Woman gets birthday treat — 50-car parade in front of her home
As the owner of a live DJ company in Warren, Jay Friese knows how to throw a party. Saturday, he turned his skills into an unforgettable birthday bash for his wife, who as a cancer survivor is immunocompromised and hasn’t been able to leave their home in nearly four weeks.
Watch a video of the parade here
Mr. Friese, who runs the Signature Sounds DJ service out of the Cutler Mills and goes by DJ Jay Free, said he had wanted to do something special for his wife this year, as it was her first birthday since the loss of her mom last year. He and Jen had planned to spend the week in Aruba, but with that out the window due to the Covid-19 crisis, “one of her friends texted and said she was going to drive by (Saturday) and wave Happy Birthday.
“So I said, ‘Why don’t I take this (idea) and do it on a larger scale?
So Mr. Friese, who has done a few online DJ party fund-raisers for local businesses over the past few weeks, spread the word on Social Media that he’d be throwing a “Boy Band Brunch” party from his deck, and invited friends to drive by at noon and wave from their cars. He grabbed his equipment, set it up on the deck, and cued up Justin Bieber, Backstreet Boys and other 90s pop.
Just before noon, the cars started arriving, mustering in a parking lot at the end of Hamlet Court in Bristol, where the Frieses live. Right at noon, they began driving by in a long parade, holding up signs, cheering out their car windows and honking their horns. In total there were more than 50 cars with 120 well-wishers participating.
“She had no idea,” said Mr. Friese. “She was so happy, she started crying.”
Notes
This wasn’t the first DJ party Mr. Friese has thrown since the crisis began. Last week, he raised $400 for the Market Street Pub in Warren via a livestream DJ party, and has others in the works. Though he has lost DJ work through June due to the crisis, he is otherwise keeping busy with his other job, in medical sales. The company he works for, CME Medical Equipment, has been inundated with calls for medical equipment, mostly N95 masks, hand sanitizer and thermometers.
“It’s pretty much been 9-10 hours per day, online, all day,” he said. “We’ve been very busy.”
