PARSIPPANY — Infertility is no longer something that people feel they must discuss behind closed doors. Gone are the days of hushed voices and cover stories; now, hardly a day goes by without another celebrity couple sharing that they have frozen their eggs, are undergoing fertility treatment, or are struggling to conceive. Women who share their stories are celebrated for their openness and their bravery, and are praised for helping to raise awareness about a disease that touches so many lives each and every day. This broader awareness about infertility has in turn led to greater understanding, and shown women who are struggling to conceive that they are not struggling alone. Ferring Pharmaceuticals is located at 100 Interpace Parkway.

PARSIPPANY — Sons of Italy, Lodge 2561 recently donated to The Valerie Fund. Accepting a check from Sons of Italy President Joseph Jannarone is Bella Rocco, Parsippany. The Sons of Italy has been supporting The Valerie Fund for a number of year.

The Valerie Fund’s mission is to provide support for the comprehensive health care of children with cancer and blood disorders.

The Valerie Fund is a not-for-profit organization established in 1976 in memory of nine-year-old Valerie Goldstein by her parents, Ed and Sue.

Families turn to The Valerie Fund because of the unique combination of medical care, counseling, and other services it provides. The Valerie Fund Children’s Centers comprise the largest network of healthcare facilities for children with cancer and blood disorders in New Jersey, and one of the largest in the nation. They host over 25,000 patient visits each year.

The Valerie Fund Walk and JAG Physical Therapy 5K will be held on Saturday, June 10 starting at 8:00 a.m. at Verona Park, corner of Bloomfield Avenue and Lakeside Avenue, Verona.

You can join Bella Rocco at the 5K by clicking here. Bella thankfully is doing well and has been tumor free for five years now.

The MRIs and doctors visits continue but thank god they have remained uneventful, just the way we like it. Her support for The Valerie Fund continues and has become a welcomed tradition with many friends and families that join us year after year.

2017 will be the 9th year that Bella’s Bunch attends this yearly event and hopefully, with your support, Bella’s Bunch will show up with big numbers both in people and in donations. Although the team is named after Bella, and they will never forget all she has gone through, we consider ourselves lucky that it wasn’t worse and we attend every year to pay it forward to all the kids that are currently going through pediatric cancer or a blood disorder.

The walk and run every year for every one of their parents that have had their world turned upside down, knowing that The Valerie Fund will help them with all they have to deal with. Hope you can join Bella’s Bunch on June 10 in support of the kids and families of the Valerie Fund.

Bella has set a goal to raise $7,500 this year for The Valerie Fund.

In addition, at its regular monthly meeting, three new members: Patsy F. Casamassa, lll., John Carmen Gammero, and Richard Fiorentino were sworn in by President Joseph Jannarone, Jr.

Club officers are President is Joe Jannarone Jr.; First Vice President is Louis Amato;
Second Vice President is John Lonero; Treasurer is Bob Iracane; Recording Secretary is Adam Gragnani and Sergeant at Arms is Sean Clark.

The Morris County of the Order of Sons of Italy Lodge 2561 is an affiliated member of the Order of the Sons of Italy In America Association.

The Lodge was founded as a non-profit organization which contributes thousands of dollars to worthwhile local charities and families and awards many scholarships to outstanding men and women. In addition to Valerie Fund, the group supports Parsippany Food Pantry, other local food pantries, Jersey Battered Women’s Service, day care centers and more.

PARSIPPANY — Morris County Deputy Freeholder Director John Cesaro, a Republican candidate for Assembly, says it’s time for real bail reform. He intends to use his experience as a freeholder, municipal prosecutor and municipal public defender to bring common sense to the issue.

“Unfortunately, Trenton sold the voters a bill of goods to get them to vote for bail reform in 2014 when they lead folks to believe the new law would be tough on crime,” John Cesaro said. “My own personal experience proves this to be untrue. Earlier this year, my parents were in a hit and run accident. The police caught the driver who was charged with two counts of assault with a vehicle resulting in bodily injury, driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident.”

“In the past this man would have been taken to the county jail and held on bail,” Cesaro explained. “Not any more, instead he never saw the inside of a jail cell, paid no bail and sat in a police station until his father picked him up, took him home and tucked him into bed while my father laid in a hospital bed for ten days.”

“More recently, in Clifton the police arrested one man four times in 30 hours.” Cesaro described, “According to published news accounts the charges included possession of marijuana in the first arrest, the second arrest was for possession of synthetic marijuana, the third was possession of synthetic cannabinoid and the final arrest in 30 hours was driving while under the influence. Every time this individual was released with a summons.”

“In that Clifton situation, common sense dictated he should have been held after the second arrest, but not under the new bail reform laws,” Cesaro said. “This man was obviously a menace to society and would not have been allowed to leave with a summons in the past. Well intentioned ‘reforms’ should never be allowed to supersede commonsense.”

“Not only does the new bail reform law endanger the public but it is an unnecessary burden to the law-abiding taxpayers,” Cesaro said. “Here in Morris County bail reform has added $750,000 to the county budget, essentially making this law an unfunded mandate that endangers the general public. I will go to Trenton and fight to bring common sense improvements to this ill-conceived bail reform law.”

PARSIPPANY — Award winning author and political journalist Jonathan Alter will present the annual Joseph Gotthelf Holocaust Memorial Lecture at Temple Beth Am in Parsippany on Friday, May 12, at 7:30 p.m.

The May 12 lecture, sponsored by the Joseph Gotthelf Holocaust Memorial Fund, is part of the yearly commemoration of Yom Hashoah, a day set aside to memorialize those lost in the Holocaust. In a lecture titled “The Fragility of Democracy,” Alter will speak about “the threat that present political trends pose to world peace and the future of the Jewish people.” The lecture, during Shabbat services, is free and open to the public.

Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, reporter, columnist and television producer and analyst. He is the author of three New York Times bestsellers: “The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies”(2013), “The Promise: President Obama, Year One” (2010) and “The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (2006), also one of the Times’ “Notable Books” of the year. Since 1996, Alter has been an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing on-air two or three times a week. After 28 years as a columnist and senior editor at Newsweek, where he wrote more than 50 cover stories, Alter is now a twice-monthly columnist for the Daily Beast. He has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New Republic, Esquire, Bloomberg View and other publications.

He is an executive producer of “Alpha House,” a half-hour political comedy created by Garry Trudeau and starring John Goodman that is available for viewing on Amazon.com. He is at work on a full-length biography of former President Jimmy Carter and is producing a documentary about the lives of legendary journalists Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill.

Alter is chairman of the board of the Lukas Prize Project, which provides cash awards for non-fiction authors, and serves on the boards of  The Blue Card, a national Jewish organization assisting Holocaust survivors, DonorsChoose, which allows teachers to post online proposals for classroom materials, the Bone Marrow Foundation, the Historians Advisory Council of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial and the Montclair (NJ) Library Foundation. He is a resident of Montclair.

Celebrating their 51st year, Temple Beth Am is a Reform congregation with a diverse membership living throughout Morris County, including the towns of Parsippany, Boonton, Denville, Lake Hiawatha, Mountain Lakes, Montville, Randolph and Rockaway. We open our doors to adults and youth, singles and couples, Jews-by-birth and Jews-by-choice, and interfaith couples. Led by Rabbi Steven L. Mills and Rabbi/Cantor Inna Serebro-Litvak, Temple Beth Am is an inclusive, warm and welcoming place for personal and communal prayer, solace and comfort, joyous celebration, community service, education and sharing as a vibrant Jewish congregation.