Limo Service in Morristown, IN

Morristown, NJ – Mental health is important at every stage of life. To provide support for Morristown High School students, staff and families, the Morris Educational Foundation (MEF), a non-profit organization enhancing excellence in education in the Morris School District for over 30 years, recently spearheaded a Mental Health Training Project.

Thanks to a $21,000 grant from the Lauren & Emily Failla Foundation (LEFF), all Morristown High School (MHS) staff gathered to receive a full day of training led by facilitators from the Mental Health Association in New Jersey, Inc. During these interactive, small-group sessions, staff learned how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental health challenges among children and adolescents. Later that evening, parents and community members attended a parent education program at MHS covering an abbreviated version of the staff’s training. Fantastic conversations between facilitators and attendees revolved around how to support students.

"The Mental Health Training was one of the most helpful professional development opportunities in my 35 years as an educator,” said Mark Manning, Principal of Morristown High School. “The trainers were experienced, knowledgeable, and compassionate in their presentations and in the activities in which we engaged. I feel that the training helped to validate much of what we as educators do naturally with students who are struggling and provided us with resources and strategies to respond in situations unfamiliar to educators. The feedback we received from staff was overwhelmingly positive. Our thanks to MEF and the Lauren and Emily Failla Foundation for their partnership and support that made this possible."

These training sessions and staff development opportunities will act as the bedrock for a long-term investment in mental health support for the District community. The next phase will occur in the 2024-2025 school year where District staff members will be certified to train peers to recognize and support mental health challenges in students.

“School years are difficult enough for children, but the impact of COVID, social media, and the increasing suicide rate moved us to find ways to help through the LEFF,” said Frank Failla on behalf of himself and his wife, Kay Faiila, Founders of the Lauren & Emily Failla Foundation. “The Morris Educational Foundation was immediately responsive and worked diligently to address the needs of the District.”

The project represents a unique collaboration of strong community partners including the Community Foundation of New Jersey-Mental Health Foundation Collaboration. Due to its magnitude and impact, the program will act as a pilot for other communities in the state and beyond in addressing mental health in schools.

About Morris Educational Foundation

The Morris Educational Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization that enhances educational opportunities for more than 5,700 students in all 10 schools of the Morris School District. Established to raise private funds for public education, the Foundation works to enrich and inspire the academic pursuits of all our students, from preschool through high school. For more information, visit www.morrisedfoundation.org.

Dr. KippermanPhoto Credit: Atlantic Health System

By Atlantic Health System

Morristown, NJ – Atlantic Health System’s Morristown Medical Center treated the first patient in New Jersey using Edwards Lifesciences EVOQUE tricuspid valve replacement, the first transcatheter therapy to receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the treatment of tricuspid regurgitation (TR). The EVOQUE system is indicated for improving the health status in patients with symptomatic severe TR despite optimal medical therapy, and for whom tricuspid valve replacement is deemed appropriate by a heart care team. According to National Institutes of Health an estimated 1.6 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with TR.

“Until now, there was no available transcatheter treatment options for patients with tricuspid valve disease,” said Robert Kipperman, MD, interventional cardiologist and structural heart disease specialist at Gagnon Cardiovascular Institute’s Valve Center at Morristown Medical Center, part of Atlantic Health System. “We are thrilled to have a new transcatheter valve option which allows patients to feel significantly better by alleviating symptoms such as shortness of breath and can help improve the patients’ quality of life.”

About Atlantic Health System

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Atlantic Health System is at the forefront of medicine, setting standards for quality health care in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the New York metropolitan area. Powered by a workforce of 20,000 team members and 5,440 affiliated physicians dedicated to building healthier communities, Atlantic Health System serves more than half of the state of New Jersey including 14 counties and 7.5 million people. The not-for-profit system offers more than 550 sites of care, including its seven hospitals: Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, NJ, Overlook Medical Center in Summit, NJ, Newton Medical Center in Newton, NJ, Chilton Medical Center in Pompton Plains, NJ, Hackettstown Medical Center in Hackettstown, NJ, Goryeb Children’s Hospital in Morristown, NJ, Atlantic Rehabilitation Institute in Madison, NJ and through its partnership with CentraState Healthcare System in Freehold, NJ.

The system includes Atlantic Medical Group, part of a physician enterprise that makes up one of the largest multispecialty practices in New Jersey with more than 1,600 physicians and advance practice providers. Joined with Atlantic Accountable Care Organization and Optimus Healthcare Partners they form part of Atlantic Alliance, a Clinically Integrated Network of more than 2,500 health care providers throughout northern and central NJ.

