##VIDEO ID:ffURDRtg5To## e e e e hello and thank you for coming to our very special holiday lunch in um so to get started I'd like to have everybody stand and do the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al to the flag the States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all please remain standing for Reverend murky to come up and do the we have a we have a yes we have a very special guest today good morning everybody I probably don't even need need this would you pray with me oh God in heaven we thank you for bringing us together today we thank you for the work of the chamber and of all the businesses and our wonderful City Lord we just pray that you would bless them not only in this holiday season but throughout the year as this morning as this afternoon Lord we get to hear the choir singing uh the sounds of this season we thank you for the gift of music and how it stirs our hearts and now we ask you would bless the food all the hands that have prepared it and are serving it and that we would go out from here being blessed because of our time with you and our time together it's in Christ's name we pray amen amen thank you very much you may be seated is this on Jerry cuz it was one it was one and then it turned off okay at this time I'd like to acknowledge the dignitaries that are in the room mayor Ben romic business administrator Joe cchi and the numerous uh representatives from his team at City Hall milville school board members Debbie Malone and Michael Bey mville superintendent of schools Matthew mazone and his wonderful group of Administrators and Jim pone chief administrative officer at Rowan College of South Jersey and did I miss anybody okay we did good then we want to thank our grow enlisted corporate Partners our diamond sponsors Ark International Durand milville Savings Bank Ocean First Bank and our gold sponsors mints insurance and Allen Associates our silver members inspir Health Network The Authority city of milville South Jersey Gas and New Jersey Motorsports Park and Christy funeral home and of course a huge thumbs up to the administration and staff here in njmp for all that they do for our our organization and community so I'm going to talk really loud can everybody hear me in the back okay well and we want to give a special thanks to today's lunch and host first Andy Miller of reeds and milon Melvin sorry Insurance in real estate Andy would you like to say a few words like to extend a warm and safe holiday season to everybody here have a great New Year and on PowerBack of the N njm's green flag Community or committee sorry I'll try to talk without the microphone also good afternoon and Merry Christmas everyone I was going to introduce my special guest today Mr Mark ruga who's my colleague at Northeast pre-cast and trout National the reserve a little golf course we're building out on Ma Landing Road but he's tied up with the rain and he said he might might be able to make it but one thing we need to know is that you know they the entire family the entire ruga family was amazingly generous to the chamber for our golf tournament in October you know we we made a lot of good money and although Mark's not here to receive a round of applause but let's let's give the the ruga family a round of applause thank you let me get through this quickly on behalf of Lee bran and RJ Valentine our managing owners here at the park and our green flag children's charity we most pleased to Host this co-host this annual Christmas luncheon with the wonderful magical singers and choir providing the holiday Spirits going to be great just a quick update this is our 17th annual Coast for kids program just last week we delivered 576 brand new winter coats to children in 17 elementary schools across the county and we also provided $115,000 in checks to those same schools for the purpose of purchasing digital equipment supplies for those needy children we continue to provide financial support to local youth groups and local church groups we wish to extend our utmost gratitude to our major and long-term supporting partners and that's Atlantic City Electric South Jersey Gas Thunderbolt Credit Union 47 Motorsports New Jersey Motorsports Park owners and drivers club members from across the Metropolitan region if you have a little bit of interest in perhaps supporting our mission I'd be most happy to give you some information following the luncheon but as Andy said have a great and safe holiday and God bless we thank you again to Andy and Don for doing that at this time I'd like to introduce Jerry cavella our executive director for a few announcements great thank you col uh wow what a great turnout today so you know I always ask the same question is this the first who's here for the first time who has never witnessed these spectacular students from milville high school the magicals and also the chamber uh choir will be performing today is this a first for anyone you are in store my friends it's going to be a great day uh when the hair start raising on the back of your neck and you're feeling really emotional as you're listening to these kids um get used to it because we've all been through that process they are amazing uh what I would like to do today a little different presentation I would like to introduce all our board members are here who are here and ask you to come to the front of the room uh we do have a special presentation in mind uh president uh Colleen aala please come to the front vice president Rob Connor secretary treasurer Carol muso Gary Galloway I know our outgoing secretary treasurer Chuck wble our new member starting January 1st Ricky Edwards from Melville Savings Bank the Reverend Jonathan murky William Lanning Mr fback please join us again mayor uh Ben uh Ben Benjamin romic mid School Board member