Community Building

Township residents whose homes were damaged during Tropical Storm Ida are getting a helping hand from the township. Beginning September 7, residents may take their storm-damaged material to the township Convenience Center, School Avenue and Berry Street, from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at no charge. This is for storm-damaged items only, and only for township residents. Proof of residency …

Re-enactor Algernon Ward will be among those participating in the anniversary celebration. (Photo: Millstone Valley Preservation Coalition.) Submitted by the Millstone Valley Preservation Coalition. The Millstone Valley Preservation Coalition (MVPC) is teaming up with Franklin Township on August 28 to commemorate the 700-mile victory march of American and French troops along the Millstone River 240 years ago. Thousands of troops …

Parents and children gathered at the township Gazebo August 26 for the annual backpack giveaway. Township students and their parents gathered August 26 at the township’s Gazebo for what is becoming an annual tradition: the distribution of backpacks filled with school supplies. The effort was undertaken by Franklin Township Police Department’s Community Relations Bureau and PBA Local 154, the Community …

Prizes were awarded at various holes during the golf outing. More than 70 duffers hit the links at the Bunker Hill Golf Club August 16 to raise money for the district’s teachers. The event was the inaugural golf outing hosted by the Franklin Township Warrior Educational Foundation, a 2-year-old non-profit formed by “a group of parents, former educators, representatives of …

Baseball great Dwight “Doc” Gooden shows kids in the Simuel Whitfield Simmons Organization program how to throw a curve ball. About two dozen kids from Franklin and the surrounding area – most of them baseball fans – got a treat on August 7: a face-to-face meeting with baseball great Dwight “Doc” Gooden. Gooden, who at one time called Piscataway his …

FMS – SGS Campus vice principal Daryn Plummer was the graduation’s keynote speaker. More than two dozen township middle and high school students received graduation certificates July 30 from the Franklin Youth Initiative’s Boy’s Council program. The ceremony was named in honor of Bruce Medley, who ran the program until his death earlier this year. Begin in 2007, the program …

Samantha Hanlon was this year’s FTPD Youth Week Class Leader. A week of drilling, marching and learning police procedures came to an end on July 23 with the graduation of 24 Police Youth Cadets at the Board of Education administration building. During the week, the middle and high schoolers experienced simulated drunk driving, learned about the police K-9 Corps and …

Three of the eight winners of the FTPD’s College-Bound Sweepstakes. Eight Franklin students will depart for college this Fall with a goody basket courtesy of the Franklin Police Department. The baskets were filled with products donated by Amazon Inc., and were raffled off in a drawing held earlier this summer. Included in the baskets were a variety of items, such …

Some of the bowls up for sale during the June 19 Empty Bowls fundraiser for the Franklin Food Bank. There were a number of events in the township on June 19, including a business anniversary, a fundraiser, and the first area Juneteenth celebration. Resta’s auto repair and gas station has been a fixture in the township for 75 years. The …

Members of the Franklin Food Bank staff, Somerset County Sheriff’s Department and Franklin Township Police Department at the Food Bank headquarters for the check presentation. The fact that the Franklin Food Bank received a donation on June 1 wasn’t unusual; what was unusual was how the donation was delivered. Members of the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department, accompanied by officers from …