Community Service Projects and Tours (2011)
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.
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.
Hartford Community Center – Landscaping – located two blocks from the Law School, the Hartford Community Center is a non-profit organization that offers education and cultural programs and activities for all ages. They have a reading library and a computer lab open five days a week for internet access and tutoring. Programs include computer workshops, workforce development services for youth and adults, Basic Needs programs and referrals, language and literacy classes, and many community outreach and civic initiatives to help build lives of city residents. HCC has community service opportunities such as mentoring, and would like to create more partnership with the Law School. We will be doing some landscaping around the center along with staff and volunteers from the area.
Mark Twain House & Museum Tour - located a few blocks away from the Law School the Twain House is the premier attraction in Hartford. The Clemens family lived in this19-room mansion decorated by Louis Comfort Tiffany from 1874-1891. During that time, Twain traveled extensively, lost a fortune on a typesetting machine, and wrote some of his most famous novels including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
Walking Tour of West End - the Law School is located in the West End of Hartford, a National Historic area that is filled with beautiful and architecturally significant houses. The West End is also home to the Governor's residence, an imposing Georgian revival mansion, the Hartford Seminary, the Connecticut Historical Society, Elizabeth Park, the A. Everett Austin home, and many other homes of historic and architectural interest. West Enders feel an enormous sense of pride in their neighborhood and you will too after taking this tour.
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.