Benefit Saturday to Raise Funds for Brick High Students

In memory of former Brick resident Paul Fuller, Used to Be’s in Mantoloking will host a benefit for the My Life Endeavor Foundation this Saturday.

Betty Ann Fuller, Paul's mother and founder of the My Life Endeavor Foundation, said 100 percent of the proceeds raised at the event will go toward scholarships and possibly research for bipolar disorder — the illness that took her son’s life at age 25.

The benefit will begin at 6:30 p.m. For the $12 admission fee, attendees will get free food, live music and discounted drinks. For $20 for five auction tickets, they can enter an auction that will include one Kindle Fire, an iPad, two three-day passes to the Bamboozle Festival in Asbury Park and more.

Live music will be provided by the Dissenters (Paul Fuller’s former band) and Burning Sun. While the band broke up in 2005, two years before Paul Fuller’s death, it still gets together every year for the benefit that has been happening since 2008. 

“They enjoy it and tell stories about him,” Betty Ann Fuller said.

Every year, the My Life Endeavor Foundation provides scholarships to a few handpicked students at Brick High School — the school Paul Fuller attended. Since he loved music and was a drummer, the scholarships are awarded to music students.

Betty Ann Fuller said the school provides her with a list of students who are good matches for a scholarship and she makes her selection off the essay she has the applicants write. The amount of scholarships she has given away has varied. In the past, she has given away three per year, at most. Providing enough money is raised this year, she would also like to donate money to John Hopkins Hospital for bipolar research.

In total, the Foundation has raised approximately $5,000. 

She said growing up, Paul Fuller was a happy and active child. As an only child, he got mostly anything he wanted, but he worked hard and strived to be the best at whatever he did, especially drumming. He would also do anything for his friends.

A few month’s prior to his passing, he started to notice changes in his behavior. He would keep a journal and was even having a difficult time understanding what he wrote.

“He was very happy and then very sad. After a few months of it, he called me and said mom I want to see a doctor,” Betty Ann Fuller said. “He had just moved into an apartment in Ortley Beach with one of his friends and he was excited to have a new job. But he saw that something was not right.”

She also said that the night before his passing in January 2007, he was talking on the computer to someone until about 11:45 p.m. He had said he had to go to bed to wake up for work in the morning, but he didn’t go to work the next day. 

“His employer was calling some of his friends. They went to his house and found him on the floor at 2 p.m. and police came to my door and told me my son was deceased,” she said. 

He had been mis-medicated.

She added that people need to understand that if they’re not feeling well, it’s OK to admit it.