Opening Notes

This warbler's weekly musings and feathered observations

Sometimes this warbler finds herself perched alone in her nest, realizing that adult friendships can be as elusive as spotting a rare bird – especially when your favorite activities involve solo flights like writing, reading, or tinkering with computery things. Whether you're a shy nestling who prefers quieter roosts, got busy raising your own fledglings, or simply discovered your social flock has scattered to the winds, we've all felt that gentle ache of loneliness flutter through our hearts.

But here's what made my feathers absolutely shimmer with pride this week: when someone in our community bravely chirped "I'm looking for friends, I'm lonely, I could use someone to talk to" – well, the responses from our Woodbury flock warmed this warbler's heart beyond measure! If you're ever feeling isolated in your nest, please know there are so many neighbors who would absolutely love to welcome you into our murmuration. I speak from firsthand experience – I was perched in that same lonely spot a few years back, and reconnecting with our community was exactly what inspired me to spread my wings and start this little newsletter.

So if you're ready to leave your roost and join the flock, flutter on over to the Farmer's Market and Acoustic Sundays this weekend! Stop by the community table (Main Street Woodbury at the Farmer's Market, FAF at Acoustic Sundays) – those wonderful volunteers will happily point you toward more community connections than you'll know what to do with. Now that's the kind of "problem" that makes every warbler's heart sing!

On that note, let's get into the good stuff happening in our nest!

This Week's Migration Pattern

Where the local flock is gathering

Thursday, August 7

BINGO!

Food Pantry

Free emergency food offered by The Greater Woodbury Cooperative Ministries Food Pantry

A Pop of Art with Loren Dann!

This week Loren will explore Contemporary Art and artist Damien Hurst. You’ll learn about the artist, soak up some inspiration, and then make some art of your own! Loren is the most fun and you should definitely take this class!

West Deptford StreetFEST Market & Music Series

The band this week is Mystery Machine! What kind of music are they? I donno! It’s a mystery! But there are also local vendors, food trucks, and all your family and friends!

Friday, August 8

BINGO!

Woodbury Fresh for All

Free produce for the community!

Friday Night Music at Wenonah Lake

Kick off the weekend with local music by the lake brought to you by Wenonah Porch Fest. Check the schedule here.

Movie in the Park - Despicable Me 4

Saturday, August 9

Woodbury Farmer’s Market

Live music + farm fresh fruit and veg + catching up with all my favorite peeps, I am SO there!

National Park Back Porch Farm Stand

West Deptford Marching Band Fundraiser

Enjoy some breakfast at Applebee's and support the West Deptford Marching Band! Breakfast includes unlimited coffee, juice, scrambled eggs, sausage, and pancakes.

26th Annual ASAC Youth Surf Fishing Tournament

For children ages 5-17, free rod/reel combo for the first 100 children registered!

Food Pantry

Free emergency food offered by The Greater Woodbury Cooperative Ministries Food Pantry

Gloucester County Concert Series

This week's concert is Fabulous Silver Wings, a group of Nashville studio players and friends playing Americana/classic country music.

Sunday, August 10

Acoustic Sundays

Brought to you by FAF Coalition in partnership with Best Buds and Off the Record. Enjoy coffee, pastries, live music, and local art for sale. It was so nice to meet a bunch of you a couple of weeks ago and what an amazing crowd! Hope to see you again (especially Cookie and Kodiak!)!

BINGO

This game benefits Holy Angels Catholic School and the students who receive financial aid.

Monday, August 11

Mondays in Mantua

Meet up with the car enthusiast flock and enjoy some pizza from Sal’s and some ice cream from Dippy’s!

Tuesday, August 12

Food Pantry

Free emergency food offered by The Greater Woodbury Cooperative Ministries Food Pantry

Jeanette's Closet

Free clothing and footwear for those in need.

Wednesday, August 13

Senior Bingo

For Deptford residents ages 55 and up, ID required to win.

Flock Stewardship

Keeping our nest tidy and our community thriving

Have you seen the billboard in Woodbury?!? What a glow up!

From Woodbury's FB post: A steering committee has been established to re-do the HMS Lyon mural on Broad Street (Sailing ship mural). We are trying to identify some core concepts of what the next mural could look like and are requesting your assistance in completing this brief survey (2-minute or less) to contribute towards providing local artists with ideas so they can translate them into a beautiful mural that we can all be proud of. Please complete by 8/22/2025. https://bit.ly/4onyr2Y​

Crowing about our kids!