Debbie Malone oh uh honorary member Don dagel and I don't believe Susan Hoffman is here today she had the doctor's appointment so what we would like to do is acknowledge first a round of applause for our board members who are here these are the folks behind all the good things that are occurring uh within the milville Chamber of Commerce they are committed totally committed to the process and we have done it's it's been a privilege to work with them uh for the past few years they have done amazing work so hopefully you will all acknowledge them and the good work they do uh they are local business people so make sure you're aware of the businesses that they represent and please patronize their their businesses as much as you can uh today marks the final meeting of our president Kina yala her twoyear term ends at the end of this month so it's been a crazy ride the last couple years it has so uh without going into all the details some health issues along the way uh um a lot of new events we triggered uh she has been the impetus behind the growth in our pride in mville event each year two thumbs up for your commitment specifically to that project uh the golf tournament that was under your term so thank you so much for your support in making that happen what we would like to do is kind of pass the gavel but most importantly it's not a G from our incoming president to you and gosh I wish I were holding my phone but if someone has a phone take a picture of this would you please Mr superintendent thank you for that oh one more time thank you great so uh on behalf of the board thank you again for everything that you have done you're still going to remain with the board but not in the president's position Mr Connor is assuming that position for the next two years uh we're going to have some fun so uh again a round of applause for our board members and all the good things they did yes I just want to say behind every good leader there's a great team and obviously you can see how I think it works now okay and obviously you can see how great the team is that we have on the board um so I just want to say to rob that good luck I'm sure that you're going to do an awesome job you have young energized board so good luck thanks col uh just want to say a few words um her leadership this last two years is just been an awe to watch she's ran this aard with uh professionalism and I'm just in in all what she's done in the last two years and accomplished especially the events we've done that Jerry mentioned so big shoes to fill but uh hopefully you'll help me along the way so thank you thanks everybody thank you again so normally this is where I tell you all the future events that are coming along I'm going to tell you go to the cham website and see all that information I can tell you that the January Elion is going to be really intriguing I'll leave it at that because that'll force you to go to the website and see what I'm talking about but it's a topic that I think you would all be interested in because it has to do with what you put in your pocket and maybe some changes that are occurring with that kind of stuff uh so uh make sure you mark that on your calendar that's January 8th uh coming up in the spring we also will have the mayor making his state of the city address uh a reminder to you good mayor with you are on the schedule so that will be coming up uh within the next couple months um with that I would like to invite Reverend Jonathan murky to present this month's outstanding citizens award this year we have chosen to recognize not just individuals but uh but businesses and Community um organizations that make a difference so today it's the privilege of the Chamber of Commerce to recognize the staff and Ministry of New Life World Outreach Church Senior Pastor Richard F Meyers who has been there for 38 years um is the the leader along with associate pastor Matt narowski uh staff pastors uh John Parker and Tito zamat the four of them also serve as police chaplain and have for the last decade and they're a blessing music Pastor Steve Burton and then also uh Ron McDonald Tony Atkins Bill lman and Frank Reeves serve on the Pastoral staff a large staff but you'll see why uh locally Pastor Myers and Pastor narowski served in the pit of the ground zero as Chaplin for four and three months respectively four of the staff members as I mentioned Ser currently serve as milville police chaplain they have hosted two tons and raised $100,000 for Hurricane Relief in New Orleans and Puerto Rico and with two tractor trailers of supplies to New Orleans and two containers to Puerto Rico new life has been a business entrepreneur one of the examples is their Vision Graphics a clip art service for businesses and churches uh they also have a food pantry for the needy and give monthly financial support to the Hope Center at Trinity Church and spirit and Truth Ministries in vinand overseas or around the world in conjunction with abundant Ministries in Ohio under the direction of Dr Mike panjo they have planted and or oversee over 2,000 churches in 69 Nations they financially supported overseers in Africa several Nations South America Ecuador the Caribbean Japan the Philippines Europe Middle East India and Israel they've drilled wells in Six Nations they operate three orphanages in various countries and support five elementary schools in various countries including 297 tar tumara Indian children in the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico in 2023 they co-built a leper Hospital in tanali India with abundant Ministries which houses 40 lepers and their doctors see 60 to 75 patients per day the hospital is fully funded with no debt and in 24 they opened a fully operation operational surgical center next to the hospital to take care of the needs of