Phil Citta’s Annual Party

You know you’re special when family and friends throw a birthday party for you every year and you’re not around to enjoy it. Or are you? 

Phil Citta would have been 71 years young yesterday but the popular owner of The Office Restaurant and Lounge in Toms River had his life cut short by pancreatic cancer more than a decade ago.  Not long after his passing the Citta Family made a $1 million donation to help establish the J. Phillip Citta Regional Cancer Center at Community Medical Center which has been a blessing for many local cancer patients and their families.

Knowing that nobody enjoyed a good party more than Phil his employees have teamed up with friends and family to celebrate his birthday each February with a memorial fundraiser.  As you might expect the event benefits cancer research at Community Medical Center and the first nine birthday parties helped raise almost $184,000 with organizers hoping to top the $200,000 mark after today.

The Tenth Annual Phil Citta Memorial Fundraiser runs all day and all night today at the landmark Toms River restaurant and lounge.Whether you stop in for lunch, dinner or cocktails with friends The Office will donate 50% of gross profits along with 100% of the money raised through raffles and gift auctions.There will be sports-related items, gift cards and more and many surprises and specials throughout the day.

As I have said before I never walk into The Office Lounge without thinking of Phil standing by the host station, usually in a colorful Tommy Bahama shirt, even on a day like this.  He may not be around but clearly his spirit lives on in every drink poured and entrée served and today you can toast his birthday and help out cancer research at the same time.

As you might have expected snow and school closings Tuesday led to postponements of all but one of the 17 first round games scheduled for last night in the Shore Conference Boys & Girls Basketball Tournaments.  All of those games have been re-scheduled for tonight which means winning teams will play back-to-back with the round of 16 set for Thursday night.  In the only game that was played Tuesday, boys 11^th seed Rumson crushed St. Rose and will face 6^th seed Red Bank who received an opening round bye.

For schedule information, brackets and more you can visit shoresportsnetwork.com.