RBR Community Goes on Holiday Giving Binge

The Red Bank Regional High School community's multi-faceted holiday giving initiative has been launched full-force, like Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve.

First, RBR has continued to help its own by reprising the Holiday Giving Tree, which was originally established last year to benefit RBR’s families most affected by Hurricane Sandy. This year, it helps all RBR families that could most benefit from the community’s generosity for the holidays.

Givers pick a hand-made ornament on the tree which designates a gift card that families have indicated they could most use.  

The tree was a collaborative effort by the RBR Guidance Department, Media Center, The Source and administration.
    
School clubs and departments have also spearheaded other charitable drives and outreach.  

The National Honor Society has been working with Linkages to adopt families of young moms and their babies who have no other way to provide for their children’s holiday. They also send cards to children spending their Christmas in St. Jude’s Hospital.  

The French Honor Society has been collecting hats, scarves and gloves for the homeless. The Culinary Club bakes hundreds of decorative Christmas cookies and brings them to Lunch Break. The Key Club students make calls to families upon request, assisting Santa, who is a bit busy this time of year.

Individual students always help in other local charities such as Holiday Express in their herculean holiday efforts of entertaining, feeding and gifting those most in need in the tri-state area. School-wide food drives sustain the local food pantries among many other endeavors.

This year, the English Department decided to combine academics with community service for their honors students’ required special project.  This is how Freshman Bryce Barnes of Shrewsbury came to be photographed in Brooks Brothers with the elite clothing stores’ staff, management and executives from notable local entities.

 “For my Honors English assignment, my teacher asked that we complete a series of selfless acts and keep journal entries relating our experiences; and we had to come up with our own idea," student Bryce Barnes said. "My youth leader at my church thought a coat drive would be beneficial, so I started researching coat drives and came up with One Warm Coat, with their nearest drop-off being Brooks Brothers, right in my home town.”
    
Bryce publicized the coat drive in church, went door-to-door in his neighborhood and solicited the help of his alma mater, Shrewsbury elementary school.

As a result, he collected and delivered approximately 150 coats to Brooks Brothers. The store manager, Ness Marcovitz, and her staff sorted through the coats and enlisted the aid of the Monmouth Park Charity Fund.

They, in turn, brought in New Jersey Natural Gas’s Community Relations Department and United Way of Monmouth County to help distribute the coats to those in need.

* Release and photos provided by RBR.