This story begins in 2001 when I drive north on the New Jersey Turnpike for a blind date and meet a girl named Jennifer at Starbucks on Route 4 East in Englewood, NJ. We fall in love and get married on November 4th of that year. Our journey together lasted 23 years and wound its way around many twists and turns. Yet we always found time to enjoy sweet music, great movies, plays and musicals, and good books among many other aesthetic pleasures.

     My beloved Jennifer loved the arts: from pop music to Broadway musicals; from movies to PBS dramas about British kings and queens; from highbrow British murder mysteries to songs by Mr. Rogers; from art museums to Shakespeare; from playing her electric piano to singing songs from shows such as Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, and Les Miserables. While we didn’t go to many Broadway shows, musical scores could be heard in our house frequently. Jen would belt out hits such as “Popular” from Wicked, “Look Down” from Les Miserables, and “Angel of Music” from Phantom of the Opera. And while we didn’t watch Mr. Rogers on TV, Jennifer’s angelic voice carried his messages of love and acceptance and evoked notes of kindness with tunes like: “It’s Such a Good Feeling,” “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” and “It’s You I Like.”

     Several months after Jennifer left this earth on January 18, 2024, I wanted to honor her memory and donated her electric piano to the Cleveland Street Elementary School (CSS) where I have worked for nearly 20 years. Then in 2025, I decided I wanted to do more and the idea for The Jennifer Nathan Memorial Arts Fund (JNMAF) was born with the goal of bringing enhanced and enriched arts education to students at our school. With the support and help of colleagues and friends at CSS, this vision has come to fruition. Through opportunities for transformative arts education – after school clubs, arts-related field trips and school-wide assemblies – we strive to empower and inspire student creativity and to leave an everlasting tribute to Jennifer’s love of the arts.

     When I was preparing for our inaugural Drama Club (where students will write and perform their own original dramatic piece – under the tutelage of a Teaching Artist from Lunastage, a local theater) scheduled for the Fall of 2025, I asked a group of students in Ms. Keshner’s drama class “What’s your story?” I then modeled for them how I might construct a narrative. Prompting them to begin thinking about what story they want to tell, I challenged them to develop their own plots and characters. Finally, I gave each student a brand new spiral notebook with a cover that read: What’s My Story? – My journal, Scrap book, Sketch book, and/or Writer’s notebook. I encouraged them to use the notebook as a place to record their creative musings.

     This is the essence of what we are trying to do with The Jennifer Nathan Memorial Arts Fund. It is for kids at CSS to find and honor their own voices (feelings, thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, etc); to write, paint, sing, choreograph, film and/or speak about their “their stories”; and to know deeply that their artistic creations are important and meaningful and deserve to be heard and seen. We want each student at Cleveland to be the author of her own story, the choreographer of his own dance, the composer of their own song, the playwright of her own drama, the molder of his own shapes and sculptures, the voice of their own podcast, and the painter of their own masterpiece!!

     Through immersive arts education at the Cleveland Street School, we hope to inspire and empower our students to cultivate and honor their unique “voice” and thereby create and tell their personal story. The goal of the JNMAF is to raise money to 1) enhance arts-related after-school clubs, 2) provide field trips to shows, museums and other cultural events and performances, and 3) arrange arts-related school-wide assemblies. In this way, we seek to build a legacy of creativity and storytelling while honoring Jennifer’s memory.…And may Jennifer’s memory always be a blessing!!