LBI is Alive
Everything you need to know about the rebuilding of LBI.Luck of the Island Party
This Friday will definitely be a blast. Join us, LBI is Alive, and many other businesses for the Luck of the Island party and celebrate the Island, Spring and St. Patrick’s Day; March 15th from 7- 10 PM at the LBI Foundation of the Arts! They ask for a $5 donation/person or $10/family and then $5 for a food ticket.
There will be two bands; food from over 10 local establishments (BYOB); activities for the kids from Fantasy Island, Just Bead It and Viking Village; Freckles the Clown will be there doing face painting; LBI themed post cards will be available to send to family and friends; door prizes from Red Chair and Song of the Sea will be available; you can sign up for the Shamrocks for Sandy run; AAAANNND we will have apparel available for donations.
We are very appreciative of Amy Williams, President of ALO, for inviting us to this event to continue our fundraising efforts. This will be a great community event for LBI, you can’t keep an Islander down, especially ones trying to make the Island a better place. It has been great to see community members pull together and support each other these past few months. I am proud to say I am an Island girl, forever and always!
We Are So Bummed
Hey, we are bummed! So looking forward to the Fundraiser at Nardi’s this Friday Night. But, someone filed a complaint with the ABC Board and after their visit to LBI it was decided it is in the best interest for all to cancel this event.
However, why waste a perfectly good Friday Happy Hour? We ask you to still join us at Nardi’s this Friday. We have all worked hard these past few months and deserve an evening of fun and friendship. Nardi’s will have Happy Hour from 6pm to 9pm and you will still get to hang out with LBI is Alive, video mogul – Jimmy Ward and the many other community members who have helped LBI get back on its feet.
So share a good time, bring everyone you can and let’s Parti at Nardi’s.
See you Friday.
~LBI is Alive
Parti with Nardi’s…and LBI is Alive!
Come by Nardi’s Tavern and Grille on March 8th from 6-9pm and ‘parti’ with LBI is Alive. We will have more apparel available for donations, a 
50/50 raffle AND a raffle for an oceanfront Islamorada Vacation for November 2nd-9th 2013. We will be re-stocked with apparel for this event after our stock out at the BHFH on the 16th. The raffle for an Islamorada Getaway is our newest addition to the LBI is Alive fundraising arsenal; the drawing will be held on June 15th at Thank You Fest: need not be present to win. The oceanfront home is in a gated community with restaurants within walking distance. Check out the HomeAway link and these virtual tours (here and here) to see the house for yourself. This vacation raffle is a great deal at $25/ticket or 5 for $100 and all proceeds from the vacation raffle go towards helping those still in need on LBI. The 50/50 and apparel donations go towards LBI is Alive’s advertising and promotional budget to get the word out to North Jersey, Philly, and NYC through media outlets that the LBI community is Alive and Well and Can’t Wait to See You This Summer!
There will be a $20 cover charge to get in and ALL YOU CAN EAT PIZZA AND BEER. Let’s be honest, how could this be a bad deal? We are working on a wristband system so those under 21 can come and hang while being safe and legal.
Jimmy Ward will be there as well as some members from Jetty. This event will not only be a fundraiser, but a thank you to those who have helped LBI in its epic comeback.
T-shirts, [Good] Press and some Pizza & Beer
It sure has been one whirlwind of a week. Before we even received our apparel order from Jetty, I had orders waiting. We sold out at the Beach Haven Firehouse Turkey Dinner. After we sold out, we had half of our next shipment preordered. We are so thankful for all the support! And super thankful to the Firehouse for allowing us to be there with the LBI is Alive apparel. Since the Dinner I have been organizing and 
finalizing orders for next weekend’s impending shipment. However, please flood my inbox with more orders; I would love nothing more than selling out this shipment by the end of the month. My two most exciting emails came from an island transplant in California and a woman planning a family reunion. The Californian may be my farthest shipment, but the family reunion was my largest: 21 T shirts! For more information on the apparel check out this page.
We sent out 100 press releases last week to let the press know that LBI IS ALIVE and they need to help get the positive word out! So far we have seen two fantastic articles come from these releases and many reporters have contacted us for stories to be published in 
the future. Oh and Jimmy gave about 3 interviews at the Firehouse. In the first article, Robin Rieger came down to LBI February 18th to a local real estate company and ran into a family looking for a rental while doing her article. The father said, “We really expected to come down and see nothing like this…I expected to see houses down and stuff, and it’s nowhere near what I thought. Everything is clean, wide open.” Happily surprised is just what we are looking for, these comments just further show that what we are doing is truly helping the perception. The second article written by Steven Lerner, gives a brief synopsis of our campaign and reiterates that everyone must do their part to get the word out that we are alive and well. We hope that there will be at least 5 more articles to be published after speaking with out of area reporters. We can’t wait to see the articles from Jimmy’s interviews! One reporter who interviewed him works in New York at 1010 Radio, which is precisely the target market we are trying to reach.
