Editor’s note: See p. 32 of the April 1, 2015, print issue of U.S. 1 for the full picture spread.
March 21 was a big night for two area nonprofits that underwrite performances in very different venues. The American Repertory Ballet marked its 30th year with a gala performance and reception at the Crossroads Theater and Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick.
The event honored Rider University’s Westminster College of the Arts and showcased the three branches of the organization: New Jersey’s preeminent professional ballet company; its official school, Princeton Ballet School, one of the largest non-profit dance schools in the country; and ARB’s Access & Enrichment programming, with performances by scholarship recipients from the organization’s signature Dance Power residency in the New Brunswick school district.
At the Hyatt Regency in Princeton, meanwhile, the National Junior Tennis & Learning of Trenton raised funds to further its mission of promoting character and offering education, employment, and nutrition opportunities for young people through tennis.
Don and Eileen Conway were honored along with Johnson & Johnson. NJTL was co-founded by tennis stars Arthur Ashe, Charlie Pasarell, and Sheridan Snyder in 1969. A personal call from Ashe to Don Conway, then executive director of the US Tennis Association, resulted in NJTL being merged with the national governing body. Don is now a managing director of Mercadien. Eileen, a former nurse who worked at a VA hospital during Vietnam, was later a nurse in inner-city Trenton.
