We wanted to share with you the Thank You note we got from Ronnie & Art.  If you don’t remember their story check out our blogs Making a Difference Part 1 and Making a Difference Part 2.

Our fun loving chickies have arrived to frolic and play with little girls and boy for the next 6 days!  We still have opening if you’d like to join in the fun!  Appointments are 11am-6pm March 1st-6th (Sorry, Sunday is sold out).  Call the studio 371-9735 or drop us an e-mail at photography35@aol.com

Ronnie, her husband and her son started tearing everything out from inside the house.  It was all ruined.  Her husband and son decided to take the washer and dryer to a salvage place to see if they could sell it for parts.  It wouldn’t be much, but at this point something was better than nothing.  The neighbors across the street heard what they were doing and asked if they would take their washer and dryer too.  Heading to the salvage place, they were pulled over by a cop who asks what they are doing.  They explain the situation and the cop replies “yeah right, you must have a lot of laundry to do with 2 washers and dryers.” Ronnie’s husband said, “hear I’ll call my neighbors, you can talk to them.”  The cops response, “I ain’t got time for that, now turn around and take them back to where you found them.”  And proceeds to write them a ticket.  After following them back to there house on Weber Avenue, the neighbor comes out and yells at the cop who says, “there is nothing I can do, the ticket is already written.”  A few weeks later they’d go to court and the judge would drop the case.

Then a couple days after that at dusk, Ronnie’s family got a storage mall for what little they could salvage.  Once they started to unload they had a feeling the really small one just wasn’t enough space. So her daughter and son-in law went to go look at a bigger unit they had available.  By this time it was dark.  The storage mall’s walkway was not lit and the girl from the storage mall failed to warn them that there was a step up.  Her son-in-law fell and hurt his leg, needing to be taken to the hospital by ambulance.  The storage mall told Ronnie and her family – get out, you are evicted.  So they packed up their stuff back up and left.  Ronnie’s son-in-law is still in physical therapy.

Ronnie’s saga has not ended.  It has been over 3 months.  They had $24K in flood insurance, because that was all they could afford. Since they had gotten FEMA assistance of $5,000 back in 92′ to repair, they are not eligible for money from FEMA.  They could get rent assistance, but they have no furniture, no cloths, nothing – they wouldn’t know where to start.  So they’ll stay at their daughter’s for the time being.

There have been benefits by Bon Jovi, Bruce, etc…but they haven’t seen the money.  The federal goverment… well enough said.  They aren’t looking for a hand out, just some help.  They keep talking about a federal buy out of the homes since almost of all Weber Ave. homes were destroyed.  But everyone here is hearing 18-36 months before that will happen.  And if you do complete any work on your house to secure it or try to save it, the amount of money you invest will be subtracted from your buy out amount.

For now, the 4 of them live with their daughter in her 3 bedroom/2 bath home about 30 minutes from Sayreville.  Some morning, Ronnie wakes up, stares out the window and cries.  This just can’t be happening.  We brought a little joy and a lot of tears to her as we handed the gift cards to Bed, Bath and Beyond, Kohl’s and Target.  It warms her heart to meet so many generous people who don’t even know them, but are willing to help.

So for everyone who donated, Ronnie says a huge “Thank You” and wishes she could do something for each and ever one of you.

{The last 2 pictures are of a few of their neighbors homes on Weber Avenue}

With the holiday’s quickly approaching a lot of photographs will be taken by you, Uncle Bob & your kids.  All great memories of time together with your family.

Holiday memories are some of the very best for me.  When I was a kid, Santa was a tricky guy.  Gifts would be hidden in the weirdest of places, so that after everything was open and I was happy, but still missing the one gift I really wanted -then,  there would magicly appear a present from Santa in another part of the house.  Hence the drum set below…

But many of today memories keep getting lost.  People are no longer printing images.  And in today’s crazy busy world, people put stuff off until later and sometime later is too late.  We’ve heard countless stories lately of a hard drive crashing and the pictures from this year’s vacation – GONE.  Or an external hard drive that has the families last three years of pictures on it has stopped working.  The person this is happening to is crying, begging for someone to find a way to get their memories back.

This is the main reason I preach to everyone, please print your images.  A print is there.  You can see it, feel it, smell it (not really sure why you’d smell it, but I needed 3).  Can it get destroyed,? The answer is yes.  Anything can be destroyed.  But there is a much higher percentage of it lasting longer, than a digital file on your computer that you can not hold in your hand.  Or that CD/DVD that your grandkids will find in the attic one day and ask, “what is this?”.

Many people today are doing their own family photos, or having Suzie Q photographer from across the street take them because the price is right and she’ll give me the digital files and I can print whatever I want.  Go up two paragraphs and read the last 2 sentences.  Suzie Q photographer is actually doing you a dis-service.  She is not storing your precious memories, that’s not making her money.  She is doing what we call “shoot and burn”.  Once the burn part happens, she trashes your precious images.

This is where we’ve got your back!  Yes, we are more expensive than free or all the images on a disk for $100.  And we do not give you a file to make your own prints, we get them printed for you.  Why – because as we discussed earlier – your busy and in many cases may never get around to print those images.  It’s called customer service and quality control.

When you use Suzie Q, you’ll most likely use an online company to make your own prints.  And when your prints come back in the mail from that online company and look awful, you’ll have to get on the phone or computer for 30 minutes or more to straighten out whatever happened.  When you use us – you just swing by and pick-up your beautiful finished prints, it takes less than 5 minutes.  And remember how precious time is these days.

Here is the other thing about using a real studio and not just someone who puts “photography” at the end of their name.  Part of the service is backing your images up.  Storing them for you.  So if something were to happen, like a hurricane, flood or fire and the prints were destroyed, you just call us and we reprint the images for you.  We are constantly keeping up with technology and spinning all of our hard drives.  So when a technology like “zip disks” disappears, we have already moved the information to the newest type of storage device.

And we are not against giving you digital files, we just aren’t giving you the files to print, printing is what we do.  All of our clients who do custom or mini session always get share files (digital files for your social media & your phone) so that you can show off your kids or your family photos to friends and family when you are out at dinner or an event.  But, we also give you prints.  The thing you can see, feel and smell.

Melody is an amazing woman.  Her story is not unlike stories you’ll her from many other women in bad relationships.  What makes her special is that she never gave up.

She found herself in a bad relationship, with a newborn daughter and unable to go back to work just yet.   Melody made the very brave decision that her and her child were the most important thing and that no matter what -  she was going to get out of the situation she was in.  So with only the cloths on her back, Melody & her daughter left to find a new direction in life.  One of CHS’s case workers helped Melody find a safe place for her and her daughter stay and gave her a voucher for the thrift shop to get new cloths and a new beginning.

The thrift shop gave Melody a chance to start over.  She was able to get necessary things for her daughter like a crib, cloths and toys.  She was able to get things she needs as well.  And today, Melody is a big supporter of the thrift shop.  She shops there as well as donates her gently used items to help the next person who might be in a similar situation.

This picture was taken a few weeks ago.  Melody daughter is almost 2.  She has a good job, is attending classes at Santa Fe and has created a loving home for her and her daughter.  Way to go Melody!
You can help other people in Melody situation just by simply donating to the thrift shop.  The thrift store is always looking for furniture, house hold goods, and gently used cloths that they can resell to help fund programs or donate to people in need. Last year the thrift shop was able to help 289 families to get back on their feet.  So next time you remodel, buy new furniture or are down sizing – please donate to your items to CHS’s thrift store. You never know who you’ll be helping.