By Eileen Moon
If you need a little cheer this year, Holiday Express has your ticket.
The acclaimed band of professional musicians and other volunteers will be delivering a busload of fun to the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank Tuesday and Wednesday, Dec. 21 and 22.
The concerts, sponsored by Stillwell-Hansen Company and Investors Bank, are a major source of funding for the charitable group dedicated to making the holidays brighter for people in need.
“We can’t do without it,” said Holiday Express founder Tim McLoone. Nor would they want to.
Although the great majority of their performances take place in private, in humble and often rugged surroundings, the Basie events gives the group a chance to shine.
“We get to be stars for a while,” McLoone laughed.
The concerts are already a not-to-miss occasion for the Grinch – who regularly makes appearances at the performances – and word has it that his heart is about to grow a lot bigger.
That happens a lot with Holiday Express. For nearly 30 years, the organization has been delivering a traveling holiday party with food, fun and live music to homeless shelters, hospitals, care centers and schools around New Jersey.
Last year, the pandemic forced the group to go virtual, delivering gifts by truck along with a concert video to all of the locations it would normally visit in person.
This year, the fully vaccinated troupe is hitting the road again, traveling to 21 institutions around the state. “Basically, anywhere that would have us,” said McLoone. “We’re just so much more appreciative of the opportunity to do it.”
Now in its 29th season, Holiday Express was born in 1993 when McLoone gathered some fellow players and singers together at his restaurant, McLoone’s Rum Runner in Sea Bright, to make them an offer he was hoping they couldn’t refuse.
The talent in the room represented Jersey Shore rock ‘n’ roll royalty, musicians who had sung, played and toured among the best of the best.
McLoone invited them to play for free, far from the limelight, at a handful of charities and community outreach centers where Christmas or Hanukkah – or any other holiday, for that matter – often didn’t come at all.
A few weeks later, they were riding in a rented bus, the luggage compartment bursting with instruments as they headed up the parkway. It was way too early in the morning for most working musicians, but they did it anyway. Their very first performance was at Better Beginnings, a charity serving teenage parents in Stamford, Connecticut.
A lot has happened in the years since. Holiday Express performances now number in the near-uncountable thousands. The organization is now a registered nonprofit that relies on a handful of fundraisers, grants and donations to fund its $1.5 million budget.
They accomplish it all with a paid office staff of three, a paid warehouse manager, some seasonal workers and hundreds of volunteers that include local Scout and faith-based groups, families, retirees, corporate teams and many others of all ages who have a few hours to spare and a simple desire to do some good in the world.
Holiday Express “warehouse elves” volunteer their time each fall to pack 27,000 gift bags for delivery to each venue, said its public relations director Krista Newbert. The gift bags, customized for the clients of each agency, include toiletries, socks, scarves, gloves, blankets, caps and crayons.
“Our Eatontown warehouse is truly Santa’s workshop,” said Lorrie Klaric, Holiday Express executive director.
In addition to the warehouse elves, the group numbers more than 100 musicians and many other volunteers who dedicate the months of November and December to putting some light into the lives of people whose circumstances don’t allow much room for fun.
For McLoone and the Holiday Express staff and volunteers, the isolation of the pandemic underlined what Holiday Express is all about. “We’re all so much more appreciative of the opportunity to do it,” McLoone said.
Lynne Broza has been a Holiday Express volunteer for around 25 years. She doesn’t remember exactly, but it was some time after her sister, singer Amy Broza joined the band in its second year.
Like most Holiday Express volunteers, Lynne has worn many hats over the years, from serving food, dancing with clients, acting as an event manager, a warehouse elf, a backstage helper and Frosty the Snowman during the group’s trip to Louisiana and Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina.
Not being able to go out on the road last year really brought home to Broza just how big a part of her life Holiday Express has become. “We always knew how important it was and how much it meant (to our clients). You could see it in their faces. But it made me realize just how much it really, deep down, meant to me,” she said. “It really became so meaningful.”
Last Monday, Dec. 6, the group returned to A. Harry Moore, a school for children with severe and multiple disabilities in Jersey City that they have been visiting for 22 years. “If I needed a reminder of why we do this, that was it,” McLoone said. “It was just joyous.”
Their welcome from students and staff after a year’s absence was overwhelming. “This is the holidays for them,” A. Harry Moore faculty member Marie Coniglia-Robiolio said of the students. “They don’t get to celebrate much at home. It is the highlight of their year. It is everything to them. They just love the children so much. They are our angels.”
Red Bank resident Angel Palumbo was the event manager for the visit, responsible for chasing the details involved in delivering the traveling party efficiently and on time.
Palumbo got involved with Holiday Express many years ago when her company communications team was seeking a worthy charity to support.
The corporate connection soon evolved into a personal one as well. “It’s a family affair now,” Palumbo said, noting that her husband, her sister and her brother-in-law are all Holiday Express volunteers.
“It’s been life-changing for me,” Palumbo said. “It really has. I had no idea what an impact a group of people can have seeing people a few hours a year. There’s nothing that could top what I’ve experienced.”
The welcome at A. Harry Moore said it all. “You came back!” one child told her, recognizing her from two years before.
Tickets for the Holiday Express concerts at the Basie can be purchased online at holidayexpress.org or theatreredbank.org.
The article originally appeared in the December 9 – 15, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.
