Fun Fridays on Garden Avenue

About four years ago, eight to ten couples from the Garden Avenue area of Chatham Borough started to get together about every six weeks for dinner.

Since then, though, those gatherings have expanded in size and become more frequent. Now, on every Friday throughout the summer, a different family volunteers to host an outdoor party, during which families gather together in the neighborhood.

The group that organizes the events has its very own, formal name: the Garden Court Social Club.

The get-together was hosted this past Friday by Dennis and Nancy Kaiser. Over 50 people watched Maximum Wage, a band made up of some of the group's high schoolers, perform. There was lots of food and there were plenty of ice cold drinks available for people to enjoy.

"Now our email list is up to sixty people," explained Linda Rindos, who originally started the club.

These neighborhood gatherings have inspired more than just Friday meet-ups.

Take Maximum Wage, a band that now performs locally and was featured at last week's township battle of the bands. The group consists of four boys who started out jamming together when they were in seventh grade. They have since created the band, which plays at the Friday events and is currently working on its first album.

The younger children in the club were inspired to start their own newspaper, called The Garden Gazette (a PDF of the paper is at right). The writers consist of children in the neighborhood, all under 11 years old.

Other neighbors enjoy the strong neighborhood bond the group provides.

Steve and Stella Pagano moved here from New York City five years ago. Steve is a retired stock broker who is fighting cancer, and Stella has multiple sclerosis.

The two, who were at the Kaiser home Friday, said they are comforted by the group.

"It's nice to know we have people so close, and we're not alone," said Stella Pagano.

Her husband agrees.

"We used to walk around Hoboken holding hands, but now Stella needs her other hand to walk," Steve Pagano said with a warm smile. "I have never seen anything like it. I will be walking from CVS and a mom will pull over with kids screaming in the back seat and say, 'Steve, you look a little tired, can I give you a lift home?' This is from a person I have never even met before."

Several of the men in the neighborhood volunteer for the Chatham Borough Fire Department, and two of them were enjoying their free time at the party when a fire call came through.

"Sorry, I've got to run!" Don Almgren said as he worked his way carefully and swiftly through a group of children playing on the swings in the back of the yard. He jumped over a bush and into the back door of his house, which is right behind the Kaiser home.

Jack and Diane Conlan were there enjoying the event with their nephew John Conlan.

"I've been a volunteer firefighter in Chatham for over 50 years," says Jack Conlan. "Our family represents our fifth generation here in Chatham."

Diane Conlan added: "We like it so much here that we bought the house across the street when we needed to move. We just didn't want to leave this town." (An article on the Conlans is included in the Garden Gazette issue at right.)

The turnout for the parties varies, but it hit over 100 people at a previous gathering July 9 when some old friends from Colorado and California came back to visit the neighborhood.

The gatherings are not only limited to the summer, however—they continue throughout the year. They include events such as an Easter Egg hunt, adult dine arounds, family movie nights and roller-skating.