the lepers and again that is fully funded they operate 49 Bible colle in various countries in the world in addition to that they purchased motorbikes Autos they've built churches and schools and are currently building a community center in milville for the use of the local organizations including our Police Athletic League and other local nonprofits you can see they have a lot going on and their name is a well stated New Life World Outreach no doubt Pastor Richard Meers and his staff are worthy of this recognition for being true Neighbors in in milville and around the world and so I'd like to invite them to come up and be recognized if the Pastoral staff would come at this time this is a fake good okay okay if you'd all open your Bibles too it's it's an honor that we thank you for this uh this honor today obviously one person never does something like this it took our entire team we have quite a few uh members and overseers supervisors around the world and and some of them live in really tough conditions and it's because of the faithfulness of this team along with the others that couldn't make it today our staff at the church and all of those that participate in reaching the world we thank you for this great honor thank you so much thank you Reverend for all the things you do for our community um just just a bit of a side note to this month's recognition is that spiritual season and we want to make sure that we recognize our spiritual leaders in the community and hopefully every holiday luncheon we will continue to do that we're hoping to create a new tradition but they are truly leaders within our community they have a positive impact they volunteer they do everything that qualifies them as outstanding citizens so again you're doing amazing work what a team you have the messaging out in the community is positive it's great we need to acknowledge all those good folks all the time so thank you again for all you do we will take just a couple minutes for you to get your next course and in 11 minutes we will bring out the magical and the Chamber choir so enjoy your lunch at mince Insurance we're proud to have been serving our customers for nearly 80 years offering 30 different Insurance products for your auto home and Business and to help ensure that you're getting the best rates possible we give you up to three quotes for every policy so you can choose what's right for you at Mintz we're part of the community local Representatives supporting EV and proud of it it's part of who we are mince Insurance call today and find out how we can help you save on insurance or visit us at mince insurance.com at mince Insurance we're proud to have been serving our customers for nearly 80 years offering 30 different Insurance products for your auto home and Business and to help ensure that you're getting the best rates possible we give you up to three quotes for every policy so you can choose what's right for you at minz we're part of the community local Representatives supporting events and proud of it it's part of who we are mince Insurance call today and find out how we can help you save on insurance or visit us at mince insurance.com we're all looking for God all the signs point to there is really a god we try to find him in all kinds of ways in all kinds of places and through all kinds of things but there's only one way to find him that's by personal experience with him come visit us this Sunday we can introduce you to him New Life Church milville New Jersey my sonla eyes you each true is e e did saw son that's just want to say hi that's right e at mince Insurance we're proud to have been serving our customers for nearly 80 years offering 30 different Insurance products for your auto home and Business and to help ensure that you're getting the best rates possible we give you up to three quotes for every policy so you can choose what's right for you at mints we're part of the community local Representatives supporting events and proud of it it's part of who we are mince Insurance call today and find out how we can help you you save on insurance or visit us at mince insurance.com we're all looking for God all the signs point to there is really a god we try to find him in all kinds of ways in all kinds of places and through all kinds of things but there's only one way to find him that's by personal experience with him come visit us this Sunday we can introduce you to him New Life Church milville New Jersey tried always theide sorry don't know what people l br as yeah e know after complain about 125,000 we are ready to uh bring on today's performers and I would like to introduce mville superintendent of schools um Matt do your thing beautiful good afternoon everyone so before we get started I spoke last um last month to talk about being in a partnership and I do want to recognize Don and the green flag committee so you spoke about donating those cods and we're impacted our students are impacted by your generosity so thank you so much uh for that what you do for our school district so thank you once again let's put our hands together for Don the the other piece so uh one of our chaplain you heard that we had chaplain in the schools and I do want to recognize one of our chaplain that was up here uh being recognized and that is John Parker so John where are you at if you could just stand and be recognized I want to tell a story about so we had a tragedy at the high school we had a staff member that passed away suddenly we weren't aware we get a quick phone call from the the family saying this and now you have a staff that need to find out and you say in our situation we don't deal with that every day I talk about curriculum instruction and so forth so how do you handle that and we're just fortunate to have Partnerships here chaplain like John