A Year After a Freak Fall Claimed a Life, "Moves Like Woodbridge" is Repackaged

A year after a freakish accident claimed the life of a longtime Woodbridge Board of Education employee, the township-sponsored exercise event that cost the woman her life has quietly disappeared.

Instead, it's been revamped into a presumably safer 12-week dieting and exercise event, called the "Mayor's Spring into Shape Weight Loss Challenge."

Residents who pay a $30 fee will get a t-shirt with Mayor John McCormac's fat fighting slogan, "Shape Up Woodbridge!" on it. They'll also receive a pedometer, nutrition education classes, and workout sessions at the Woodbridge Community Center. 

Big losers will win cash prizes, said McCormac in a statement on the event.

In 2012, the exercise event was known as "Moves Like Woodbridge." The idea was to get people all over the township at 10 am on March 22 to get up and dance, run, hop around, and generally get moving for a space of three minute minutes.

Freakish fall 

The frenetic activity spread to the Board of Education, including school children and BOE employees. , joined in on the three-minute shakefest.

Going down the stairs outside the Board of Ed building on School Street, Donato either tripped or fell and was catapulted down to the sidewalk where she broke both her wrists and smashed her head.

Awake in the ambulance, Donato slid into a coma and died from what her son, Robert Donato, called "a traumatic brain injury."

No comment - and new railings

Neither McCormac nor the then-Superintendent of Schools John Crowe ever returned repeated phone calls or commented about the accident that claimed Donato's life.

Five months after the "Moves Like Woodbridge" debacle That was in response to a demand from the NJ Office of Public Employee Occupational Safety and Health that ordered the BOE to correct "serious violations" on the building, including the lack of railings on the building's exterior staircases that may have contributed to Donato's death.

The revamped "Moves Like Woodbridge" program seems to be related to the new PR campaign the township has engaged in to try to revive the fortunes of the Woodbridge Community Center. In January, the township approved to devise a facelift for the community center.

So far, the $40K has bought a new logo for the building and a simple recompilation of events - such as the Easter Egg Hunt - that have been going on in Woodbridge for years, under the moniker "Woodbridge Family Series." The repackaging of events in Woodbridge may have also included the renaming of "Moves Like Woodbridge" into the more sedate "Spring into Shape" program.

The mayor could not be reached for comment.

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