Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, and fellow high profile New Jerseyans have banded together to publicize the newly formed New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund. Variety.com posted the clip, which also features such notables as New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy, Danny DeVitto, Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and others, to publicize the new charitable organization.
Springsteen was filmed at home and explained to viewers, “These are uncertain times. What is for certain is the pain, the fear and the real needs of many of our neighbors, our friends and certainly all of those who are on the front lines of this pandemic. We are practicing social distancing, and we are staying at home.”
According to the newly created website (NJPRF.org), the Relief Fund will “marshal resources across the state to identify critical needs and fight the economic and social impact of COVID-19 on New Jersey’s vulnerable communities. One hundred percent of donations received online by NJPRF will be used to fight the medical, social, and economic impact of COVID-19 on New Jersey’s most vulnerable, supporting organizations that provide essential services and aiding those on the front lines of the pandemic.”
Bruce Springsteen has always used his personal and musical connection to New Jersey to ground him and give him sustenance in his life and work: “My heroes, a lot of my heroes, the people that came before me lose something when they lost a little sense of — I hate to say their 'roots' — 'cause you can go anyplace and you can take it with you anywhere you go. It's not, it's not necessarily being in a physical place — although that may help somewhat. But it's just that sense of your own history and what your initial motivations were. What the point was in the beginning.”
Jon Bon Jovi told us that he's more interested in using his career to serve local and global communities than to bolster his ego and bankbook: “Building a medical clinic, which I did in my hometown, becoming involved in the team to build playgrounds at foster homes and put beds in Covenant Houses and stuff like that, giving money to disaster relief, just giving back. . . That's the kind of stuff that's inspiring me now. It's not about, 'Hey man, we got a new record out. This is a rock band!' Yech!”