he was in the high school when that occurred and he was in there meeting along with our principal Jamie Sutton but John was able to pray with our staff so when you talk about I I'm constantly talking about the strong faith that's in milville and that was one uh one observance that I had one one defining moment for us so John thank you for what you do every single day and thank you to all of our chap so today I'm going to be short here I was so long last month uh but what I'm going to talk about right now is we have a special guest we have our students and we talked about the Career Technical education programs that we offer at the high school and I just touched the surface on the Performing Arts the wonderful things we have the the returning State Champs with our band and so forth but today you're going to hear from our choir you're going to hear about those magicals and uh just like Jerry said there's some people here that have not heard it but I'm going to say when if you feel inclined to come up here and sing with them go for it I know our assistant superintendent Stephanie doose will be up here singing with them isn't that right Stephanie so also and I say apparently I am yes you are so I did recognize Jamie Sutton our school principal who's able to put this Vision into play and one of those other champions for our Performing Arts is our supervisor I would like to call up here at this time and that's Miss Margaret kefir put our hands together for Margaret good afternoon everyone I have the honor and privilege of being the K through2 supervisor of fine and Performing Arts before we start I just want to give um some shout outs to our F and Performing Arts department for the 13th year in the row we have been named the um best community of music so milville for the 13th year in a row we were named best community of music so um that's exciting for us and that starts in kindergarten all the way through 12th grade um today you're going to see our matrial and chamber choir we have five levels of vocal um classes at the high school um we also have um close to 30 fine and Performing Arts courses just at the high school including dance painting and recently um we had three of our students win the national Congressional awards for art and their art is in Congress we had first place second place and honorable mention so it's not just about our music it's our Fine Arts so I wanted to take just a second to recognize um that and we are also excited find and Performing Arts K through 12 we have 15 events um in the month of December today um today the this group will be at the mall at 4:00 also performing and then tomorrow evening they have a concert at the high school at 6 o' and then next Tuesday they have another concert at the high school at 6:00 along with all the concerts from our elementary schools and our um middle school so without further Ado I'd like to introduce um Mr Matt Adams and you'll also be hearing from Miss Katherine Pepe who is our um newly uh um I guess she was hired this year and she's doing a fantastic job so we're going to have our chamber choir come out and I'll turn it over to Mr Adams can we switch colors the sow a one open fingle Belling jingle jingle J jingle jingle jingle bell jingle jing Jingle Jingle Jingle Bell jingle jing Jingle Bell jingle bell jingle the is riding one one horse one one one open Sligh jingle bells jingle bells jingle all jingle bell jingle bell jingle Jing good morning thank you very much for having us I want to thank uh Jerry for and and the Chamber for having us here today this is a great event and we're always excited to be here to entertain you guys uh before uh we continue I'd like to do uh my thank you to uh Dr Matt Mazon and the board and our awesome Administration uh Miss Jamie Sutton our building principal our assistant superintendent Miss Stephanie D Ro and our supervisor Miss Margaret kefir uh without their support we wouldn't be able to do uh the amazing things we get to do and it wouldn't be uh a dream to work in the mville uh education system so thank you guys for that opportunity thank you the group you're hearing is our chamber choir this is our Elite curricular choir they meet every other day for the uh entirety of the school year they do three concerts a year they do our holiday concert which will be next Tuesday um the 17th at 6 p.m. in at the high school auditorium they do a concert on March 17th and they do a Pops concert in May so we'd like to see you guys there for that concert um this year I wanted to uh program a concert that featured some classic Christmas carols holiday carols that had a modern arrangement in modern setting so you just heard classic Jingle Bells twist you're going to hear uh it's beginning to look like Christmas with a bit of a Twist and one of my favorite carols a saing with a bit of a Twist so without further Ado the milville chamber CL very yeah that works that works and then U and then and then um go back one yeah perfect right here we go it's to a aot like Christmas Chistmas Christmas again in love and joy to you here we come oh here we come oh here we come here we come the of here we come so to be SE and Jo to you and to you our to and God bless you and send you a happy so we're having a slight Tech my okay this is the great opportunity for me to say if you would like to hear AWA sailing then you're going to then you're going to come to the concert on Tuesday the 17th and we will have a live accompanist for that piece so I apologize for the technical difficulty we're going to keep it moving uh we're going to invite our magical our magal is our after school choir um they it's an audition group they audition in September and it's a rigorous audition with sight singing and a prepared piece and um they do the most performances out of all