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Middlesex County Fair
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PostPosted: Tue, Aug 5 2008, 8:15 am EDT    Post subject: Latest news & movie, music, event Reply with quote

Saw signs around town about the Middlesex County Fair this week. Thinking about going. So, since I found out the basic info., just thought I'd pass it on.

Aug 4th - 10th. This is the 70th year.
Pony Rides, Home & Garden Exhibits, Pig Races, 4-H & Animal Displays, Food Vendors, Crafts Demonstrations, Agriculture Displays Free Entertainment & Attractions Daily.

FAIR HOURS
Monday-Friday 5pm - 11pm
Saturday 11am - 11pm
Sunday 11am - 7pm

http://middlesexcountyfair.org/


DIRECTIONS:
The Middlesex County Fair is located on Cranbury Rd. where it intersects Fern Roads in East Brunswick. Take Route 18 into East Brunswick, follow the directions for Cranbury onto Cranbury Road (Rt. 535 South), pass East Brunswick High School on the left, keep left at the fork, and continue on Cranbury Road for about three miles to the fair. 655 Cranbury Road.
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PostPosted: Tue, Aug 5 2008, 8:29 am EDT    Post subject: Re: Latest news & movie, music, event Reply with quote

Pricing info:

PRICES
Adults - $6.00
Seniors 65+ - $4.00
Kids Age 3-12 - $1.00
Kids 2 and Under FREE
Plenty of Free Parking

FREE Admission for Blood Donors at our daily blood drives

Monday-Friday 5pm - 9pm Saturday 12:00-6:00 Sunday 12:00- 5:00
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Princeton Packet
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PostPosted: Tue, Aug 5 2008, 9:03 am EDT    Post subject: 100 Waiting Children - Ends 8/10 Reply with quote

Heart to Adopt
The Historical Society of Princeton, Princeton Public Library and the Arts Council of Princeton are presenting a photo exhibit to help foster children find homes.
Thursday, July 31, 2008 6:04 PM EDT
By Adam Grybowski


Naji, a seventh-grader who loves to play dodge ball, basketball and football and listening to music, is available for adoption. His photograph by Jeff Zelevansky is on view at the Historical Society of Princeton.

THE children in New Jersey’s foster care system face a grave moment on their 18th birthday. Having “aged out” of foster care, they are left with no support system. The years spent waiting for an adoptive family have passed them by, and they are left to their own devices.

Youths who “age out” of the system are a vulnerable bunch. Consider these numbers from the Heart Gallery of New Jersey:

• Four years after leaving foster care, 25 percent of them will have become homeless.

• Fewer than 20 percent will be able to support themselves.

• Less than half will have graduated from high school.
• Forty-two percent of them will have become parents themselves.

Certain foster children are considered hard to adopt: African-Americans, teenagers, sibling groups and individuals with special needs constitute the majority of those who have been waiting the longest for adoption, according to the Division of Youth and Family Services.

The Heart Gallery has been working since 2005 to help place these children. The nonprofit coordinated some of the country’s finest photographers, who include Pulitzer Prize and World Press winners, to create portraits of the children. Those portraits are shared through gallery exhibits and on its Web site, which received 23 million hits within six months of the initial exhibit.

The first public exhibit had its grand opening at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City in June 2005. More than 1,200 people attended. The exhibit presented portraits of 346 “hard to adopt” New Jersey foster children. One hundred and thirty have since been adopted, and 53 other children are in the process of adoption.

A new exhibit, 100 Waiting Children, was first presented at the Liberty Science Center in January 2008. Eileen Morales, a curator at the Historical Society of Princeton, approached the Heart Gallery a week before the opening. “I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the images,” she says.

The Historical Society has partnered with the Princeton Public Library and the Arts Council of Princeton to bring 100 Waiting Children to Princeton. With some overlap to maximize exposure, the portraits are on display at the library and the headquarters of the historical society on Nassau Street. As with all library exhibits, the arts council assisted in its presentation of 100 Waiting Children.

