FEEL GOOD STUFF: Holiday Season, Steven Levine (WindMill) Christmas & Birthday Party at VFW Asbury Park with Jersey Shore Dream Center.  December 12, 2016   by Calvin Schwartz

A long title for this article.  Yesterday afternoon, I attended this special party for a few hundred people in Asbury Park at the holiday decorated VFW Hall. My party assignment for the dinner was helping to wrap a few hundred forks and knives in a napkin.  Now, I feel compelled to say a few words about the caring and compassion of the birthday boy, Steven Levine, who turned a robust energetic 65 years old on Sunday.

Steven Levine, of the iconic WindMill Restaurants along the Jersey Shore has always found ways to help, feed and make a lot of people feel good. I’ve seen him bring his WindMill Restaurants on wheels to the Jersey Shore Dream Center, working with a devoted Pastor Isaac Friedel, to feed needy people around holiday time. Sunday was no exception but even with a larger undertaking.  He’s simply a good soul with a long history of good deeds, much of which goes unnoticed or unwritten about. It’s called modesty. Many don’t know (I’m a journalist, so I do) that he even fed a lot of people after Hurricane Sandy when all shore business evaporated or was destroyed.

Sunday’s event was that 65^th Birthday Party, a Christmas Party for the local NJ Shore communities served by the Jersey Shore Dream Center, coupled with their Toy Shoppe giveaway of toys for needy kids. The toy drive was also supported by Asbury Park police. I watched a few hundred people enjoy a full dinner, dessert, music by the kids from Lakeland Music, toys and a raffle. Steven’s daughter Amy, proprietor of ‘Taste the Cakes,’ baked the six-foot birthday cake.

Some of my seasonal thoughts at this Christmas time of year; notions of sugar plums dancing; a Currier and Ives painting of a snow covered roof and smoky chimney; Lionel locomotives whistling, Kris Kringle singing a Dutch Christmas song while a young Natalie Wood listens in the movie ‘Miracle on 34^th Street;’ Alastair Sim, the only movie Scrooge I ever watched, telling the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, that he’s too old to change; listening to Pavarotti sing ‘Adeste Fideles,’ or seeing Ralphie’s pure joy on getting that toy rifle Christmas morning. It’s also very special for me to take a few deep inhalations and see people absorbed in the spirit of the season of giving. So Steven Levine, thanks for the memories and the joy you spread.

For more info:  http://jerseyshoredreamcenter.org/

And: http://www.windmillhotdogs.com/home