Where Angels Play Wine & Beer Tasting Will Be Celebratory Fundraiser
TRUMBULL — A beer and wine tasting event in Trumbull next month will benefit Where Angels Play Foundation, the group responsible for 26 playgrounds that have been built during the past 16 months with a dual purpose. They have primarily been built in communities that were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. Each one has also honored the memory of a woman or child killed on 12/14.
The first playground was built in April 2013 in Sea Bright, N.J. It honored special education teacher Anne Marie Murphy.
Since then, playgrounds to honor all 20 of the children and four more of the women killed that Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School have been built — all done by people of all ages volunteering their time. Each playground includes a sign near its entrance telling visitors whose memory is being honored by the playground, and each sign includes a photo of the honorees. The playgrounds feature bright colors, swings, slides and a brass bell among its features.
The final playground is scheduled to be built in Watertown, and will honor SHES Principal Dawn Hochsprung. That playground is planned to begin September 30, with its formal ribbon cutting to take place October 5.
Kristen Mattera, a resident of Newtown and a member of the fundraiser planning committee, said the wine and beer tasting is meant to be a party.
“It’s a celebration. The 26 playgrounds will be complete, and it will be time to celebrate that accomplishment,” she said.
Steve Lupinacci, chairman of the wine and beer tasting, agrees.
“It’s really a celebration of positivity, of love, of healing, and of the friendships that have been made,” he said. “We’re not doing this because of the tragedy. We’re doing this because this project has been so inspiring for everyone who has been involved.”
The wine and beer tasting will be at the Trumbull Marriott Hotel, 180 Hawley Lane. It will be Friday, October 3, from 6 to 9 pm.
Tickets are $26 in advance, or $30 at the door. The event will feature “probably 21 wine vendors, and ten beer vendors” offering samples, said Mr Lupinacci. Guests will also have food offerings, while music will be playing in the background.
A limited number of VIP tickets — and nearly half of those were already sold when the organizers sat down to speak with The Newtown Bee last week — are being offered for $50. These tickets will allow access to the main event as well as a second room where three Connecticut-based vendors — one each for wine, beer and liquor — will offer samples and talk about their specialties and what makes each offering special.
Funds raised through ticket sales will benefit Where Angels Play Foundation. A percentage of any orders placed through the vendors that evening will also benefit the foundation, as will money raised through the silent auction and raffle.
The event is being hosted by Stratford Professional Firefighters Burn Foundation, of which Mr Lupinacci is also president.
The Sandy Ground Project
The building of 26 playgrounds was originally called The Sandy Ground Project: Where Angels Play. It was spearheaded by the New Jersey Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association (NJFMBA), and connected the two tragedies that share the name Sandy. It was the brainchild of Bill Lavin, a retired fire captain who spent more than a quarter of a century stationed in Elizabeth, N.J.
Being a firefighter — and especially one stationed so close to New York City — Mr Lavin heard from people across the country and around the world after 9/11. Among those reaching out to firefighters was a group of children in Bay St Louis area of Mississippi.
“They reached out to us, to support us,” said Mr Lavin. After Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005, Mr Lavin and other NJFBMA member firefighters returned the favor, rebuilding in an area that “got hit pretty much by a tsunami,” he said.
“We built three playgrounds there to restore the community. It was a great project,” said Mr Lavin.
Flash forward seven years. In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy affected the entire eastern seaboard, with particularly severe damage in New Jersey and New York.
At that time, Mr Lavin was president of NJFMBA. He and other firefighters began responding to the coast, “starting to rebuild. We thought we were getting some feet under us, but then after Sandy Hook, all efforts stalled.
“We started to question what we were doing,” he said.
Within a week, however, a video arrived from Mississippi, “thanking us again for what we did,” he said. The communities of Waveland and Bay St Louis, Miss., had collected Christmas gifts for New Jersey children affected by the storm in an effort to pay it forward to those who had showed such kindness to them in their hour of need. A trailer containing over 1,000 wrapped Christmas toys arrived in New Jersey on December 22. The gifts were distributed by volunteer fire departments throughout the Bay Shore communities in Monmouth County, N.J.
“It was then that I thought about the playgrounds again, how healing they were, and I thought we could make some sense of this,” said Mr Lavin.
“I got the idea,” he said, “to rebuild the community while also honoring the people of Newtown.”
The project — to build 26 playgrounds in the tri-state area, particularly in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy — connects two community tragedies that share the name Sandy.
Initial funding for the project came from the firefighters union, police unions, the New York Port Authority, and a teachers union.
“I ran this idea past a number of organized groups,” said Mr Lavin. “I told them ‘I have this crazy idea… What do you think?’”
They definitely liked the idea.
