JESPY House is thrilled to announce the JESPY Journey Spring Gala celebrating JESPY clients, adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD). The Gala will be held at 6:30pm on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, at Orange Lawn Tennis Club in South Orange, NJ. We hope you can join us!

Join us in celebrating JESPY House clients and honoring:

Bottle King
Elizabeth Broadhurst of Little Apple Arts
Jason Miller of Sonny's Bagels

JESPY House is pleased to offer digital ads this year to celebrate our honorees and/or promote your business. For more information, email events@jespy.org.

Support for JESPY’s Spring Gala to raise crucial annual funds for JESPY House. Your donation helps our 400 clients TODAY to continue their journey to independence and reach their next milestone. As a non-profit organization, JESPY House has helped thousands of adults with IDD to learn daily living and vocational skills. JESPY has a unique 360-degree approach to programs and services that empower and inspire clients to live life to the fullest.

2026 Gala Committee: Judy Peskin, Co-Chair; Melissa Wish, Co- Chair; Jordan Davis

Our 2026 Honorees

This year’s gala recognizes a company that welcomes and supports the adult IDD community. We are delighted to present the 2026 Inclusive Employer Award to Bottle King for creating an accessible environment where adults with IDD can find employment and thrive. Bottle King saw the loyalty, preparedness, and dedication that JESPY clients possess when our partnership began in 2022. Today, clients are employed across three retail locations, marking significant strides in each of those individual clients’ journeys to achieving independence.

Recognized as the Best Wine Store by NJ Monthly Magazine in 2017, GQ Magazine as one of the "Top 10 Discount Wine Stores in America," and now a Wine Enthusiast Top 50 Retailer in America, our formula is simple. We rely on local support and your confidence in our ability to present quality products from gourmet foods, fresh cheeses, wines from all over the world, hard to find spirits, and beers from local craft breweries to the large breweries.

Our sixteen locations throughout New Jersey push us to find more labels, more price points, more awareness and more demand to produce the best quality to price ratio on every bottle you purchase. That’s part of what makes Bottle King the price leader in New Jersey!

We strive to make the experience of shopping in Bottle King fun, friendly, easy to navigate and a place that you want to return. That's our number one priority and we work hard to make it right every day.

While we certainly appreciate the accolades, awards and recognition in our industry, our true gratitude is to you, our loyal Bottle King customers.

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We are honored to present the 2026 Community Pillar Awards to Elizabeth Broadhurst of Little Apple Arts and Jason Miller of Sonny’s Bagels for building a culture rooted in inclusion and mutual respect.

JESPY House is in its third year of partnership with Little Apple Arts, a Maplewood-based theater enrichment program for Pre K- 5th Grade students. Founded by Broadway veteran Becky (Gulsvig) Fisher, Little Apple Arts offers weekly public classes and collaborates with local schools for offsite enrichment programming.

LAA's partnership with JESPY began when the family of clients Ariel G. and Mike J., whose nephew participated in LAA's classes, connected the two organizations. This introduction led LAA to sponsor Elizabeth Broadhurst's time at the JESPY House, where she works with clients every week. Elizabeth fosters the clients' love of theater and music during 12-week sessions; each session focuses on a specific show, culminating in a presentation for friends, family, and the JESPY community. The winter session is uniquely dedicated to music, where clients present a cabaret-style song cycle. Throughout the year, every client is given the chance to shine individually while learning to tell stories as an ensemble.

Elizabeth Broadhurst’s theater credits include the Hello, Dolly! National Tour starring Betty Buckley (u/s Irene and Ernestina), the Mary Poppins National Tour (Mrs. Banks, u/s Mary Poppins and Miss Andrew), and the 30th Anniversary Tour of Annie (Grace), which performed at Madison Square Garden and released a cast recording. Elizabeth has also performed at prestigious regional theaters, including The Guthrie, Baltimore Center Stage, Pittsburgh Public Theater, and the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

A member of the Little Apple Arts teaching team for four years and counting, Elizabeth lives in West Orange, NJ, with her daughter, Evelyn, and her husband, Shaun, a Broadway theater technician. She is humbled and honored to be recognized by the JESPY community and is deeply thankful to Little Apple Arts for sponsoring her time at JESPY House each week.

Jason Miller's consistent actions and leadership have demonstrated what it truly means to be a pillar of our community. His efforts have gone beyond service; they have fostered belonging, advocated for accessibility, and created opportunities for adults with disabilities to be valued, supported, and included as full members of our community.

Jason has shown compassion, respect, and dedication in every interaction, positively impacting not only our JESPY clients, but also their families and JESPY's support team. Mr. Miller's efforts have helped build a culture rooted in inclusion and mutual respect since becoming the owner-operator in 2017 of Sonny's Bagels in South Orange.

Additionally, Sonny's Bagels is a JESPY House client-employer!

South Orange-based JESPY House is a non-profit organization that supports more than 300 adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. For over 45 years, clients, age 18 and up have been guided in various areas along their journey to independence and leading fulfilling lives. JESPY’s philosophy is to promote self-direction, choice, and independent community living. Clients come from across the country to build lives in a community they can call their own.

In conjunction with clients and their families, JESPY works to break down communication and physical barriers they may have experienced to ensure that all clients have access to opportunities for full inclusion and advancement in their undertakings.

To that end, JESPY continuously advocates for the rights of those with disabilities; works to increase public awareness surrounding disability issues and concerns; and disseminates essential information and support to assist clients and their families in making informed choices about their lives and their future.

2026 JESPY House Spring Gala

Join the JESPY Journey Gala Today!