the groups so we're going to do some classic Christmas carols including uh Silent Night Park the herald angel sing carol of the belts so if anybody would like to come and sing with us now would be the opportunity to come sing the melody Silent Night come on I'm 10 any night all is all is T and sleep sleeping night oh holy night she glor from heaven hallelu christor is Christ theor is is s the Angels Sing glory to the new kingace Andy God and Sile joyful Nations R join the trium of the with Angelic host Proclaim Christ is born in bethle angels s GL King Christ offspring of the Virgin w H in flesh the god SE H in De to Jesus the angels singing Glory To The newn King in was it August uh we had the opportunity to interview for um a second choir director and we interviewed Miss Katherine Pepe and she wowed Us in her audition and the lesson that she provided uh for the panel and we couldn't wait to Door uh to work with our kids she um received her B in music education from R University and then went on to receive her Masters in vocal pedagogy from uh Westminster choir college so it's been an absolute um dream to work with Katherine we were actually good friends in college and we always talked about collaborating together so to have her on our staff has been amazing so um Miss Katherine Pepe is going to come up and direct um the magicals so here we go would you like to say some words all right hello thank you so much for your warm welcome and thank you Matt um like you said my name is Katherine Pepe and I'm so thankful to be here uh I've only obviously been working since September of this past year and I'm so happy Overjoyed there's no words to describe how many opportunities are at mville high school for every content area but especially our performing art so I just want to say thank you than you to the administration thank you to Mr Adams thank you to my colleagues um for allowing us to you know make music and share it with the community and thank you for the community for receiving it so I would love to give you a round of applause if that's okay thank this next selection is called f f fom it's by Audrey Snider a woman composer um and we hope you enjoy here's a g 5 5 sing our wind mayow together together christell are ring ding ding we're going to do a quick transition but we wanted to recognize some of our students um so every year there are auditions for All State Choir which is a very prestigious choir and we had um three of our students make that so if you are in all state could you just raise your hand All State four students all state so we have um and then we had all South Jersey if you want to raise your hand if you made all South Jersey so really exciting we also had some ninth graders make all South Jersey so that's really exciting to us um I am a milville graduate I won't say what year um but uh Matt has been using the word dream and my dream was to come back and have Jean tui's job if you know Jean tubertini and now I have it so um milville is about making dreams come true that's what we do and um just wanted to acknowledge also that um raise your hand if you were in the fall play raise your hand if you were in the spring musical are going to be in the spring musical 42nd Street coming up okay raise your hand if you're in the marching band our students are very very busy um they're about to to do my favorite Christmas number um we do it every year because it is a request um some of you may recognize it from years past if you feel like dancing or singing we welcome that um and wherever Mr Adams right here okay thank you so uh you probably know what's coming um we're going to sing The 12 Days of Christmas very classic um Carol and if you would like to sing along with us um you're welcome to give it a try christas to me two turts and a pdge in a tree on the on theth day Christmas the 11 day Christ I had a little Dr I made it out of clay and when it's dry and ready oh Dr I shall play Oh Dr 12 Day of Christmas looking to dancing they were dancing for me they were milk for I Christmas in I Christmas down in chist going to De the halls and do the things we never in the bige Partridge in the bige Partridge in the big tree in the big tree we're going to leave you with that one once again thank you so much for having us here we um we wish you a great holiday and a merry Christmas and we hope to see you on the 17th thank you so much my head rest wow that was fantastic wasn't it so we want to thank the wonderful students from milville public schools for that awesome little uh musical for us we want to congratulate Reverend and Mrs Myers and all the pastors associated with the new life World Outreach so everybody you notice there's a petus on your table so before we give them away I'm just going to tell you a little bit of history about them this TR this tradition of having poin setus at our holiday luncheon was started more than 20 years ago by George Mitchell while George is no longer with us to share inion we are honored to continue this tradition in his memory so at the table um the oldest we want to say the wiser person um can take that Penta home off on your table so you guys can do that amongst yourselves and then I'm going to draw two names for two free lunches and then the second one is going to Denise Jackson ironically they're sitting right at the same table did you guys plan that we want everybody for coming to this very special lunch in um and have a happy and safe holidays enjoy thank you you are very welcome thank you Merry Christmas this has been a QBC television production in association with our partners and sponsors QBC broadcasts on Comcast cable channel 22 and live streams its programming on Facebook and YouTube All Rights Reserved by Quinn media and QBC programming that serves the South Jersey Market e e