I try to volunteer at a few charity events every year.  Instead of just cutting a check, I’d much rather offer my time and talents and help a great cause raise some much needed money.  Such was the case Friday night.  I was available so I brought my gear down to Doolan’s Shore Club and provided the music and some of the MCing for the  19th Annual Casino Night to raise money for Ocean Housing Alliance.  When I say some of the MCing, I mean I shared duties with Kevin Graham from Tumbling Dice who had provided all the gaming tables for the night.  Kevin also made announcements and then ran the giveaways at the end.  I think the two of us together were able to keep everyone informed of the proceedings for the night and I hope we helped raise more money.

Ocean Housing Alliance is a great charity that runs the Joan Valentine House in Point Pleasant Beach, a 48-bed residential health care facility for people with special needs.  If you’d like to donate to the cause, or volunteer to help out, please follow this link for more information.

We have been recommended at Doolan’s for over 20 years so when an email came in about buying a page in the journal for this fundraiser I was more than willing.  But that’s when I checked my personal schedule and realized I was off on May 12th so I offered my services.  I’m happy to say I got a lot of compliments on my music throughout the night.  Sure it was mostly background (as they’d requested) and nobody danced until the very end of the night, but just because music is background doesn’t mean it can’t be fun and add to the mood of the room.  I dropped in some timeless sing-alongs like “With A Little From My Friends” by The Beatles and “You Make My Dreams Come True” by Hall and Oates.  Everyone enjoyed themselves and it looks like a lot of money was raised for a very worthy cause.