Legislators Offer Thanks to Volunteers, Voters
To the Editor:
The entire 11th Legislative District team would like to thank all of our volunteers and supporters for their time and their votes on Election Day. Without the efforts of people like yourself, a big win like the night of Tuesday, Nov. 5, would not have been possible.
We will continue to work hard every day to be your voice in Trenton and stand strong in our fight to make New Jersey more affordable. With the reelection of our Governor Chris Christie, we remain as committed as ever to deliver on the much-needed reforms that our State needs.
From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for your support.
Senator Jennifer Beck
Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini
Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande
Kortney Rose Foundation Continuing to Fight Pediatric Cancer
To the Editor:
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all personally and wish you a wonderful holiday season. We receive many donations throughout the year and try to thank each and every one of you. Please consider this note as my personal thank you for your donation and for channeling the spirit and energy of our daughter, Kortney Rose, who died of childhood brain cancer in 2006, just five months after she celebrated her ninth birthday.
Pediatric brain cancer is the No. 1 tumor cause of death in children 20 and under.
Less than 4 percent of National Cancer Institute funding goes to all pediatric cancers. That’s right, 96 percent goes to adult cancer research and 4 percent to kids, yet kids make up 20 percent of our population.
Funding from large cancer organizations doesn’t help that much; less than 1 percent of American Cancer Society total donations are directed toward childhood cancer research.
In the PAC2 (People Against Cancer) Report on the September 2010 Pediatric Cancer Caucus from the Head, Division of Pediatrics, Children’s Cancer Hospital at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Eugenie Kleinerman was quoted as saying: “Curing childhood cancer is the equivalent of curing breast cancer in terms of productive life years saved.
Almost 900 adult cancer drugs are in the drug development pipeline and almost none for children’s cancers.
If we solely rely on the National Cancer Institute, which is the primary funder of cancer research in this county, and do not invest in small private foundations like ours, researchers will have to close labs, new researchers will be forced to leave our country to countries that invest more in pediatric research because they know they will get their research funded and life-saving clinical trials will be closed. Since sequestration this has already started to happen. Our children are too important! How can we not be angry about this and voice our opinions? Children can’t vote so we need to speak for them!
We remain committed and look to our community for support to “Help Get Brain Tumors Off Kids’ Minds.” Please visit www,kortneyrosefoundation.org.
We need your help in spreading the word in our final push before our year-end donation to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season full of family, friends and fun!
Kristen Gillette
Founder/President
The Kortney Rose Foundation
Irace Thanks Voters for Reelection to Oceanport Council
To the Editor:
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for reelecting me to serve as your councilman. I consider it to be a great honor, and I promise to continue to work hard to do what is best for Oceanport and all our residents.
I would also like to welcome Burt Lynch to council. Burt has been an important member of our Monmouth Park Task Force in the past, so he will be able to hit the ground running on this important Oceanport issue.
I know we all hope retiring Councilman Ted Ibex will remain part of our team. He has been very active on the Fort Monmouth issues and it’s important to maintain continuity. It has been great working with you Ted!
There are no Republicans and Democrats on our local governing body, only O’s for Oceanport! In my time on council, I have lived by this motto and will continue to do so regardless of political expediency.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your council president in Oceanport. I remain honored and humbled to serve our town. It is a responsibility that I take very seriously because there is nowhere else I’d rather live!
Joseph Irace
Council President
Borough of Oceanport
Recognize Family Caregivers This Month
To the Editor:
November is National Family Caregivers Month and as such I encourage you to recognize the pivotal role family caregivers play in their loved ones’ lives and in the country’s long-term care system.
In many instances, caregiving by a family member keeps a loved one with special needs in the home as opposed to an institutional setting. It can be an incredibly rewarding experience but it is usually no small feat. Caregiving for many is a balancing act; assisting a relative who needs daily help while also handling the pressures of a career or tending to other members of the household. Think for a moment about all of the demands on your time, and then add dressing and feeding a loved one, managing medication schedules and operating specialized medical equipment to that list. There is not enough room in this publication to truly outline what family caregiving sometimes entails.
My wife Adrienne and I are family caregivers for our 11-year-old daughter, Clare, who has Down syndrome. We have three wonderful children, we work full time and we are able to volunteer. However, caregiving doesn’t have to mirror our family’s scenario; it comes in all shapes and sizes. Caregiving can come from sisters and brothers, aunt and uncles, grandparents and other extended family members who prioritize the needs of a relative over their own.
So please take a moment this November to acknowledge family caregivers in New Jersey and all they do on behalf of others.
Kevin Sturges
Annandale
Second Vice President
The Arc of New Jersey’s Board of Directors
Prevention First Continuing Work to Stem Bullying, Violence, Drug Abuse
To the Editor:
Prevention First has made tremendous progress on the frontlines of bullying, substance abuse and violence prevention this year. Our educators are out in our schools and communities every day, working to provide services vital to the future of every child and family in Monmouth and Ocean counties. But, it’s no secret that there is still a long way to go.
We have seen some very disturbing headlines this year. Prescription drug abuse is on the rise. Our children are experimenting with new drugs (such as “Molly”) without knowing anything about the dangers and risks of taking them. Violence has become more and more prevalent, both in schools and on the streets. Heroin use and the deaths associated with it are on the rise.
These issues affect us all – they touch all our lives in one way or another – and as such, they are our problems – everyone’s. But Prevention First is working hard to put them behind us!
This year, we will have served more than 11,000 children and adults in Monmouth and Ocean counties. We benefited from government grants to implement prevention education programs such as LifeSkills™ Training, Keys to Innervisions, Strengthening Families and WISE but they only partially support our much-needed programs. Thanks to our donors, we were able to continue to provide students with Project Vision, a program providing guidance and a safe, positive environment for students to spend their after-school hours, after a grant for it ended.
Thanks to funding from Actavis, Inc., we piloted The Prevention Works Project, in the effort to educate parents on ways to keep children healthy, safe and drug-free and inspire children to find healthy hobbies as alternatives to unhealthy activities, such as abusing drugs. The project has included the development of a “how-to” guide for parents to help them talk to their children age-appropriately, the collection of resources for those in need of help, publicized guidelines on how to properly dispose of medications and the creation of a public service announcement promoting healthy hobbies that is targeted to children and teens.
We hope that next year’s headlines will reflect the work we have done to prevent bullying, violence and substance abuse. By providing an all-encompassing approach to prevention that includes engaging parents, teachers, students and the community as a whole, we can make leaps and bounds toward instilling healthy life skills in today’s generation and in those of tomorrow. But we need your help to do it. You can make a difference. Please support our mission to keep all of our children healthy, safe and drug-free.
Michelle Cicalese
Prevention First
Development Director
Two River Moment
The Lincroft Inn has long been a Two River-area dining destination. According to its website, a portion of the inn, which has been owned since 1927 by the Daverio family with the exception of three years, was built in 1697. This photo of the 700 Newman Springs Road establishment was taken in 1940.
