Nick DeStefano

The document serves as a transcript of the annual tree lighting ceremony, which featured various community musical performances including a women's club, a high school honors choir, and a high school jazz band. The event also included an appeal for food donations to support the local food pantry and concluded with a community countdown to light the tree.

The event featured the annual Menorah lighting ceremony for the community. Discussions centered on the history of the Menorah, the importance of maintaining visibility and pride during challenging times, and the value of compassion and love as a response to adversity. Guest speakers shared stories emphasizing resilience, the significance of bringing light into darkness, and the responsibility of community members and leaders to foster peace and understanding.

The event, described as the first annual Statewide volunteer training event, involved welcoming remarks and introductions before presentations from a keynote speaker, Judge Glen A. Grant, Acting Administrative Director of the Courts for New Jersey. Judge Grant expressed gratitude for the volunteers' role in promoting public trust, highlighting their contributions across various programs such as the Child Placement Review Board (CPRB), Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), Supervised Visitation Program (SVP), Juvenile Conference Committee (JJC), Court Visitors Assistance (CVA), Court Services Assistance (CSA), Contrary Dispute Resolution (CDR) programs, Intensive Supervised Probation (ISP), and Guardianship Monitoring Program (GMP). The event also featured testimonials from volunteers, including a CASA worker who shared impactful stories regarding children in foster care and adoption cases, and another volunteer who detailed her transition from a long career in telecommunications to Judiciary volunteering.

The session initiated with welcoming remarks from the Bergen Judiciary Trial Court Administrator, Harry Lyn Walwood, acknowledging the first Statewide volunteer program event. Discussions focused heavily on valuing volunteers, detailing the administrator's extensive career path within the court system, including roles in child placement review and management across Bergen and Morris Counties, emphasizing the integral nature of volunteer work. A training coordinator, Jennifer Depo, also spoke, highlighting the diverse volunteer committees, such as Municipal Court mediation, guardianship monitoring, and juvenile conference committees, and thanking volunteers for their continued service, especially post-pandemic. The event incorporated interactive segments asking volunteers about their motivations (e.g., giving back, sense of purpose), the number of active New Jersey Judiciary volunteers (816 active volunteers reported), which county has the most volunteers (Bergen County), and years of service. A short video emphasizing the impact of individual actions, similar to throwing starfish back into the ocean, was shown. Volunteers then shared their 'superpowers' (e.g., non-judgment, listening, bilingual skills) and offered advice for new volunteers, such as being positive, listening, and being kind, with a concluding note on compassion fatigue and available resources.

The event was the New Jersey Courts Law Day Ceremony, which included the administration of the Oath of Allegiance to new citizens of the United States by Administrative Director Judge Glenn Grant. The ceremony celebrated the importance of Law Day since 1958 as a time to appreciate the systems of law that support democracy. The speaker emphasized the privileges and responsibilities of American citizenship, the role of the judicial system in upholding constitutional freedoms such as freedom of speech, due process, and equal education, and the concept that the nation is governed by the rule of law, not by men. The event also featured artistic representations from employees' children reflecting on citizenship.