TIMES
MICROMEDIA PUBLICATIONS, INC.
T H E JAC K S O N
Vol.17 - No. 27
Your Weekly Hometown Newspaper | Serving All of Jackson Township
Cook’s Christmas Lights Hope To Meet Last Year’s Record
By Jennifer Peacock JACKSON – Visitors who flocked to Michael Cook’s Christmas light display last year donated $5,800 to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. That well exceeded his goal of $1,600, which is what he hopes to raise this year. It’s personal for the Cooks, whose now20-year-old son was diagnosed with MS seven years ago. The family had been decorating the house with light displays set to music for two years before their son received his diagnosis, Cook said. Because the display gets visitors, the family put a voluntary donation box outside their house. All donations go to the Society. The big change to the display, Cook said, is a pixel matrix, which will sit on the porch to provide scrolling lettering and other effects. He and his family started working on resequencing the songs and the pixel matrix the last week of August. Photos on the Cook’s Christmas Facebook page show the displays being erected on the lawn at the end of October. This year’s display will include a new tune, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” It will join the roster of the usual songs, which include Christmas “techno” versions of traditional songs
–Photos courtesy Michael Cook Jackson Mills Fire Company stopped by November 25 to welcome the display and the holiday. Inset, the display from last year’s show. It takes the Cooks months to create one 25-minute show. from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Manheim Steamroller. Visitors must tune into FM 100.1 to hear the show, which is synchronized with the light displays. More than 3,000 lights were added to last year’s display. The computerized light display usually has 14,000 lights. Cook said he keeps a few standards that he
uses every year. He’s a full-time emergency room nurse at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, so his hours are a bit hectic and his time limited. Seven songs comprise the 25-minute show; each song takes 10 to 12 hours to synchronize with the music and lights. Cook takes the reins (Record - See Page 5)
FEEDING A HOLIDAY NEED
By Judy Smestad-Nunn OCEAN COUNTY – How many turkeys does it take to feed 3,000 people on Thanksgiving? The answer is 328 (or 4,475 pounds of whole turkey) said Gary Lesniak, Culinary II instructor at Brick Vo-Tech, who said the answer changes every year since he and his students prepare first-class Thanksgiving dinners for the neediest in Ocean County. The program, called “Feed the Need,” is now in its 20th year, said Lesniak, who spearheads the project. About 180 culinary students from all over
Ocean County are involved in the meal preparation that takes place at the Brick center of Ocean County Vocational Technical School. “The request for holiday dinners seems to increase every year, from our humble beginnings of just under 100 meals to 3,000 now - it’s been quite a leap over the years,” said Lesniak from the school’s kitchen just before Thanksgiving. The kitchen was a bevy of coordinated activity as culinary students worked in groups that were divided by food item or by task. Each meal contains roast turkey (2 oz. dark
meat, 4 oz. white meat) with giblet gravy, a green bean casserole, candied yams, mashed potatoes, cornbread stuffing and pumpkin pie for dessert. Toms River High School East seniors, Heather Lewis and Allie Donnini, both 17, spent the week of November 14 deboning the turkeys, and on Monday they were slicing them after their classmates had seasoned the meat with poultry seasoning, salt and pepper and roasted the parts. Seniors do all the deboning, Lesniak said, and the smaller turkeys are easier to handle than the larger birds, which have tougher joints. Victoria Bambace, 16, a junior at Brick (Need - See Page 5)
Inside This Week’s Edition
Business Directory ........................... 23 Classifieds ........................................ 24 Community News ....................... 10-13 Dear Joel ..........................................27 Dear Pharmacist .............................. 19 Dr. Izzy’s Sound News .................... 18 Fun Page ......................................... 25 Inside The Law ................................. 29 Letters to the Editor ............................ 8 Wolfgang ......................................... 31 WWW.MICROMEDIAPUBS.COM
December 3, 2016
School N�rses Reco�ni�ed For Li�esa�in� E��orts
–Photo by Jennifer Peacock Board President Sharon Dey, far left, stands with, from left to right, school nurses Cynthia McLaughlin, Kathleen McCabe and security officer Gerald Ravaioli, who received certificates of recognition for performing life-saving measures for a colleague at Goetz Middle School. By Jennifer Peacock JACKSON – They saved a life. The Board of Education recognized school nurses Cynthia McLaughlin and Kathleen McCabe and security officer Gerald Ravaioli for saving a staff member using an automated external defibrillator. “Because of the quick thinking, skills and composure of two of our nurses and one of our security officers, a member of the Goetz family is still alive today,” Board president Sharon Dey said at the November 15 board meeting. Specific details were not released. Officials would only say that a “recent emergency” occurred at Goetz Middle School which required staff to use the AED. No additional information on the nurses or security staff was provided. According to the American Red Cross, an AED “is the only effective treatment for restoring a regular heart rhythm during sudden cardiac arrest and is an easy to operate tool for someone with no medical background.” A person going into cardiac arrest—which is often confused with a heart attack, but rather than being a blockage is when the heart’s electrical system malfunctions, (Nurses - See Page 28)
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