From there, The Sandy Ground Project began receiving its first donations. Groups that grew out of the recovery efforts as well as longstanding nonprofits stepped up to offer financial assistance, he said. By April 2013, the first playground was built.
The average cost of a Sandy Ground playground is $100,000, according to Mr Lavin. “They go anywhere from $70,000 to $120,000, depending on what has to be done to the area — excavation, adding sand in a beach area, or if rubber surfacing has to be put in” as well as the cost for the playgrounds themselves. Each has been personalized, too.
The playgrounds are mostly paid for with private money, “from the community,” said Mr Lavin. “There has been some corporate money, from companies that heard what we were doing and wanted to support us. But by and large it’s been civic organizations, and private money that pulled together. This project has been cobbled together from a lot of donations.”
Mr Lavin said coverage by newspapers near each playground healped bring attention to and raise interest in the project. Social media interaction and website posts that went when it was time to line up volunteers for each site also helped the project grow.
Something that started as an idea expanded on a grassroots level, said Mr Lavin, until “more people talked about it and it started to expand.
“It became a national news story,” said Mr Lavin, with the story being featured on everything from NBC Evening News and Today to ESPN. “And then we got corporations that were in communities where we were building. Pepperidge Farm in Norwalk sponsored nearly a full playground. The NFL gave a sizable donation that helped with three playgrounds.”
Elementary schools have also offered “great support,” said Mr Lavin. “Lots of them did Pennies For Playgrounds, which was a program we did back when we did the Mississippi playgrounds. It’s a great teaching moment for kids, who can put together their pennies — and nickels and dimes — and collectively support a major recovery effort.
“Most recently,” he said September 15, “we heard from a woman whose grandchildren did a Labor Day lemonade stand in Manasquan, N.J. The kids just wanted to do something, and they ended up sending us a check for $200.”
As the project grew, organizers were able to start planning ahead. Funds raised in one city or town has often been to finish paying for that location’s playground, but then goes toward the next build.
“It’s all been about paying it forward,” said Steve Lupinacci. “It’s all about community support, and backing, and paying it forward for the next community. It’s amazing to see how the dominoes fall into place when one man had one vision.”
Along the way, the building of 26 playgrounds has become The Sandy Ground Project, while Where Angels Play became the name of the 501c3 nonprofit foundation that supports the builds.
Where Angels Play Will Continue
A 27th Sandy Ground Project playground had been talked about, to be built in Newtown. That one, said Kristen Mattera, was going to honor the families as well as first responders.
In recent months, however, Where Angels Play had reportedly heard from enough people who said that they would rather see another playground built elsewhere. Mr Lavin is excited, he said, that the families of those killed on 12/14 were the ones who encouraged Where Angels Play to continue its work.
“As of right now, the feedback we were getting was so much was going on there, we have decided to hold off, at least for now, until it might make more sense for families,” said Mr Lavin.
“The foundation, we feel, is going to continue on,” he added. “The idea came from them: to pay it forward to places across the country that could benefit from a playground. We feel this is going to continue on for some time.”
The October 3 fundraiser will continue that effort. Where Angels Play is hoping to be in Boston by April, said Mr Lavin, where a playground will be built to honor those who were killed or injured in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
Kristen Mattera became involved with The Sandy Ground Project earlier this year, when a 5K road race was created to help raise funds to help pay for the playground for James Mattioli. A “really good friend of the Mattiolis,” Ms Mattera said, she and her family joined the committee for the road race and also helped with the playground built in Milford that honors young James.
Fellow wine tasting committee member Michael Mendoza moved to Newtown in August 2012. He and his wife were still transitioning between their new home and their former home in Island Park, N.J., he said. The former home was lost in Hurricane Sandy, giving him an unusual connection to both events united through The Sandy Ground Project.
He joined The Sandy Ground Project very early. He has participated in most of the playground builds, and has watched a lot of the fundraising efforts. He is looking forward to the final build in Watertown, he said recently, and the continuation of Where Angels Play’s efforts.
Proceeds from that event will benefit the Boston playground effort.
The fundraiser is open to everyone, whether or not they have been part of any of the builds, Mr Mendoza said.
“We would really love to have the community support and participating,” he said. “We hope to see a lot of people come out for this.”
To buy tickets online visit SPFFAfightingburns.org/upcomingevents/angelswinebeertasting.html. For reservations or additional information contact Steve Lupinacci, 203-988-6689; Kristen Mattera, 203-241-5765; or Michael Mendoza, 516-456-5353
Individuals or businesses who would like to donate items to be raffled during the event should contact either of those organizers as well.
Tickets will also be sold during the build of Dawn Hochsprung’s playground at Veterans Park, 570 Nova Scotia Hill Road in Watertown. The build will begin September 30.