By Kayla J. Marsh
Staff Writer
LITTLE SILVER – The borough will kick off the summer season with a festive day that will bring together residents of all ages to enjoy games, music, food, beverages and fireworks.
The inaugural “Little Silver Day” event will be held June 25, with a rain date of June 26, from 3 to 10 p.m. on the fields behind Borough Hall near Markham Place School. This first-ever event will be sponsored by the Little Silver Charitable Foundation, a non-profit organization.
“This event is [a day] for residents to come relax, put their beach chair or blanket down on the lawn, listen to some music, enjoy some amazing food and socialize with their neighbors,” said Rick Brandt, the event’s coordinator.
“Little Silver is very community oriented … there is always events going on … and we want to continue highlighting all of the amazing things in Little Silver.”
Brandt said having the event in the heart of town would hopefully make it the “most grand event” the borough has had.
“There is a gazebo, there is a playground and … Little Silver Day is going to take place right in the center of our town which is so great because that means hopefully the majority of people, if not all, will be encouraged to walk or ride their bikes to the event,” he said.
Brandt said there would be an endless amount of games and activities for kids as well as attractions for adults to partake in.
“There’s going to be bouncy houses, face painting, balloon animals, clowns, a professional dunk tank, people drawing caricatures,” he said.
“Carvel is going to be doing an ice cream eating contest. We’re going to be doing arts and craft for children.
“We’ll have Cornhole and Can Jam which are two really fun party games. A training facility in town is going to be running an obstacle course throughout the day where people can go and flip tires, and jump over walls and we will also have Bubble Soccer.”
A full lineup of talented musicians is also set to entertain the crowd on the Little Silver Day stage, including Pat Guadagno, Dave McCarthy, Rick Dill, The Stone Bullets, Tim McLoone & The Shirley’s, and The Have.
We also have musical entertainment. “Every musician that is performing is either from Little Silver or lives in Little Silver so all of our musicians have ties to the town,” Brandt said.
The “Little Silver Day” event will be capped off by a fireworks show.
Little Silver’s own will cater the community event, Brandt said.
“Sickles Market is going to be supplying an amazing buffet of pulled pork sandwiches, corn on the cob, side salad, watermelon, The Little Silver Seafood Company is going to be supplying Lobster rolls and seafood platters with food like shrimp, oysters and clams, The Turning Point in Little Silver is going to be supplying iced tea, and iced coffee,” he said.
Brandt added that Shore Point Distributors will supply the event with their beer truck, the American Water Company has committed their puddle truck (which serves water) and the Little Silver ACME will supply soft drinks.
“It is a great time to do it, it is going to be an amazing day and we’re hoping it will become an annual event,” Brandt said.
Brandt said the idea to host the inaugural event came not long after attending Fair Haven’s centennial celebration five years ago.
Seeing the joy and response from residents and how it led to the borough’s own Fair Haven Day, Brandt said he wanted to see if it was something Little Silver would enjoy hosting.
“About two years ago I got together with the people who organized it in Fair Haven and their Councilwoman Susan Sorensen gave me all the background and details about what to do, what not to do and I took all of these notes from her and started to think about how Little Silver’s centennial celebration is coming up in 2023, and I thought it might be fun to do a Little Silver Day event beforehand instead of waiting seven years,” he said.
“So I went to the council and mayor in October and told them about this idea and event and they were all extremely supportive but cautioned to me ‘you can’t do this by yourself’ and how it was a ‘huge undertaking’ and ‘you’re going to have to put together a great group of people to organize such an amazing event’ and so I listened.”
Thus the Little Silver Charitable Foundation was formed. The foundation is a non-for-profit organization and all contributions are tax-deductible.
Brandt said the not-for-profit status allows fundraising to be carried out to help fund “Little Silver Day” and support education, recreation and other good causes directly related to the borough.
“The first thing I did was I reached out to about seven people in Little Silver who I think of as all-stars and amazing people who are fun to work with and make things happen and so we created this group, this committee … and the first thing we did was we created this 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and we decided that we wanted to create this foundation to benefit Little Silver,” he said.
“We want to do things in town to improve the quality of life. We want to host community events, we want to be able to help families in need.”
Brand said many sponsorship levels from $250 to $15,000 are still available for businesses, families, and individuals interested in getting involved with the inaugural event.
Sponsors will receive recognition for their involvement as well as complimentary “Little Silver Day” food and drink tickets.
The event is free to residents with nominal fees charged for food and beverages to help support the staging of the event.
Residents can pre-purchase tickets online and look at sponsorships at www.LittleSilverFoundation.com.
“It has been amazing the last few months to see all the support that we’ve had,” Brandt said. “The businesses have reached out to us wanting to sponsor, wanting to get involved … and our group continues to grow … it is just so supported by everyone in town and I’m excited for it.”