Atlantic Health System provides care for the full continuum of health care needs through 24 urgent care centers, Atlantic Visiting Nurse and Atlantic Anywhere Virtual Visits. Facilitating the connection between these services on both land and air is the transportation fleet of Atlantic Mobile Health. Atlantic Health System leads the Healthcare Transformation Consortium, a partnership of six regional hospitals and health systems dedicated to improving access and affordability and is a founding member of the PIER Consortium – Partners in Innovation, Education, and Research – a streamlined clinical trial system that will expand access to groundbreaking research across five health systems in the region.

Atlantic Health System has a medical school affiliation with Thomas Jefferson University and is home to the regional campus of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Morristown and Overlook Medical Centers and is the official health care partner of the New York Jets.

About Edwards Lifesciences

Edwards Lifesciences is the global leader of patient-focused innovations for structural heart disease and critical care monitoring. Edwards is driven by a passion for patients, dedicated to improving and enhancing lives through partnerships with clinicians and stakeholders across the global healthcare landscape.

Editor's Note: This advertorial content is being published by TAPinto.net as a service for its marketing partners. For more information about how to market your business on TAPinto, please email contact@tapinto.net.

Compact and lithe, Nino Coniglio could have been a gymnast, “but I was too busy running with a pack of wild kids,” he says.

Given his book-a-week reading (and now his discourses on agricultural macroeconomics and foods of the ancient world), he might have become a professor. His charisma might have made him a stellar salesman.

“But I could never do what other people do,” he says. “I never wanted to be a guy who fits in. I want to stand out.”

The 38-year-old’s latest bid for distinction, Coniglio’s Old Fashioned in Morristown, a pizzeria, opened in October just off the Morristown Green. In April, he won the grand prize at the 2023 New Jersey Pizza Bowl with a seductive combination of Calabrese tomato sauce, garlic confit, crispy basil, Italian pecorino and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheeses, ricotta from Jersey Girl in Branchville, and mozzarella from Lioni Latticini in Union.

Raised by his single mom in an affordable-housing project “in Bedminster, of all places, I’d ride my bike to the two pizzerias in Raritan, because being in a pizzeria made me happy. The owners would shrug and ask me to do chores like sweep, wipe down tables, take out the trash.”

“My payment was pizza,” he says with a laugh.

For Coniglio, persistence paid off. “I’d watch the pizzas being made and memorized the steps. But when I asked the owners to let me help in the kitchen, they wouldn’t budge. So I’d take extra dough home and experiment in our kitchen. When I showed the pizza guys what I could do, they finally put me to work. I loved it. Those guys were so cool, and their pizzerias were Italian neighborhood institutions. The feeling of community was so strong, and pizza was our pride and joy.”

Photo: Jennifer Potttheiser

Eventually, Coniglio’s pizza journey took him to the city. “After high school and my community college moment, I moved to Brooklyn and made pies in Gravesend, another Italian neighborhood,” he says. “A couple of years later, I was hired at a pizzeria in Williamsburg, where the new concept was wood-burning brick-oven pizza. The chef took me under his wing, and I became a serious student of pizza and Southern Italian cuisine. Pizza became my life. I was invited to cook at the old-school legends Di Fara in Brooklyn and John’s of Bleecker Street in [Greenwich] Village. Finally, I was a pizzaiolo in my own right. But I needed to bust loose and get noticed big-time.”

Coniglio’s ticket to renown was pizza acrobatics, “like Cirque du Soleil tricks, but with pizza dough,” he says. “It takes endless practice, but I’m on good terms with pizza dough.” He entered competitions and, at 21, won the grand prize in Pizza Acrobatics at the 2007 New York Pizza Festival. He continued to compete and win domestically and in Europe.

“I was now known in the pizza world,” he says, “but not yet as a pizzaiolo. So I started entering competitions for actual pizza cooking, and eventually won gold medals for best pizza and an all-pizza episode of Chopped.” (Most recent win: the “staggeringly competitive” New Jersey Pizza Bowl.) “Some fans who were entrepreneurs wanted to back me in a new Williamsburg pizzeria. It really took off. Then, in 2017, I met Shealyn Brand at a pizza show, and she became Shealyn Brand Coniglio in 2021.”

His social media–savvy spouse calls herself a pizza influencer with “a pizza theme on 95 percent of my wardrobe, not just for social media, but because it’s my thing. We both live and breathe pizza.”

Says Coniglio, “We didn’t seek out Morristown. I was looking at spaces all over the metro area, and I happened to see this one while visiting my sister, who lives here. It was love at first sight.”

During construction, the Coniglios covered the façade with printed screenshots of snarky Facebook comments about the project. “We’d see people reading and laughing,” he said. “A new business that can poke fun at itself is intriguing.”

