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For high school, a high-powered act

Jon Bon Jovi performs for thrilled students to help out a free clinic

Friday, December 20, 2002

BY TOM FEENEY
Star-Ledger Staff

The senior officers of the Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School Spanish Honor Society decided when they met in August that they could make a splash during their final year by raising a bunch of money for a worthy community organization.

Immediately, they thought of the Parker Family Health Center, a free clinic in neighboring Red Bank where a majority of the patients are Latino. And immediately they thought of rock star Jon Bon Jovi, a local guy and a major benefactor of the clinic.

And so it was decided at that August meeting of the society's three senior officers that they would write to Bon Jovi and ask him to perform a benefit concert in their high school auditorium.

"We wanted to do something big, something that would have an impact on the school and the community," society president Lauren Pappa recalled yesterday.

"Then reality set in and we thought, 'Would a rock icon really come to our school?'"

Well, as a matter of fact ....

Bon Jovi -- back in Monmouth County straight from the Australian leg of an international tour -- spent an hour yesterday afternoon rocking the student body in the same 750-seat auditorium where the school band played its holiday concert last night.

And the director of the Parker clinic walked home with a check for $36,500.

As for making a splash, the three officers of the Spanish Honor Society -- Pappa, Vice President Laura Amann and Treasurer Chris Harris -- were greeted like rock stars themselves when they were introduced on stage before the show.

"I thought it was a joke when I first heard he was coming here," said Annie Flook, 15, a sophomore from Rumson who had last been entertained in the school auditorium by a student production of "Sleepy Hollow."

"I didn't believe it until I saw him up there," said her friend, Victoria Kingscott, 15, also a sophomore.

Tickets to the show were sold for $35 apiece. They were offered to Rumson-Fair Haven students first, then faculty, then parents. All 750 seat were sold. The vast majority were filled by students.

The 17-member Honor Society raised additional money by selling T-shirts and ads in a program book and by collecting other donations.

"This is as close to hands-on as you can get," said Eugene Cheslock, the doctor who founded and directs the clinic. "Whatever you raise here stays right in the area."

The clinic was opened two years ago in a trailer in Red Bank to provide health care to people without insurance. More than 100 doctors, nurses, dentists and other medical professionals volunteer their time.

To date, more than 5,000 people have visited the trailer. Cheslock said most of them are employed either as household help or in small businesses whose owners can't afford to provide insurance.

"We're seeing the problems with malpractice insurance reflected in increasing numbers of uninsured people," Cheslock said. "It's now reaching into the middle class."

Next year, the clinic will move into a building in Red Bank big enough to accommodate between 10,000 and 12,000 visits a year, Cheslock said.

Cheslock told the students yesterday that Bon Jovi and his wife, Dorothea, have been "Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus" for the Parker clinic. All of the money to buy the land and build the new facility was raised at a gala the Bon Jovis hosted at their home in Middletown last year.

When ground was broken on the new building, local newspapers carried a photograph of Jon Bon Jovi turning over a shovelful of dirt. The students remembered seeing that photograph. It inspired them to contact him about their fundraising idea.

Harris, the treasurer of the Spanish Honor Society, was assigned the task of writing the letter. Not long after they sent it, Dorothea Bon Jovi called Harris' house to say that Jon would be happy to play a benefit concert at Rumson- Fair Haven.

Harris was in school, but his mom took the message. She knew the news was too big to wait for the end of the school day, Harris said, so she drove to the high school and had her son and the other officers of the Spanish Honor Society called down to the principal's office.

"We were pretty excited when we heard," said Harris, who will go to the University of Notre Dame next fall with plans to major in finance.

Bon Jovi, who has been back from Australia for only three days, sang and played an amplified acoustic guitar through 10 songs during his appearance. The songs included some of his best-known hits, a few numbers from his new CD, "Bounce," and a rendition of the Elvis Presley song "That's All Right, Mama." He was backed by a five-piece band. Only one of the musicians -- keyboard player Dave Hinkley -- was a member of his regular group.

"We're here to make a difference," Bon Jovi said after being introduced to the student body as a "hometown hero and international rock star."

Bon Jovi said in an interview after his show that he receives many requests from people like the Spanish Honor Society officers seeking help for worthwhile causes.

"It's difficult to choose," he said. "I try to pick things that will have broad impact like this. Thirty percent of Americans don't have health insurance. There's an astronomical need for places like this."