|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Vol. 2, No. 5
Tuesday, March 7, 2000
Greetings from Wellington Park. A lot has been happening lately. There are two items that could use your immediate attention. So grab your pen, grab the Newton Serves flier that came to you in the mail recently, grab your checkbook, and grab two envelopes and two stamps.
Item Number ONE: Before you forget, fill out the volunteer application form on the Newton Serves brochure and send it in immediately to Newton Serves, 70 Crescent Street, Newton, MA 02466. The deadline is THIS Friday, March 10. This is a community Servathon for all of Newton but Wellington Park is one of the 50 selected projects. See details in the article below.
Item Number TWO: While you still have your pen in hand, take your checkbook and carefully consider a donation towards our new play structure at Wellington Park. You may have gotten a hand delivered flier in your mailbox. Every little bit will help. Make the check payable to our nonprofit sponsor, NCSC, write Wellington Park Fund on the check and mail it to Newton Community Service Centers, Inc., Wellington Park Fund, 492 Waltham Street, West Newton, MA 02465 (or just drop it by their 2nd floor office - attn: Paula Fiske on your next trip to CVS.)
Please read further to find out more details on these two important items.
"It doesn't take much to start a revolution of thought and spirit. It takes
one person and then another and then another."
- Lenny
Zakim
Most residents should have received in their mail, a flyer describing the Newton Serves day on April 9. We would like to get as many people as possible involved on that day at the Servathon. What is a Servathon you ask? It's a day of community service bringing together volunteers of all ages to complete tasks that benefit 40 local nonprofit agencies and the City of Newton (including our own Wellington Park). Volunteers working in teams will be assigned to project sites throughout the city. Examples of projects include painting, cleanup/landscaping, light carpentry, sorting, and working with senior citizens.
At the Wellington Park site, with our assigned project supervisor Myra Tattenbaum, we hope to accomplish such potential tasks as painting the Kilburn and Princess Road fences, picking up glass, brush cleanup, fix the gates, plant bulbs, etc. However, you are encouraged to sign up for any project anywhere in the city. Surely there is a match for your talents. We expect a lot of our 25 assigned volunteers to be from outside the immediate vicinity. It's a good way of getting residents familiar with needs in other parts of our community. So, if you sign up, you can certainly specify Wellington Park, but it may be better to broaden your horizons. There will be registration and T shirt pick up at City Hall from 8:15-9:00 AM. Work will take place at sites in a four hour window between 9:30AM-3:30PM. We are not certain yet of the window for Wellington. At 4:00PM there will be a closing celebration at City Hall with free Sundaes! Come and join this inaugural event in Newton sponsored by Newton 2000.
We urge anyone to fill out the form on the flyer immediately and send it in to Newton Serves, 70 Crescent Street, Newton, MA 02466. The deadline is this Friday, March 10, 2000. It may be convenient for you to drop it off there at the Parks and Recreation office which is in Auburndale. Take Route 16 across the Pike - make a right at the Mobil Station past St. Bernard's Church. Make a right on Crescent Street, a few blocks down. The Parks and Rec Building is at the end of the street, next to the mass Pike. If you wish, please let us know as well if you are planning to volunteer for that day's activities (send email to WellingtonPark@aol.com).
If you have misplaced your flier, check out the Newton Serves website at
http://www.ci.newton.ma.us/Newton2000/newtonserves/index.html
You can print out the volunteer forms from the following web location:
http://www.ci.newton.ma.us/Newton2000/newtonserves/volapp.html
We have been having lots of meetings on selecting a play structure and it looks likely that we indeed will have a new play structure this year. We are aiming for a build day perhaps in June. The fundraising campaign is off to a good start and the additional funds will make a big difference in the play experience at the park. The sooner you make a donation, the better idea we will have of what features we can afford in the play equipment, e.g. new swings or not, and get them into the order for equipment
Jane and Don Quinn have coordinated the hand distribution of fund letters to neighbors for most streets in the vicinity of the park. If you have not yet received a letter on your street, please let us know (WellingtonPark@aol.com). Nancy Davis has mailed approximately 80 letters to local businesses about the needs at Wellington Park. If your business has not received a letter and you would like one please let us know. We offer a link to your business website from our Wellington Park site, a great way to attract some local customers. Eleanor Boschert-Ambrosio has been recording donations and will coordinate sending acknowledgments to our generous donors. The Newton Community Service Center (www.ncscinc.com) has been most helpful in assisting us with this fundraising campaign. Special thanks to Paula Fiske for handling the paperwork and to NCSC director Anthony Bibbo for his cooperation from the beginning of our organization. If you wish to contribute (just in case you forgot from a few paragraphs ago), make the check payable to our nonprofit sponsor, NCSC, write Wellington Park Fund on the check and mail it to Newton Community Service Centers, Inc., Wellington Park Fund, 492 Waltham Street, West Newton, MA 02465.
To date, we have received over $1800 in generous donations to the Wellington Park Fund. We wish to acknowledge the recent donations of the following individuals:
We also want to acknowledge donations by the following businesses. Very special thanks to the Garden City Alarm Corporation for their exceptionally generous contribution of $1000. Please give these businesses your full support.
A park play committee meeting was be held on Wednesday evening, March 1, 2000 at 7 PM at the home of Eleanor Ambrosio, 15 North Gate Park. The next Wellington News will contain a full report on that meeting. The main item on the agenda was a presentation by Mark Gallagher of Little Tikes.
Longtime Wellington Park enthusiasts, Jim Canavan and Mary (Grant), and their
spry for age faithful canine companion, Bear, are moving to a new house in
West Roxbury (first Ronda & Bob, then Jim & Mary - we hope this is
not a trend!). Jim will have to come back to do a little hoop shooting on
our summer basketball evenings. Speaking of basketball, congratulations to
our own local Newton North girl's basketball coach, Ann Myers (whose beagle
Maggie is a park regular), for her team qualifying for the state championships.
You may see her on the Wellington court as well this summer. Jane Quinn has
an interesting story to tell about all the mysterious conifer clippings near
the northeast gate (stay tuned for an upcoming story). And you thought crop
circles were mysterious!
Please get on our email list. You will receive the news directly by email. It is the fastest and easiest way for our organization to keep in touch. Just send an email to WellingtonPark@aol.com or call (617) 969-6222 and leave a message. If you wish to be removed from the Wellington News list or prefer to just read the news on the website, just send us an email to that effect. And of course, check out our web site http://wellingtonpark.8m.com for all the latest developments.
If you are not wired, just read our high tech cork bulletin board at the park. You are most welcome to submit items for publication here (childhood remembrances about the park, opinions, yard sale notices, etc.) by email or regular mail (Wellington Park News, c/o Ted Kuklinski, 24 Henshaw Terrace, West Newton, MA 02465).