Community Service Projects and Tours (2012)
Elizabeth Park - Elizabeth Park is the oldest municipal rose garden in the country. The park's renowned Rose Garden (2.5 acres) was created in 1904, but by the 1970's, the city could no longer afford the garden. However, volunteers banded together and came to its rescue. Today, the Park contains about 15,000 bushes of 800 rose varieties and encompasses many garden areas, pathways, century-old greenhouses, lawns, bowling greens, tennis courts, a picnic grove, and a scenic pond. We will be weeding and helping with park preservation in the horticultural gardens.
Food Drive – Although Connecticut is one of the wealthiest states in the US, and we are surrounded by wealthy towns, Hartford is the poorest city in Connecticut. Over 25% of the families in Hartford live below the poverty level. We have asked West End and West Hartford residents to join our food drive. We will be conducting a door to door pick-up of grocery bags filled with food donations for the West End and West Hartford Food Pantries. There are so many needy families in the area – help us make a difference.
Food Share– By working closely with local partners, Foodshare seeks to increase awareness of hunger within our communities. Each year, Foodshare serves over 128,000 individuals and distributes more than 12 million pounds of food to those in the Greater Hartford area. Together with the Foodshare staff, we will be packing bread to help our neighbors in need.
Freshplace – Freshplace, a collaborative project of Chrysalis Center, Foodshare and The Junior League of Hartford, is an innovative food pantry that aims to tackle the issues of chronic hunger in Hartford. We will help with inventory maintenance, restock perishable and nonperishable items, work on loading docks receiving deliveries, restock bins and shelves, harvest vegetables and maintain gardens and assist with paperwork support as determined by the Project Manager.
Hartford Children's Theatre - located across from the Mark Twain House, the Hartford Children's Theatre is a non-profit organization that gives children in the Greater Hartford Region access and exposure to high quality theatre for young audiences and year round educational opportunities. Hartford Children’s Theatre’s commitment to excellence was honored by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education’s prestigious Winifred Ward Award for Outstanding New Children’s Theatre in 1993, as well as by the New England Theatre Conference’s Moss Hart Award in both 1998 and 2004. Together with staff and board members, we will be painting the Artistic Director’s office and cleaning up the drama school theatre class & costume rooms to be ready for Fall drama classes.
Park River Clean-Up- For hundreds, if not thousands, of years, a small river ran from the Northwest end of the landscape that is now Hartford, winding down through the heart of the city to the southeast, eventually joining up with the Connecticut River. Originally known as the “Little River” by early settlers (with the Connecticut being the “Big River”), development quickly sprung up along its muddy banks. It was referred to as the “Mill River” for a short time, and then the “Hog River,” because of the obvious: pigs were kept in farms along some stretches of it. Starting in the 1940's, most of the river was put underground but there are still parts of the Park River in Hartford that are above ground — where it runs through the University of Hartford campus, and back through town by the UConn Law School campus and Farmington Avenue.