We are finalizing the details of a fundraiser to be held at Nardi’s on Friday March 8th from 6-9pm.We will have more apparel available for donations, a 50/50 raffle AND a raffle for an oceanfront Islamorada Vacation in November. There will be a $20 cover charge and then all you can eat pizza and beer. How can you go wrong? We are still working out the details for the under 21-ers. More details will be coming later this week. Stay Tuned!
Who is LBI is Alive?
Now that LBIisAlive.com is really rolling, you would probably like to know who is behind this whole site and its campaign? We wanted to help our beloved island get back on its feet and ready for the summer. We are year round residents and have been on the island for over 2 decades.
This site, the twitter account and email is all run by me, Sam Sepanak. I have lived on LBI for 21 and a half years, aka my whole life. I graduated 
Southern Regional in 2009 and I am now a graduate of PSU’s Smeal College of Business Class of December 2012 with a Marketing degree as well as a concentration in tourism and services marketing. I have worked with a student run start up business doing fundraising, social media marketing as well as creating blog content. While I was pondering my plans for post graduation, Sandy visited LBI, uninvited. Obviously, I was shocked/surprised/unbelieving/etc as the rest of you that this even happened. The other half of this group convinced me that something needed to be done and we would make a great team.
That other half was Pat Sepanak. …and my mom.
We are currently working in conjunction with the LBI Office of Emergency Management, Long Beach Township and the Long Term Planning Committee. Typestries, Jetty and Waves for Water have also helped us. And of course, we have been working with Jimmy Ward to create the LBI is Alive video.
We all love the Island and wanted to help it get back to the way it was and show the world ‘you can knock us down, but we come right on back’.
Be Like Jimmy!
After countless requests we have finally designed LBI is Alive apparel. Jimmy’s shirt may have been homemade, but we now have Jetty-made T’s, long sleeves and hoodies so you can look just like Jimmy.
For a $15 donation you can get a T-shirt;
For a $20 donation you can get a long sleeve;
For a $35 donation you can get a hoodie.
These will be available at the Beach Haven Fire House Turkey Dinner on February 16th from noon to 8pm. We have a limited supply, so if we run out of your size (or you have a special order), we will have an order form there, so we know what to purchase with the second round of donations. You can pay with CASH at the Firehouse or if you order them, we will email you when we have them and you can pick them up at Sand Dollar Real Estate at 217 North Long Beach Blvd; again cash only. If you cannot make it to the Firehouse, click here to place an order.
WE CAN NOW DO SHIPPING! YAY!
If you live far away from LBI, but really want some apparel we can now do delivery, we will ship 2-3 weeks after receipt of check. Please send your check to: 6 West North Carolina Ave Haven Beach NJ 08008 and made payable to “LBI is Alive”.
S&H costs are as follows (and subject to change):
1 T shirt OR long sleeve=$10
2-3 shirts OR a hoodie= $15
3+ shirts OR 2+ hoodies=$20 and up
Your order will be confirmed with a break down of apparel and S&H.
These donations will go to cover the cost of the apparel as well as future advertising and promotional efforts to let people know LBI is Alive and get more visitors to make their summer vacation plans down here. We have grand advertising plans…but we need your help.
We are also hoping to plan an event in March with more apparel available, some raffles and of course food and drink, all for a donation. Stay tuned!
LBI is Alive: Video Premiere
LBI IS ALIVE AND DOING JUST FINE: The Press has greatly exaggerated our demise. Here is the real story of LONG BEACH ISLAND. This video was filmed in late January by Jimmy Ward, whose last video – ‘Hope for LBI’ showed you that LBI is a very special place. This new video shows that we will continue to be a very special place as we get ready for the Summer of 2013. Hope led to action, and action led to this video. Enjoy and be sure share! We need you to get the word out.
