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Thursday was a RED Day at the Asbury Park Boys and Girls Club on Monroe Avenue.

RED Day is a label Texas-based Real Estate Company Keller Williams uses to for its annual one-day volunteer commitment to a community, according to Associate Peter Cunha of the East Monmouth Branch, located in Shrewsbury.

“Each Keller Williams is individually owned and operated, allowing each office to choose whom they would like to volunteer for,” Cunha said. “As we are both very active in Asbury Park, I was extremely happy that they chose to do it in Asbury for such an amazing organization.”

RED is an acronym for Renew, Energize and Donate.

The Boys and Girls Club of Monmouth County’s local club serves over 120 of the city’s children, according to Administration Director Karen Odom. The nonprofit offers afterschool and summer programs to children ages 6 to 18.

The day began at 10 a.m., with the Realty Company’s associates working to paint, reorganize and repair needed areas throughout the building.

On the second floor, Keller Williams’ Deb Bajada stenciled correlating art on activity room walls – in the eating area there were fruits and vegetables; in the reading room, the real estate agency donated a couch, worked to reorganize the library, and Bajada depicted images of books; and in the art room there was the donation [and reorganizing] of supplies and the creation of chalk wall as volunteers filled in Bajada’s stencil of an artist palette.

Downstairs, the pool area was getting facelift to match the pools recent refurbishment by American Pools.

While their scope of work runs across the country, with 23 subsidiaries located in 15 states and Washington D.C., as well as in Toronto and Ottawa, it was the Central New Jersey’s crew that led a volunteer charge to renovate the pool earlier this year.

The week-long project was administered by volunteers from the company’s New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania offices, who donated more than 500 hours and $65,000 in material and supplies.

On Thursday, the Keller Williams volunteers repaired and painted the pool area’s broken bleachers and gave the walls a fresh coat of paint.

“Associates chose to ‘Give Where They Live’ as part of RED Day,” said Nick Stachowski, Keller’s team leader. “RED Day is built on the belief that people can and should come together to achieve extraordinary things to help others.”

In a recent article on the pool renovation, Executive Director Douglas Eagles said, “As Asbury Park is a shore town, it’s really important for kids that are growing up with the ocean right at their doorstep to be able to swim, and I think even more so in under-resourced communities like Asbury. You have kids that are oftentimes just not exposed to swimming or the water lifestyle, and so having a pool available to provide them with those skill sets ultimately saves lives.”

By 2 p.m. the Club was filled with the 200 children, 71 of them from the Boy and Girls Red Bank location, who were treated to a pizza party, games, a photo booth, face painting, and a backpack giveaway.

Stay tuned for photos of the completed project and Thursday afternoon party.

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