Generous Beach Café customers make for successful toy drive

Posted 12/11/18

Memories have a way of staying alive, even growing.

Richard Moranto, owner of the Beach Café at the foot of Oakland Beach Avenue and the intersection of Suburban Parkway, will always remember …

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Generous Beach Café customers make for successful toy drive

Posted

Memories have a way of staying alive, even growing.

Richard Moranto, owner of the Beach Café at the foot of Oakland Beach Avenue and the intersection of Suburban Parkway, will always remember Frank Rosa, who died in a motorcycle accident. Rosa was more than a customer when Moranto ran the Back Street Bar and Grill on West Shore Road. He was a close friend.

Moranto started a toy drive at the Back Street in memory of Rosa. The following year the drive was held at the Oakland Beach Volunteer Firemen’s Club. After opening the café two years ago, Moranto skipped a year, but he wasn’t going to let the memory of his friend or the good that could be done for others fade. On Sunday, Dec. 2, with lots of help from his niece Tammy Moranto, his business partner Brenda Esposito and Lori Amoroso, the café hosted a free pasta buffet for all those who brought a toy in memory of Rosa.

The outpouring stunned Moranto. Well in excess of 150 toys were contributed, with many customers just dropping off toys but not staying for the pasta dinner. The drive filled an entire corner of a room.

Moranto wants the toys to stay in the community. They will go to the Warwick Boys and Girls Clubs that runs clubs in Norwood, at the armory on Sandy Lane and in Oakland Beach. The club operates a holiday store where parents who don’t have the resources to pay can pick out toys as well as essential items including clothing for their children.

“It is fantastic that they held a drive for our local kids,” said Eleanor Acton, development director at the Boys and Girls Clubs. She said the generosity of the donors would ensure there is “something special under the tree at Christmas…It’s so important and it’s heartwarming.”

Acton said the club’s holiday store will open next week and that it will serve more than 200 kids.

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