Shawnee High School senior Jake Strong puts on a magic show to benefit Make-A-Wish New Jersey.
Do you believe in magic?
Shawnee High School senior and magician Jake Strong invites you to his performance at the high school on March 15 at 7 p.m., showcasing the magic of giving back.
The show costs $10 to attend, with all proceeds benefiting Make-A-Wish New Jersey.
“I just want to show how much giving back can make a difference and how much one person can make a difference,” Strong said. “Nothing’s impossible. That’s what magic is for me, it just proves that absolutely nothing is impossible, and that’s what Make-A-Wish has proven year after year after year. With everyone uniting to see this show and giving money to a good cause, we can help continue to prove that.”
Strong’s interest in magic started at age 13, after his aunt gifted him a magic lesson for his birthday. While at the lesson, he was shown 10 tricks, but was only able to learn one, with the magician telling Strong: I can’t teach you the rest, only real magicians know the real secrets to the tricks.
From that moment, Strong was hooked. He bought as many magic books as he could, checked out every book from his local library and researched tricks on YouTube to learn the secrets behind them and become a magician himself.
Strong is mainly self-taught, however, he does keep in contact with mentor Marc Desouza when he’s seeking advice on refining tricks.
Strong said his parents are some of his biggest supporters, and on his 14th birthday they surprised him with a job at a local restaurant, The Pop Shop, performing magic there weekly.
To this day he still performs at the restaurant, as well as performing at private parties, theaters in various states such as Indiana, Delaware and Pennsylvania, and universities such as Temple University.
“I’ve worked very, very hard to get to this point,” Strong said. “I love magic and it’s so important to me because I love how it can unite people and it can bring people together. It doesn’t divide people.”
This performance marks Strong’s first fundraiser at Shawnee, although he has previously held fundraisers to help a family friend that lost their home in a fire and Make-A-Wish New Jersey, raising about $2,500 through each event.
Strong is preparing a never-before-seen act he said is family oriented and filled with a variety of tricks, including a large trick involving the entire audience.
“It’s a little bit scary for me to start to try new stuff that I’ve really never tried before, but this is a compilation of a lot of my favorite things that I’ve been working on for about two years at this point,” Strong said.
To purchase tickets in advance, email Diane Kelly at dkelly@lrhsd.org, or tickets can be purchased at the door.
