Nutley Family Service Bureau Food Truck "Rave" Breaks Barriers for Mental Health Awareness

NUTLEY, NJ - Sponsored by NFSB's Client Advisory Board (CAB) with funding from the Partners for Health Foundation, Nutley Family Service Bureau celebrated "Mental Health Awareness Month" on Monday, May 13 with a special outdoor event that was part food festival and part rave.

Known to many people in the community as "the food pantry," Nutely Family Service Bureau (NFSB) was founded 111 years ago as a social service organization. That tradition continued over the decades, with mental health counseling being the primary focus of NFSB. May is Mental Health Awareness month, so NFSB put mental health front and center in an outdoor event, but made it fun, so the subject became more approachable.

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The NFSB tent featured information about mental health, including teen counseling, marriage counseling, and other deeper mental health issues. Of course, not every part of the event was serious. There was a "make your own stress ball" station, food, and perhaps one of the most engaging stress-relieving events, DJ Rob Frannicola and an opportunity to shake your groove thing.

To engage all ages in the community, there was a hoola-hoop contest for the kids, and some golden oldies like the Electric Slide for the adults.

The whole time, there were fresh zeppoles and cheesesteaks available from Nan & Pop's Concessions, Mango, Cherry, Cotton Candy and Lemon Ice from Rita's of Nutley, and Bacon-Me-Crazy burgers and other sandwiches from Spanky's Gourmet Food Truck. The food was provided by a generous grant from Partners for Health.

So how did the event do? Almost everyone stayed the entire 3 hour time frame - more than 200 hundred people are believed to have attended.

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TAPinto Nutley didn't count heads, but we did get some other interesting numbers:

• Nan & Pops went through 20 lbs. of flour to make zeppoles and another 20lbs.of beef for their cheese steaks.
• Rita's served approximately 180 Italian Ice, with Lemon and Mango being the most popular flavors for the evening.
• Spanky's Gourmet Food Truck served 100 Bacon Me Crazy Burgers, 80 Cluck Norris Sandwiches, and 80 Italian sandwiches.

TAPinto Nutley will share more about this events in the coming days.

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