Supporting and celebrating our community's future leaders

Free baseball and softball practice with Woodbury Little League. Learn the basics, meet no friends, test the waters to see if baseball or softball is a sport you'd like to play! Open to girls and boys of all ages. Fri. August 6 from 6-8 p.m. At 425 Frances Avenue, Woodbury.

Some of our flock has their feathers ruffled because sports programs are being canceled due to low enrollment, and it's got this warbler thinking. I've tried tracking all the sports organizations in The W Towns, but there are simply too many for one bird to follow without help – each has their own way of sharing information, and if I'm not seeing announcements despite actively looking (and having a sports-aged nestling myself!), other parents might be missing them too.

Here's where you come in: if you run a sports org or your kiddo is involved with one, please send me contact info, links, and relevant deadlines so I can include them in the youth sports section of my website. Don't worry about duplicates – more information helps our whole flock take flight! Hit reply or send details to editor@woodburywarbler.com.

Good Eggs and New Neighbors

Highlighting the wonderful humans who make our community soar

Congratulations to the Gloucester County Vixens for bringing home the GOLD at the dragon boat races on Saturday! If you know a Vixen, give them a giant high five for me when you see them!

Welcome to Westville, Jobbi's Juicy Fruits! Jobbi's grand opening is today, August 6! Stop by and celebrate with them this afternoon at 221 Broadway, Westville! (FB flyer)

Got some good news? New in town? Just want to say hi to all your neighbors? Send a carrier pigeon to editor@woodburywarbler.com.

Our Animal Friends

Because every creature deserves a loving nest

The eyes on this pupperoni!!! Cash is a 2 year old pointer/husky mix which I wish I could swoop over and adopt immediately! We’d go on hikes together, and he’d be my running buddy, and when the solar panel guy knocks on my door and wakes me up from my nap for the 3487254^th time this week, Cash would howl right along with me.

You don’t see many Turkish Angora kitties in the shelter, and right now there are a few. This one is Snowberry, but there’s also Snowball, Snowbell, and Snowflake. Their mama, Snow, is also looking for a home. The kittens are four months old and ideally would be adopted with one of their siblings.

Both of these sweethearts are waiting for their forever families at the Gloucester County Animal Shelter - don’t let them fly away to someone else!

Got a furry, scaly, floofy, or feathery friend you’d like to show off? Send us your photos! We love celebrating all of our community critters!

Bulletin Bird

Community announcements that'll make you chirp

Mental Health First Aid for Older Adults, sponsored by the Gloucester County Division of Human and Special Services. This is an 8-hour course that teaches you how to identify, understand, and respond to mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Attendees receive MHFA certification. Registration is required, class will be held at Riverwinds Restaurant. Register on their website.

Register now for the Woodbury Car Show (8/30)! Professionally judged with over 100 trophies! Enter your car for $20 before 8/27 or $25 day of registration. Register at woodburycarshow.org. Questions? Email info@woodburycarshow.org​

Save the date! On November 15, join the National Organization for Women in NJ as they celebrate five decades of fighting for feminism in New Jersey!

Tickets are on sale now for a day at Morey's Piers (August 17) to benefit the Ronald McDonald House of Southern New Jersey, sponsored by AtlantiCare. $80/person or $300/family of 4 includes admission to several parks and a barbecue lunch. Purchase tickets here.

Save the date/register now: Back-to-School Body & Internet Safety Workshop presented by trauma therapist and author Amber Gonzalez, LPC for children ages 3-12 and their parents and caregivers. Free school supplies will be provided to every child who attends. Text the word "SAFETY" to 856-887-4647 to register for the program, which will be held on August 20 at 6:30 p.m.

Plans are being hatched for this year's Woodbury Porchfest, brought to you by Woodbury Heart & Soul! I'll keep you posted when I find out more about how you can sign up to host a band on your porch or sign up to play. Save the date: October 5 from 12-5 p.m.

Attention bookworms! I was today years old when I learned that there’s a book club that meets at the Woodbury Heights Fire Department on the first Monday of each month. Due to the Labor Day holiday, they’ll be meeting on September 8 instead. If you’d like to join them, September’s book is Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry.

American Legion Post 133 will be holding a yard sale on September 6, 2025. Do you have things to sell? Contact Donna at 609-500-9800. $15 donation with your own table, $20 if you use one of theirs. Setup at 7 a.m. And open to the public 9-5. Snacks will be available!

