NOTES AROUND TOWN Attendees watch renowned pastry chef and cookbook author Nick Malgieri create Melissa's Chocolate Pecan Cake in a special demonstration at CPC Behavioral Healthcare's fourth annual Culinary Adventure Oct. 29 at the Eatontown Sheraton. The deliciously successful special event raised over $35,000 for CPC's counseling programs for children and families. Co-chairs Pat Geiss of Little Silver, Robin D'Anna of Shrewsbury and Jane Guadagno ofWest Long Branch hosted an outstanding food and wine tasting for over 300 guests. For more information, visit www.cpcbehavioral.org and or call (732) 842-2000. Whole Foods, Route 35 inMiddletown, is generously donating 5 percent of its net sales Jan. 15 to Project Paul. TheKeansburg nonprofit will use the donations to support programs benefiting the needy in the Bayshore area. Project Paul's community programs include a food pantry, assistancewith rent and utilities, and educational support programs. More information can be found at www.projpaul. org or by calling (732) 787-4887. ***** Continuing a six-year tradition, more than 300 students at the Home Away From Home Academy in Aberdeen spent the month ofDecember spreading holiday cheer. To begin the season, children collected arts and crafts supplies for the Children's Crisis Intervention Services Unit at Monmouth MedicalCenter in Long Branch. In addition, new unwrapped toys were collected for the Rainbow Foundation, a Middletown-based nonprofit that helps children and families. Representatives from each organization came to the school and trucked back bundles of goodies for those in need. Robin McRoberts (left) director of the WIC program of the Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey, Barbara Mitchell (far right), co-president of the Woman's Club of Middletown, and Woman's Club member Ruth Murphy take a peek at the bounty of gifts collected for more than 150 children whose families receive nutritional foods through the VNA's Women, Infant and Children Nutrition Program (WIC). Three carloads of presents were delivered to the VNACJ Belford location by the Woman's Club, which has sponsored the gift-giving event since 1999. The club set up three gift trees at neighborhood banks with gift tags for children up to age 5 and included requests for older siblings as well. Also during the busy celebration of holidays, students from kindergarten to second grade visited TheWillowsAssisted Living in Holmdel on Dec. 19 and brought handmade holiday gifts for each resident. They also performed selected pieces from their holiday show. ***** Students at St. John Vianney High School in Holmdel were involved in several programs aimed at sharing the joy of the holiday season with those close to home as well soldiers serving in Iraq. SJV's Campus Ministry Office collected gifts for 30 students in the Keyport Headstart program, and 20 religion classes sponsored a child and helped fulfill his/her Christmas wishes. Faculty, individual students and student clubs as well as alumni volunteered to sponsor 18 special-needs students from The Hillside School. The SJV Military History Club also collected for the MarineCorpsReserve Toys for Tots program and for soldiers serving overseas. Sgt. Sean Shepherd, SJV 2000, suggested the club get involved in theAdoptASoldier Programand send the items collected to 1st Lt. Adrian Gennusa, SJV 2002, who is stationed in Baghdad, and other school family members in the military.