Stone Pony Landing area was redone with a beach motif, tenting and food facility. Fans and artists continued to support the Pony, and the Asbury Park Music Awards returned to the Stone Pony. Eventually, the music community prevailed, and a vibrant live music scene reemerged and crowds returned. "A visit to The Stone Pony has been considered a pilgrimage to rock 'n' roll fans around the world. "It is a place that is important not just to us, but to the world," New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman said as she officially reopened the club on Memorial Day weekend 2000. Asbury Park community support Before it reopened in 2000, The Stone Pony made a commitment to become involved in the Asbury Park community. The club and the city co-sponsored a weekend-long Asbury Park Festival along the oceanfront. The festival was free to the public and featured local arts and crafts vendors as well as live music both inside and outside the club. The U.S. Postal Service created a special cancellation for the event, and hundreds of people lined up to have envelopes stamped for the occasion. The club was open in the evening, and part of the proceeds was donated to the Stephen Crane House on Fourth Avenue in the city, where the author of The Red Badge of Courage lived during much of his short life. The Stone Pony has hosted a number of events supporting Asbury Park-area community groups and charities. Proceeds from a concert entitled "Remembering Harry Chapin" benefited a charity that fights world hunger, and the club has been designated as an official drop-off point for the Food Banks of Monmouth and Ocean Counties. The club held a fundraising event for the Jersey Shore Jazz and Blues Foundation, the Acoustic Musicians Guild, sponsored a concert at which Bruce Springsteen appeared in support of the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, and held a benefit event for the family of a young man who lost his life in a motorcycle accident. The club partnered with the community in offering the first Asbury Park showing of a photography exhibit spotlighting the city by students of the Rugby School at Woodfield for learning disabled and behaviorally challenged students. The Stone Pony's management also established "The Stone Pony Foundation" to promote music education at the elementary and high school levels. An amplifier was purchased for an aspiring teenage blues guitarist from the area,