The Woodbury Heights Fire Department 2nd Annual Truck Raffle has been extended! - This prize will make you fly off your perch! Your $25 raffle ticket enters you into a drawing to win a 2025 GMC Sierra 1500 (!!!) with second and third prizes of $3,000 and $2,000. The drawing will now take place on September 16. You can drop off cash at the Woodbury Heights Fire House, 534 Elm Avenue or send them a Venmo here (put truck raffle and your phone number in the comments):

I grew up going to the Italian Market in Philly on Saturdays but haven’t been in ages. I recently learned that my friend and co-worker, Melissa, is a tour guide with Our Market Project! When I travel one of my favorite things is taking tours like these because it really helps you get to know a place. I’m looking forward to learning more about this corner of Philly, which I only kind-of-sort-of know. Melissa has tours scheduled for September 20 and October 4 (I’ll be on the September tour because I need to see what this is all about ASAP!). You can book tours for your group of whatever (office, party, church, random looking for something to do).

Tickets are on sale now for Baseball Pinball! Entry fee is $15, and the event will be held Saturday, August 16 in Woodbury Heights. More info below:

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Zillow Snoop and Swoop

Dream nests near and far

Swoop

This warbler nearly fell off her perch when I spotted what's for sale on Hessian Avenue – an actual empty lot just waiting for the right flock member to build their dream nest! It's zoned residential and comes with plans already designed, but here's where my imagination takes flight: why not spread your wings and think outside the traditional nest box? Picture a cozy log cabin where you can hear morning birdsong through real wood walls, or maybe wait for some saplings to grow and build that treehouse you dreamed about as a nestling! The beauty of starting from scratch is creating exactly the kind of roost that makes your heart sing, and any new neighbor choosing to build their nest in our corner of Woodbury already shows excellent taste in communities.

Snoop

Oh my feathers, fellow nestlings – this warbler made a migration mistake that still has me ruffling my wings! I was pecking around on Zillow and somehow wandered all the way to Buckeye, Arizona, where I found a listing that called itself an "incredible equestrian property" but looked like someone had dropped a house in the middle of nowhere and forgot to add any charm. No mature trees reaching toward the sky, no cozy front porch where neighbors might chat, not even a flower bed to attract local wildlife! It got this warbler thinking about what makes our community special – it's our tree-lined streets that have watched over generations, knowing you might bump into a neighbor at Lot 323 or catch up with a friend walking their dog down our sidewalks. Sometimes the best way to appreciate your own nest is to see what's out there, and trust me neighbors – we've got something pretty special right here in Woodbury.

One last warble...

Final chirps before I fly away until next week

Your thoughtful chirps about the LNG trains absolutely ruffled my feathers in the best possible way – thank you for helping this warbler find her flight path toward covering the issues that truly matter to our nest of small towns. I'm taking your feedback to heart, especially where some of you felt I didn't quite hit the mark, and I'll spread my wings wider when we tackle Big Energy next. That's right, fellow nestlings – we're doing a deep dive into why our utility bills are soaring higher than a hawk on a thermal!

Now, I've been trying to respond to your emails at least once a week, but here's the honest truth from this warbler's perch: running this newsletter has become a full-time job on top of the full-time job I already had! Don't get me wrong – I'm absolutely delighted to do both, but as our little flock grows and I continue building the website, I'm experiencing some expected growing pains. Please be patient with me as I organize my tech stack and workflow (turns out managing the digital nest is trickier than I anticipated!). My mission remains the same: building a helpful, trustworthy platform for all of you in a way that won't leave this warbler too frazzled to fly.

Here's some exciting news that has me practically preening with pride – The Woodbury Warbler was recently accepted into NJ News Commons! I'm astounded by the resources available to support local newsletters, and I can't wait to put them to use right here in our community. Until I can bring on an intern to help with the nest-building, your patience means the world to this solo-flying warbler.

Have a great week, neighbors!

Singing the songs of our shared communities,

Jen Russell, your neighbor and Editor-in-Chief, The Woodbury Warbler​

PS: Forward this email to a friend you haven't heard from in awhile! I bet they'd love to hear from you!

PPS – Thank you again for being an early bird to The Woodbury Warbler. This is a pre-launch birdseed-sized newsletter while I’m organizing information and building the nest. Anything you’d like to see more of? Hate the format? Too many bird puns? Don’t want to hear about my groundhog skunk new metal band The Milkshake Nightmare? Your feedback is helpful and I love hearing from you! Send a carrier pigeon to editor@woodburywarbler.com with any suggestions, complaints, tips, celebrations or even just to say hi!

​Thumbnail image: "Water cooler talk (22/365)" by LifeSupercharger is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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