holiday event, according to Scavone.
Having an attractive tree is important for the holidays and the community, Scavone said.
“We work very hard to make sure the town looks great for the holidays and I think it is a draw to bring people into town.”
Clay hopes so.
“Me and my family are so excited to have other people share in the enjoyment of it,” he said.