Soon after it opened on Halloween at 11 South Street, Coniglio’s Old Fashioned had lines outside “as if Bad Bunny was spinning here,” he says. “Customers waited so patiently to pick up their pies.” Coniglio estimates that “at least 200” pizzas are picked up daily, adding, “We’ve streamlined the process.” The pizzeria itself is worth a dine-in, with tiled walls, wood floors, booths, and a midcentury fountain that dispenses sodas, some serving as mixers for BYO libations. Outdoor tables offer a view of the green.

Coniglio’s garlic confit–strewn Brooklyn Round pie, his winning entry in the 2023 NJ Pizza Bowl, is on the menu with other whole pies. (“This is not a slice joint.”) Gluten-free Caputo flour from Naples contributes to a delectable crust.

Pastas are cooked al dente and luxuriantly sauced. Perfect vinaigrette graces enormous, garden-fresh salads. Chicken and eggplant parmigiana “over the years has become so bland, like a school cafeteria dish,” Coniglio says. “I’m taking it back to its Southern Italian roots, with less grease and great marinara and cheese.”

Hand-kneaded, hand-seeded breads, dense and delicious, are baked in-house daily. Coniglio stocks “real bagels, with boiled dough, that I learned to make in Queens.” Italian desserts like bomboloni, spherical doughnuts filled with pastry cream in various flavors, are baked Wednesdays through Sundays. Coniglio’s Sicilian hot snacks, called rosticcerie, include fritters stuffed with potato, egg and cheese. “I don’t know of another American restaurant with a rosticcerie specialty,” says the boss.

Coniglio now owns seven pizzerias—three in Brooklyn, three in Manhattan, and Coniglio’s Old Fashioned. “Discovering Morristown and moving here from Brooklyn was like winning the lottery,” he says. “This town is a fantasy. The history, the food, the trees. Everything we could want is moments away. Our Brooklyn friends cannot believe this place.”

The Coniglios live in an apartment on the opposite side of the Morristown Green from the pizzeria. In January, Shealyn gave birth to Penelope Luciana Coniglio. “Getting to work means a stroll through the Green for all of us,” says the new dad. “It’s easy with a baby carriage. Penny’s growing up at Coniglio’s Old Fashioned. I want her to follow her own path, like I did. But who knows? Maybe she’ll grow up to be a pizzaiola—a woman pizzaiolo. The world needs more of them.”

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First Aspire Program approvals to bridge financing gaps for three projects comprised of a combined 728 housing units

TRENTON, N.J. (May 12, 2023) – Three residential development projects representing a combined $338 million in investment in underserved New Jersey communities were approved for support on Wednesday by the Board of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA). The projects, located in Camden, Morristown, and Newark, which will create or rehabilitate 728 safe, modern housing units, were approved under the Aspire Program for tax credits to help bridge financing gaps.

Aspire is a place-based economic development program created under the New Jersey Economic Recovery Act of 2020 (ERA), signed by Governor Phil Murphy in January 2021. The Aspire program supports mixed-use, transit-oriented development by providing tax credits to commercial and residential real estate development projects that have financing gaps.

“The three projects approved this week embody the values on which the Aspire program is based and will help to advance the ERA’s goal of a stronger, fairer economy by encouraging investment in communities that have long been overlooked,” said Governor Murphy. “High-quality housing for New Jersey families is in high demand, and it’s exciting to see transit-oriented development and affordable housing prioritized.”

Over 80 percent, or 588 of the units that will be supported by these approvals today, are designated as affordable and target households making 60 percent or less of the area median income.

“The new Aspire program is catalyzing a series of mixed-use, transit-oriented, mixed-income and affordable housing projects that advance important economic and social goals established by Governor Murphy,” said NJEDA Chief Executive Officer Tim Sullivan. “The Governor set forth his strategy focused on attracting investments to underserved communities and revitalizing our urban centers and places served by transit early in his administration, and it’s exciting to see these thoughtful development projects unfolding in places where they will matter most for local residents.”

“Throughout our time in office, Governor Murphy and I have prioritized investing in neighborhoods and communities that have often been left behind in areas such as safe and stable housing,” said Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver. “Investing in transit-oriented affordable housing will help transform communities and empower families for generations to come.”

“When we created the Aspire Program it was with the intention of facilitating greater investment in our communities, with a focus on creating affordable housing and returning long-dormant sites to productive use,” said Senate Majority Leader Ruiz (D-Essex). “These projects do just that. We are not just providing for new development but also the rehabilitation of older buildings to create safer living environments that are more energy efficient. As we face housing shortages and rising rents, projects like this are critical to uplifting communities.”

