By Mary Ann Bourbeau
MIDDLETOWN – Nell Newman knows a thing or two about social responsibility.
As the daughter of actors Joanne Woodward and the late Paul Newman, she watched as her father started one of the first retail philanthropic companies with Newman’s Own. She has continued that legacy today by establishing, along with co-founder Peter Meehan, Newman’s Own Organics: The Second Generation. The sale of the products generates money for the Newman’s Own Foundation, which has donated more than $400 million to nonprofit organizations around the world.
“It’s wonderfully gratifying,” Newman said.
Newman will be the guest speaker at the Monmouth Conservation Foundation’s (MCF) Annual Holiday Style Luncheon & Shopping Spree, which will take place Thursday, Dec. 4, at the Navesink Country Club.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in California. “I’m really impressed with the organization and how much land they have preserved.”
Lisa McKean, director of marketing and development for the MCF, saw Newman speak in New York and was very impressed with her message.
“Nell is really on the forefront of sustainable agriculture and organic farming,” McKean said. “She’s a big advocate for land preservation. Her philosophy and what we do go hand in hand.”
Newman will talk about the how and why she started the company and offer her ideas on land conservation, another area of interest she learned from her father while growing up on a rural Connecticut farm.
“Farmland is only there once,” she said. “Once you pave over it, it’s never going to return to farmland. That’s why what the Monmouth Conservation Foundation is doing is so important.”
When she was 5 years old, Newman’s parents moved the family from New York City to a farmhouse in Westport, Conn.
“We had some old apple trees and Mom let me get some chickens,” she said. “Both of my parents taught me how to cook. All of us kids were included. A meal was a family affair and everyone had a job, whether it was setting the table or chopping vegetables.”
Back in the early 1960s, there was no talk of organic food, but Newman said she learned about things such as the danger of pesticides because she was an avid reader.
“I remember when I was about 12, chasing away the guys who came to spray the trees,” she said. “I had a bad feeling about it. I had read enough to know there was a bad association between sprays and health.”
The Newman’s Own story dates back to 1982 when Paul Newman and his friend, A.E. Hotchner, began giving bottles of their homemade salad dressing to friends and family. This evolved into Newman’s Own, a company that gives 100 percent of its proceeds to charity.
Paul Newman’s philanthropy rubbed off on his daughter. As a child, she had a few small roles in her father’s movies, but she knew from the start that acting was not for her. After earning a degree in human ecology from the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, Nell Newman moved to Santa Cruz, Calif., where she was surprised by the amount of beautiful produce and organic items readily available, something she had not found in Maine.
As the family member who regularly cooked Thanksgiving for her family, she brought a suitcase full of ingredients back to Connecticut and prepared an entirely organic holiday meal, not revealing the fact until after her father had cleaned his plate.
“He realized that a meal doesn’t have to be heavy and whole wheat to be organic,” she said.
Newman previously worked for the Environmental Defense Fund in New York and later with the Ventana Wilderness Sanctuary and the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group, both in California, but she thought she could make a bigger impact with a new division of the family’s food products.
“I talked to Pop about organic food products and he liked the idea,” she said. “He understood that I wanted to follow in his footsteps and have the money go to charity.”
She and Meehan studied for a year before coming up with their first product, an organic pretzel.
“Pretzels were Dad’s favorite snack when I was growing up,” she said. “He was our final taste tester.”
The luncheon is one of the major annual fundraisers for the MCF, which has preserved about 6,500 acres of open space and farmland throughout Monmouth County. The menu consists of local, seasonal and artisanal fare, much of it with organic ingredients. The vegetarian aspect represents how a meatless meal reduces the carbon and methane emissions released into the environment.
McKean hopes the event will be well-attended.
“The support of the community means a tremendous amount, plus people get the opportunity to hear Nell’s message of sustainable agriculture and organic farming,” she said.
The holiday boutique will include high-end jewelry, clothing, garden items, artisan ware, equestrian items, leather goods and gourmet foods from vendors such as Madison James, Lila Mae and Meredith Frederick. Twenty percent of sales will benefit the MCF.
“People often don’t understand the immediacy and urgency of land preservation,” McKean said. “What we are doing now is critical in the short and long term.”
The MCF, a nonprofit foundation, forms partnerships by serving as an intermediary among public and private entities. It was co-founded in 1977 by the late Michael Huber and the late Judith Stanley when Huber’s family donated 300 acres off Navesink River Road in Middletown. The property now includes woods, trails, parkland and a science center.
“They were truly visionaries who realized they had to do something about saving farmland and open space before it was all developed,” McKean said.
With two full-time employees, three part-timers and hundreds of volunteers, the county’s land trust organization has preserved tracts including the Flemer entities – 1,900 acres on the border of Monmouth and Mercer counties, and the 25-acre Coe Estate in Middletown. Next in the foundation’s sights is Chris’ Landing, a property on the Red Bank/Middletown border overlooking the Swimming River. The 12-acre property had been zoned for townhouses, but after an environmental cleanup, it will become a county waterfront park area, with a small boat launch and a parking area.
“What I love is that these preserved properties not only serve us, everyone in the future will benefit,” McKean said. “We are providing a legacy for future generations.”
Tickets for the 11:30 a.m. luncheon are $150, with sponsorships available for $2,500.
In the words of Paul Newman, “If people knew how good it felt to give money away, they would not wait until they are dead to do it.”
The event is sponsored by the Unterberg Children’s Hospital at Monmouth Medical Center. Seating is limited.
Reservations are available by visiting www.monmouthconservation.org.