Click to open full screen ^^^
We are having some technical difficulties click here for alternate version
Let’s Make Sure the World Knows
LBI is Alive & Ready for Summer ’13
We need to get the word out that Long Beach Island was not devastated by Mega Storm Sandy. Our Island has unfortunately been lumped in with the areas North of us that received a lot more damage. See just two recent articles from the Atlantic City Press:
December 23, 2012 – Article Title: South Jersey tourism officials fending off competition for summer vacationers. “Ocean County and Monmouth County are not ready, and they’re a big concern.” (After receiving numerous complaints this article was changed to eliminate the negative reference to LBI, see comments.)
January 1, 2013 – “Perhaps some of the biggest triumphs – or obstacles – of 2013 may be seen along the South Jersey shore as people and businesses work to return to normalcy. That’s a note worthy challenge, particularly for the region’s hardest hit shore towns on Long Beach Island, which hope to be ready for summer.”
We need to clear up this misperception and let people know we will be ready for the Summer of 2013.
So, let’s put out a ‘Sea of Signs’ all up and down LBI to show we are open for business and looking forward to seeing our summer guests. Above is a picture of the sign which is 18” x 24” and on stakes. THEY ARE FREE TO LBI BUSINESSES. We also have banners available for a nominal cost, if interested contact us for sizes and price (located at the bottom of page).
Free Delivery! We can do that as well. If you are not in the area, we will put a sign up for you.
The next step is creating a video of LBI that shows we will be more than ready for our summer guests by Memorial Day. This video is being produced by Jimmy Ward of Southern Regional High School. Jimmy produced a video right after Sandy came ashore that was called, ‘Hope on LBI’. It was widely seen on YouTube and received wide exposure via other internet media. This will be the second video that will show hope, community unity and hard work has paid off. We will visit those places that the media showed chest high in water and show how they look now. This video will be sent up to various internet media and we will be asking businesses to post it on their web sites, Facebook, etc.
We need to gain as much exposure as possible showing we are open for business. We also want to counter all those pictures that remain in the public’s mind that were published in the days just after Sandy left our shores. So much has been accomplished on LBI since then and we need to let everyone know that.
Email, call, or stop in. Let me know your company’s name, contact name and phone number (cell preferred if business is closed) choice of sign or banner and arrangements will be made to get it to you.
A big thank you goes to Rick McDonough, the owner of Typestries, and the group from Jetty+W4W. Rick for the design and printing of the signs at his cost. Rick is part of the Jetty+W4W group who have done so much in helping others get their lives back together since Sandy hit our shores. Thanks to the Southern Ocean County Chamber of Commerce for financially supporting the initial printing of our signs. To Long Beach Township for their donation and support so we could continue to offer these signs free to all businesses on LBI. These combined efforts truly show that LBI is a close knit and united community which makes our Island that very special place we call home, even if only for a week.
Any questions, feel free to contact me:
Pat Sepanak, Broker/Owner Sand Dollar Real Estate N 3rd and LBB, Surf City patonlbi@att.net or my cell 609-290-5360
See You This Summer
We need to get the word out that Long Beach Island was not devastated by Mega Storm Sandy. We have unfortunately been lumped in with the areas North of us that received a lot more damage. See these two recent articles from the Atlantic City Press:
Dec.23, 2012 – Article Title: South Jersey tourism officials fending off competition for summer vacationers. “Ocean County and Monmouth County are not ready, and they’re a big concern.”
January 1, 2013 – “Perhaps some of the biggest triumphs – or obstacles – of 2013 may be seen along the South Jersey shore as people and businesses work to return to normalcy. That’s a note worthy challenge, particularly for the region’s hardest hit shore towns on Long Beach Island, which hope to be ready for summer.”
To clear up this misconception we are creating a “Sea of Signs” up and down LBI.
In the first 24 hours, over 100 signs were distributed, if you have not gotten yours yet, don’t delay! THEY ARE FREE TO LBI BUSINESSES. There are also banners available for a nominal cost, if interested contact patonlbi@att.net for sizes, prices and pick up. We can do FREE DELIVERY as well.
We need to gain as much exposure as possible showing we are open for business; we want to counter all those pictures that were published in the days just after Sandy left our shores. So much has been accomplished on LBI since then and we need to let everyone know that.
Any other questions feel free to email patonlbi@att.net or call 609-290-5360.
Hello Islanders
Who is an Islander? You are! All you need is a connection and a love for LBI and we want to hear from you. If you own a business, we want to know if you are open now or when you will be, if you have any specials, or just want to tell us about your place. Homeowners, let us know how the clean up went at your property. Vacationers, tell us about your favorite activities on the island and what you can’t wait to do again this summer. Whether you own, rent, have a business or just have a love of LBI, we want to hear from you.
We are all in this together. We are all Islanders.
LBI is Alive 