“It is great to see the Aspire Program working in my hometown of Newark that focuses on revitalizing transit oriented urban centers with mixed-use and affordable housing developments,” said Assemblywoman Eliana Pintor Marin (D-Essex). “All three municipalities have a lot to offer and with strategic investments, we are setting our communities up for sustainable economic growth. I look forward to seeing the lasting positive impact of this program.”

In Camden, co-applicants Hudson Valley Property Group and Hearthstone Housing Foundation will undertake an extensive renovation of the Northgate 1 Apartments. The project was approved for up to $46.5 million in tax credits, or up to 45 percent of total eligible project costs of $103.5 million, for the rehabilitation of the development’s 321 units in a 21-story building, built in the 1960s, located at 433 North 7^th Street.

Renovations and upgrades will include modernization, and energy efficient systems and appliances. Additionally, remediation work is needed due to environmental conditions, including lead-based paint, lead in water, perchloroethylene in groundwater, underground storage tanks, asbestos, and water intrusions.

In Morristown, Manahan Village will undergo substantial rehabilitation and long-term preservation of 200 existing units of affordable housing. The project, which is located at 33 Clyde Potts Drive, 6-10 Flagler Street, 14 Flagler Street, and 9-21 Flagler Street, was built in the 1940’s.

The site is currently owned by the Morristown Housing Authority, which has provided a ground lease to Aspire applicant OAHS Manahan Village LLC. The co-applicant is Morristown Family Aspire LLC , which is wholly owned by the Morristown Community Development Corporation, an instrumentality of the Housing Authority of the Township of Morristown.

The applicant was approved for Aspire tax credits of up to 35.21 percent, or $24.6 million, of eligible project costs of $70 million.

In Newark, The Metropolitan will be a 23-story high-rise, mixed-use building located at 260-272 in the city’s downtown Central Business District. The location is within walking distance of Newark Penn Station, the Newark Light Rail, and several bus stops. The project will consist of 207 residential units, 67 of which will be affordable, plus 4,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

The project was approved for up to $49.8 million in Aspire tax credits, which represents 45 percent of eligible project costs of $110.7 million.

The applicant is comprised of a partnership between The Hanini Group LLC, with a 75 percent stake, and Shift Catalyst, with a 25 percent stake. The Hanini Group and its affiliates have been a significant player in downtown Newark. Some of its notable projects include Hahne & Co., Hotel Indigo, and The Peoples Bank Building in Passaic.

The amount of Aspire tax credits a project is eligible to receive is a percentage of the project’s eligible costs, subject to a cap that is determined by the project’s location, other financing available, and other aspects of the project. Most projects are eligible for tax credits up to $42 million, but projects that meet specific criteria may receive tax credits up to $60 million. Projects that meet certain parameters can qualify as “transformative projects,” which may receive tax credits up to $350 million.

To be eligible for Aspire program tax credits, a project must be located in an eligible incentive location, which may include: Planning Area 1, Aviation District, Port District, or Planning Area 2 or other Designated Center that is within a half mile of a rail transit station or a high frequency bus stop.

Projects must also meet minimum size and cost thresholds. Program rules also include requirements to ensure that communities where projects are located participate in and benefit from the economic growth the project generates. As part of the application for projects, applicants must provide a letter of support from the governing body of the municipality or municipalities in which the project is located and projects with an eligible project cost equaling or exceeding $10 million must also enter into a Community Benefits Agreement with the Authority and municipality or county in which the project is located.

In line with Governor Murphy and the NJEDA’s commitment to fiscal responsibility and transparency, the Aspire program rules include provisions, such as a gap financing review, excess revenue sharing requirements, and a net positive economic benefit test for most projects, to ensure tax credits are awarded responsibly.

The Aspire program application, as well as complete rules, eligibility requirements, award sizes, and other information, are available at https://www.njeda.com/aspire.

In addition to the Aspire program, the ERA created a suite of programs that includes tax credits to incentivize job creation, new construction, and revitalization of brownfields and historic properties; financial resources for small businesses; support for new supermarkets and healthy food retailers in food desert communities; new funding opportunities for early-stage companies in New Jersey; and support for the growing film and digital media industry. More information about these programs is available at https://njeda.com/economicrecoveryact.

About the NJEDA

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) serves as the State’s principal agency for driving economic growth. The NJEDA is committed to making New Jersey a national model for inclusive and sustainable economic development by focusing on key strategies to help build strong and dynamic communities, create good jobs for New Jersey residents, and provide pathways to a stronger and fairer economy. Through partnerships with a diverse range of stakeholders, the NJEDA creates and implements initiatives to enhance the economic vitality and quality of life in the State and strengthen New Jersey’s long-term economic competitiveness.

To learn more about NJEDA resources for businesses, call NJEDA Customer Care at 844-965-1125 or visit https://www.njeda.com and follow @NewJerseyEDA on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

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