The images, Ms. Morales says, are “potentially heartwarming until you consider the statistics the children face.”

All of the children portrayed in the exhibit are available for adoption nationwide. A block of text that recounts, most often, their passions, talents and aspirations accompanies the photographs. Although they have been lacking the permanent family that most children take for granted, their interests are nothing if not typical. Sports, music, fashion, MySpace — many of the usual adolescent distractions are represented.

But often their statements return to focus on a single desire. “Latif dreams of a family that will stick with him through thick and thin, with parents who are caring and trustworthy, like he is.”

The children ruminate on the concept of an ideal family. For Naji, 14, the ideal family is “a mom who can cook, a dad who is athletic, and some brothers and sisters.”

Their ideals revolve around the basic yet profound matters of love, support and recognition. “My ideal family is one that will be supportive and send me to a good high school,” says Luis, 16. “I want and can do better than this.”

What does family mean to Fabian, 12? “Family to me means a big group of people that love each other and care for each other... through each other’s battles,” he says.

Edwin, 14, diminishes the idea of a perfect family, but he desires no less than the rest of the foster children. “There’s no such thing as a perfect family,” he says. “There’s nothing perfect in life.” Edwin is just looking for “someone who cares and loves” him.

And indicating just how much these adolescents have experienced in their short life, they have advice for children about to enter foster care. “Deal with it, cope with it, try to change and make it a better outcome from what you’re in now,” says Edward, 15.

Zhade, 15, says, “Try to take it one day at a time. Let somebody help you out when you first get in there. If anything happens, try to do your best, be as good as you can be. That way, you won’t have to move from home to home.”
Since its opening, 100 Waiting Children has traveled from Orange to Somerset to Trenton, being displayed in churches. It is an unusual exhibit to be hosted by a historical society, yet Ms. Morales felt the exhibit fit squarely with its mission, part of which is to interpret the area’s history through exhibitions. “It didn’t seem like that big of a leap,” she says, adding that it provides a chance to find out what’s happening in New Jersey now.

Twenty-nine of the 100 children featured in the exhibit are in the adoption process and nearly one-third of all adoption inquiries to DYFS have become about older children, according to Janina Hecht, vice president of the Heart Gallery of New Jersey. “That’s unbelievably unusual. Most people are looking to adopt younger children. They don’t even realize so many older children are waiting,” she says. The exhibit “opens people’s eyes to the idea of adopting older children. Sometimes they don’t even realize that option.”

100 Waiting Children is on view at the Historical Society of Princeton, 158 Nassau St., Princeton, and the Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon St., Princeton, through Aug. 10; www.heartgallerynj.org

http://www.packetonline.com/articles/2008/08/05/time_off/entertainment_news/doc489084f60148b258767377.txt
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Associated Press
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PostPosted: Thu, Aug 7 2008, 1:56 pm EDT    Post subject: Polish immigrants walk in pilgrimage from NJ to PA Reply with quote

Polish immigrants walk in pilgrimage from NJ to PA
By SAMANTHA HENRY | Associated Press Writer
August 6, 2008

TRENTON, N.J. - As thousands of Poland's Catholic faithful embark on an annual religious pilgrimage to the shrine of their nation's patron saint, Polish immigrants in the U.S. will carry out their own version of the centuries-old tradition.

Instead of crossing Poland for hundreds of miles on foot _ as many of their relatives will do in the coming weeks _ Polish immigrants from across the Eastern United States will replicate the pilgrimage by walking from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

After a four-day trek that begins early Thursday morning, they'll arrive Sunday at The National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa _ also called "The American Czestochowa" _ in Doylestown, Pa.

The American version of the pilgrimage has grown so large since its 1988 inception that more than 2,000 pilgrims participated last year. Most of the pilgrims walk 57 miles to Doylestown from Great Meadows (in northwest New Jersey); smaller groups take shorter routes from Trenton and Philadelphia.

Despite a massive logistical operation that involves communal campsites, makeshift kitchens, flatbed trucks hauling portable toilets and cargo vans stuffed with luggage _ the pilgrims remain largely under the radar as they walk along rural back roads, singing and praying in lines that often stretch for miles.

