http://kidoinfo.com/ri/with-jam-in-your-toes-and-fingers-up-your/
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July 25, 2008
With Jam in Your Toes and Fingers Up Your….
By Jaci Arnone
Media TomvinI don’t t... July 25, 2008
With Jam in Your Toes and Fingers Up Your….
By Jaci Arnone
Media TomvinI don’t think I’m sharing anything off the “best-kept secret” list here. Actually, I’m beginning to believe that the Toe Jam Puppet Band is edging up there with the Big Blue Bug as part of Rhode Island’s popular culture. But I urge you, if you haven’t brought your little ones to a Toe Jam show, it’s time!
The Toe Jam Puppet Band will surely be a hit for kids (and adults) of all ages. Their shows are fully interactive, encouraging kids and parents to sing, dance, and participate in storytelling and finger plays. Their masterful shadow puppetry and original songs have made our family loyal followers, five years and going strong.
Their lively performances are spearheaded by fan favorites Tom & Vinny, with frequent guest musicians including bass guitarists, fiddlers, tuba players, and more. Vinny acts as emcee and directs the troupe’s impromptu shenanigans, such as misting the audience with squirt guns during The Car Wash Song. Tom, otherwise known as the Lad in Plaid, writes the band’s original music mainly inspired by his own children. Worth noting for the old-school scenesters, Tom was the bassist for the locally-based punk rock band The Gluons back in “the day.” So, don’t hesitate to request those old favorites (I highly recommend Rockaway Beach, always a hit with our kids)!
Img 0395-1 on kid o infoYou can catch the Toe Jam Puppet Band at Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford every Monday at 10:30 a.m. & 12:30 p.m. In addition, they perform at various locations around Rhode Island and Massachusetts. This summer, dates include shows in Coventry, Pawtucket, Newport, Narragansett, and elsewhere. Check out the Toe Jam Puppet Band website for a full listing of this summer’s shows.
More:
Buttonwood Park Zoo
425 Hawthorn Street, New Bedford, MA
Shows at 10:30 a.m. & 12:30 p.m. every Monday
Cost: Zoo admission plus $5
Pirates Take Over Mattapoisett School
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By Robert Chiarito
January 31, 2008
The Wanderer Newspaper
The Toe Jam Puppet Band made a retur...By Robert Chiarito
January 31, 2008
The Wanderer Newspaper
The Toe Jam Puppet Band made a return to the tri-town area on Saturday, January 26 as they brought their Toe Jam Pirate Show to the Center School Gymnasium. The concert was a benefit for Project GROW with proceeds aiding the organization's scholarship fund.
Band members Mr. Tom and Vinny treated the packed house to a blend of playgroup fun meets concert, with Mr. Tom singing his self-penned songs and handling most of the instrumentation on guitar and banjo while Vinny played the part of emcee. Children were invited onstage to dress up and take the part of the pirate themed songs' aquatic characters throughout the show.
The highlight of the performance, based on the volume of Beatlemania-like squeals, was Vinny leading a bunny hop style chain of several dozen children around the room as he worked his magic with a fish-shaped bubble machine. From the first song to the close of the show, the Toe Jam Puppet Band had their audience of kids and parents standing on their toes, clapping and spinning to the rhythm of the music and singing along to the band's infectious, pied piper like performance.
Project GROW is an accredited early childhood educational program that offers high quality pre-school education for three- and four-year-old Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester children with no prior pre-school experience and also includes children with special needs. It attempts to reach a goal of affording all area children the opportunity of a pre-school experience.
Beginning in 1988 at the Sippican School in Marion, Project GROW was the first public school program in pre-school education in the Old Rochester Regional School District. This volunteer based group involves parents directly in the education of their young children through workshops and parent meetings and through the use of the Early Childhood Resource Center and participation with the Early Childhood Council.
The Toe Jam Puppet Band has been performing in Southcoast area since 2000. The group are regular performers at the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford hosting an interactive children's playtime each Monday at 10:30 am and 12:30 pm for the past six years. Admission for the Buttonwood performances is $5 per family of any size. The band has released several CDs of their original music and has also published a coloring book that features the band. For more information about the Toe Jam Puppet Band you are encouraged to visit their website at www.toejampuppetband.com.
The happy occasion also had a somber note to it as concert goers were encouraged to contribute to a fund that will benefit the college education of Project GROW classroom assistant Sharon Thuestad's four children. Ms. Thuestad and her family recently lost their father and husband, Captain Kenneth Thuestad, as he tried to save the life a shipmate who had fallen from a fishing vessel in New Bedford Harbor on January 23. Donations can be made to The Thuestad Children College Fund through Eastern Bank, 29 County Road, PO Box 455, Mattapoisett, MA 02739, or they can be made at the Center School care of Project GROW.
Standard Times
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A good start, a good time
Play-group mushrooms, gives rise to fun(d)-raising CD
Children. As...A good start, a good time
Play-group mushrooms, gives rise to fun(d)-raising CD
Children. As Chaucer would have said, "What needeth wordes mo?"
They are the best, the purest, the most perfect part of us.
