Sea Bright Fire and Rescue’s first Food Truck Festival offered all the classic food truck bites: fresh lemonade, crispy fries and funnel cakes sprinkled with powdered sugar. EMILY SCHOPFER
By Emily Schopfer
SEA BRIGHT – Sea Bright Fire and Rescue hosted its first annual Food Truck Festival June 26, along the Monmouth Beach seawall. The inaugural event fundraiser for Sea Bright’s all-volunteer fire department, brought great food, live music and family fun to Sea Bright on a rainy Friday afternoon.
“We did okay, being our first year with terrible weather,” said Sea Bright’s Deputy Fire Chief Charles Rivera. Technically, this festival was not the first the department held; the department tried out the food truck idea over a decade ago, but it didn’t quite stick. “(We’ve) always done our fair. The problem is the fair is not really lucrative anymore,” Rivera said, referring to the annual Sea Bright Fireman’s Fair, which takes place in the spring.
Fairs, carnivals and food trucks are all staples of summer, and for generations local fire departments have been using them as a way to support the usually all-volunteer staff, such as the one at Sea Bright Fire and Rescue.
As of 2023, Monmouth County had 66 fire departments, 56 of which are made up entirely of volunteers, and eight that are a combination of volunteers and paid staff. Volunteer departments are provided with municipal funding, but this is often not enough to get the departments through the year with everything they may need.
Rivera said his department has 24 riding positions plus two fire chiefs and is a “very unique fire department,” as it was graded a Public Protection Classification (PPC) Class 2 by ISO (Insurance Services Office) in 2024. ISO ranks the capabilities of local fire departments on a scale from Class 1 to Class 10, 10 being the worst score a department can get.
The recognition means Sea Bright Fire and Rescue has elite capabilities for preventing and fighting fires within its community and is one of fewer than three dozen departments to hold this ranking statewide. When the department was awarded the classification in 2024, Rivera said it was the only all-volunteer department to earn this distinction.
“The town has been very good to us,” Rivera said. The borough has invested a lot in fire protection, he said, and provides the department with an annual operating budget for things such as radios, air packs and more.
Outside of this annual operating budget, Rivera said, “We do what we can to scrape by.” The department holds several fundraising events a year, whether it’s a large-scale event like the Food Truck Festival or boot drives, where firefighters stand at intersections or storefronts, holding out boots to ask for donations.
On the upside, Rivera said the department is very “fortunate on the firefighter aspect” and is not struggling to find volunteers.
Additionally, the department works hard to stay proactive and involved in the community, whether by staying active on social media, helping residents install proper smoke detectors or offering station tours. Rivera estimated that during the summer months, the station does anywhere from 500 to 700 station tours a month, with its doors open 18 hours a day.
“Our goal is to prevent community risk,” Rivera said. “We try to be out in the public as much as possible.”
Rivera said the plan is for the Food Truck Festival to become an annual event and hopes to expand it with more trucks and make it a community staple. “There’s no place in the world better than Sea Bright,” Rivera said. On a Friday during the summer in Sea Bright, he said, “Where else would anybody want to be?”
Atlantic Highlands kicked off its 30th Annual Fireman’s Fair June 30, and the event ran through July 4. Atlantic Highlands’ business administrator Caleb Stratton said the Fireman’s Fair is the largest annual fundraising event for the fire department.
“There’s no question that the fair has grown from more than a fundraiser; it’s now a community staple for the entire Two River area,” Stratton said. “The volunteer fire department and its membership provide an invaluable service for the community, and the borough is very appreciative of all the support received during this event. AHFD is always on the lookout for new recruits. Please volunteer!”
Fair Haven Fire Company will also host its annual Firemen’s Fair beginning Friday, Aug. 28. This tradition marks 120 years of the fair, which was paused only during the two World Wars