"It's amazing," said Jolanta Derkacz of Lawrenceville. "You get to see how much stronger you are as a person, how you can adapt to your surroundings, and the things you feel _ it can change your life."

Derkacz, 25, has been walking the route with her family since she was 9. She says the chance to unplug from her busy New Jersey lifestyle to walk 17 miles a day _ thinking, praying and forging ties with her fellow Polish immigrants _ helps strengthen her faith.

"It bonds people together," she said. "You hear people say; 'I would love to hear your story.' It shows you wonderfully the power of God _ you meet somebody you may have never talked to because they sat 10 aisles away from you in church."

Derkacz said while the pilgrims sometimes get strange stares and insults, other passers-by wave, take cell phone pictures or clap when they pass through small towns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, walking and chanting in Polish lead by priests with portable megaphones.

Some towns along their route provide the pilgrims with a police escort, or stop traffic to let them pass. Homeowners lend their farms or front yards to allow the pilgrims to camp out each night, or to stage rest stops where nuns nicknamed "sister blister" bandage aching feet.

Religious pilgrimages date back hundreds of years in Poland, where the Virgin of Czestochowa is revered by the heavily Catholic nation as a depiction of the Virgin Mary.

Polish tradition has it that the portrait of the Virgin of Czestochowa was painted by the evangelist St. Luke on a wooden tabletop where the Virgin Mary once ate. It has been in the Jasna Gora monastery in Czestochowa, Poland since 1384.

Historians differ as to why the most holy religious symbol in a majority Caucasian nation like Poland is referred to as "The Black Madonna."

One explanation arises from a theory that artists depicted Mary as the most beautiful woman imaginable _ which at the time of the portrait would have been a woman with a darker, more olive pigmentation. Her dark skin tone is also sometimes attributed to the age of the image or a belief that centuries of candle residue caused it to darken.

But the Virgin of Czestochowa has taken on racial symbolism for other groups _ many of whom now join the Doylestown-bound pilgrims. Groups of Haitians from Brooklyn and elsewhere now march alongside the Poles, seeing in the Virgin's dark complexion and distinctive cheek scars a reference to their African heritage.

Creole prayers have been added to the proceedings in recent years, along with English and Spanish prayer groups.

Bozena Bienkowska, a Polish native who lives in Trenton, marvels at the mix of people that join the American pilgrimage each year. She sees it as a chance to bond with other Christians as part of a wider immigrant experience in America.

"It's very important, especially when you are away from your homeland, that you need to be with others," she said. "I can pray in English, but I don't feel it. In Polish, I really feel it, because I grew up praying in that language with my parents."

Bienkowska, 52, said because she grew up in Poland under Communism, her first chance to celebrate the Polish pilgrimage tradition came when she immigrated to New Jersey 20 years ago.

"In Poland, I didn't go, I was dreaming and hoping that one day I would join," she said. "I never dreamt we could have this here in the United States. As you see, here, any dream can come true."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--polishpilgrimage0806aug06,0,1891523.story
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Associated Press
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PostPosted: Thu, Aug 7 2008, 1:59 pm EDT    Post subject: Cars people die to ride in on display in NJ Reply with quote

Cars people die to ride in on display in NJ
By GEOFF MULVIHILL | Associated Press Writer
August 6, 2008
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. - Over the years, retired hearses and ambulances have been recycled by surfers (room for boards); painters (space for ladders); and rock bands (a place for drum sets); or crushed for steel scraps.

But to enthusiasts, there is only one way to see them _ as they were intended: To transport the dead or injured.

About four dozen that have been restored to their original condition, along with some vintage limousines, will be on display this week during one of the region's more bizarre auto shows.

Undertakers, first aid squad members, and other enthusiasts _ some obsessed with death _ will show off the fleet during the Professional Car Society's annual meet, held Wednesday through Saturday in Mount Laurel. ........................

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--oldhearses0806aug06,0,714256.story
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