They are our heart.
They are our future.
It is up to us to protect them, to nurture them and raise them strong, both physically and mentally.
One local musical enterprise figures on doing just that.
How, you ask?
First, take a boundless love for children, then add the irreverent funning and punning of John Lennon, the visual flair of Cirque de Soleil, and the harmonic gifts of Peter, Paul and Mary, jumble them all together and what do you have?
The Toe Jam Puppet Band.
Say what?
It's the evocative title of the good-time group which presents its first CD -- yes, aimed for children -- to the public Thursday during downtown New Bedford's AHA! Night.
The CD launch party will be held in the Lagoda Room of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Put together by The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children's Good Start Productions, the disc features original music that attempts to replicate the wonderful weekly play-group experiences that encourage parents and teachers to interact with children in ever-more beneficial and nurturing ways.
And fun is the buzzword.
These festive, music-filled Monday afternoon sessions at New Bedford's First Unitarian Church were initiated in September 2000 with only six families participating.
Today there are more than 40.
And, at first glance the band would appear to be a three person aggregate: Tom Poitras, Amy Marsden and Vinny Lovegrove.
Tom is the singer, songwriter, guitar and banjo playing musical force behind the 14 song disc, either writing or co-writing every song, save two.
Vocalist Vinny Lovegrove, best known locally for the exciting visual presentations of his Miracle Fish Puppet Theater, wrote one song while co-writing three others.
And Amy Marsden, co-wrote one song as well as offering vocals throughout.
There is a loosey-goosey, good-timey sing-along feel to this disc -- just listen, for instance, to the assorted bits of children's chatter in between songs -- that, no doubt, belies the hours of hard work it took to put together.
And with song titles such as Sunny and Share, A Bear Named Tock and Yucky Yum, there's no doubting its target audience.
Still, listening to the words and inflections in each song, you'll hear a lot more than children's tunes. It's wry and sophisticated, albeit in a decidedly child-like way.
In any event, you better believe there were plenty of others beside the Toe Jam threesome who contributed to the success of the venture:
Vocalists Steve Alfonso, Korey Pirtle, Megan Barnes and Marcy Gregoire; bassist Chris Waters; Chris Haskell, vocals and glockenspiel; Mike Almond, vocals, slide whistle and washboard; and Brian Cass, vocals, calypso drum, wood block, and shakers.
Perhaps the unsung hero in this whole enterprise, however, is the MSPCC's SouthCoast regional director of programs, Cora-Dorothy Peirce, the person the CD's liner notes call "Toe Jam Puppet Band's biggest fan."
The music is an outgrowth of her commitment to children everywhere, says this New Bedford woman with three kids of her own.
With a background as a legal advocate in Fall River's Women's Center, Cora feels uniquely qualified to promote children's welfare, believing her work allows her to be their "voice."
"I began to see how children became the 'weapon of choice' during divorce and custody cases involving domestic violence, so after receiving my sociology degree at UMass Dartmouth I opened the first visitation center in Bristol County. "
Cora provided a program of supervised visitation and guardian services to high risk/high conflict families which was so successful that two years later she was approached by Craig Dutra of MSPCC, the oldest child welfare agency in the state.
The rest is, as they say, history.
"The home-based GoodStart Program is nationally recognized," Cora says proudly. "I oversee several programs to help parents when they are overwhelmed with parenting."
Helping parents focus on their strengths and on their children's developmental needs is what the program is all about, she emphasizes.
"We run fatherhood and motherhood groups in the local prisons, funded by the Sheriff's Department. We also provide parenting groups at three homeless shelters in Bristol County, parenting groups at a local battered women's shelter, and grandparent support groups in both Fall River and New Bedford."
Her favorite activity, however, by far, is the Creative Arts Playgroup, of which The Toe Jam Puppet Band is such an important cog.
"When I first started working for MSPCC," Cora says, "I really missed a musical play group that I had attended with a few other parents. My boss told me to write a grant ..."
Voila! The Creative Arts Playgroup.
And, as previously mentioned, it is now attended each Monday afternoon by anywhere from 40 to 80 parents, grandparents, teachers and children.
It has simply taken on a life of its own, Cora says with pride.
"We have created a community between the children and among the parents. As my mother, Maggi Peirce, did before me starting TryWorks Coffee House, I feel that I, too, am bringing music to the community."
Strengthening people's sense of self through music and helping families to bond in the community is a true gift, she's convinced. And nowhere is this more evident than in this Toe Jam Puppet Band CD, all proceeds of which will benefit the MSPCC GoodStart program.
"We don't receive state funding," she explains. "We have to rely on private donations and foundation grants to survive."
And while the CD is initially being offered locally, hopefully, it will eventually find a national audience.
That would be a dream come true for Cora-Dorothy Peirce.
"The themes are truly universal," she says.
"Children are our most important resource."
To learn more about MSPCC or to order a CD and other Shop-for-Kids products, call (617) 587-1600. Hank Seaman paints "Portraits" for you every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. Telephone: 508 979 4504. E-mail: hseaman@s-t.com
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