#1 BILLBOARD ARTIST HELPS STUDENTS

The 2nd Graders of Bloomingdale Avenue School in Cranford, NJ, raised money this year to pay for and install a Buddy Bench in their playground. The Buddy Bench is a place where children can sit when they have no one to play with on the playground. Other children know that if they see someone sitting on the bench, they should help them and include them in whatever they are doing.
Mrs. Therese Koellner arranged the project, and with Jacqueline D’Arcy, a 1st Grade teacher, she wrote a poem about the bench. Mrs. Koellner asked Rupert Holmes, a local man with an impressive musical background, if he would write music to the poem, so that they would have a song to sing about the bench. He wrote it with student Melody Jennings. Rupert offered to pay to have the song professionally recorded in a studio by the class.
Rupert Holmes is the first person in theatrical history to solely win Tony® awards for Best Book, Best Lyrics and Best Music, doing so with his creation “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” (later dubbed, simply, “Drood”) which also won the Tony® award for Best Musical. It recently received a critically-acclaimed Broadway revival by the Roundabout Theatre, has had two extensive national tours, has been performed at the Kennedy Center Opera House and the Savoy Theatre in London, has been seen in the fifty states and five continents, and will soon make its Japanese language debut in Tokyo.
In June the class recorded the song at MacroSound on 964 Koehl Ave, Union, NJ.