Archive: Around Town

E. N. Wilds Director of Cornell Plantations Dr. Christopher Dunn has been named to the board of the International Union for Conservation of nature and Natural Resources – United States (IUCN-US).

IUCN-US is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered in Washington, DC, which supports its partner organization, IUCN, and other partner organizations with similar missions in valuing and conserving nature, ensuring effective and equitable governance of its use, and deploying nature-based solutions to global challenges in climate, food and development. IUCN supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world, and brings governments, NGOs, the UN and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice.

Kiwi fruit is delicious.  The cute little round balls known as Hayward Kiwis are covered with fuzz.  Cut into one and the green, fruity inside makes a perfect salad ingredient.  In fact, the California Kiwifruit Web site lists 45 kiwi recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, salads, drinks and desserts.  But did you know there are 194 other species of kiwi fruit?  And that some of them are grown in Lansing?  Only a few weeks ago Cornell Orchards harvested kiwi fruit on their Lansing farm -- various kinds without fuzz that you can eat right off the vine.

"There is interest in this kiwi fruit, for obvious reasons," says Dr. Marvin Pritts, a Professor of Horticulture at Cornell's Integrative Plant Science school.  "It's the perfect American fruit, because you don't have to peel it.  There are no seeds.  You just pop it in your mouth and eat it.  It's unusual.  It tastes good.  if you pick it before the frost it stores for a fairly long time.  You can bring it out, even when it's hard, and let it sit out for a day or two to get soft and ripen.  The fuzzy Hayward species you find in stores is a tropical fruit, and won't grow this far north.  But many of the other species do grow in our climate.  The different varieties have different colored flesh, and shapes."

When you do your civic duty by voting your reward is being an active participant in our democracy.  But everyone likes a treat, and with that in mind Lansing Market is offering a free cup of coffee to voters next Tuesday morning from 7am until noon.

"We're as interested as any local Lansing resident to make sure that everybody gets out to vote," says store manager Sandro Mironti.  So as an incentive we would like to do something for the people who get out and make the effort.  So we're making the offer of a free 12 ounce cup of coffee as long as they come into our store wearing their 'I Voted' sticker.  We're doing that as a community service, as a small reward to thank everybody for voting."

Wednesday's Board of Education meeting began with a rendition of 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Lansing 8th grader Fiona Lory-Moran.  The occasion was School Board Appreciation Week.  Lory-Moran is playing Dorothy in the upcoming Lansing Middle School production of 'The Wizard of Oz'.  She was accompanied on the piano by middle school music teacher Lucas Hibbard.

by Rochelle Davis

Baby Girl came to the SPCA when her person had to enter a residence facility which does not allow her to have a cat. She has never shown any sort of aggression, and is reportedly a very loving cat who appreciates lap time on her schedule, and spends a great deal of time observing the passing scene out the window. She has lived with both cats and dogs and always uses her litter box. Baby girl is patiently waiting for her NEW person to fall in love with her and take her to her new home. Yours?

Visit the SPCA Web Page

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Anyone who has flown since 9/11 knows the routine.  Get in line, take your shoes off, put your items on a conveyor belt to be scanned, and walk through a scanner yourself.  How many times has your belt buckle set off an alarm?  Travellers see the process as a necessary annoyance, but the truth is that Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents do find quite a few prohibited items in these scans.  Last week the TSA held a press event at the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport, where boxes of confiscated items from the Ithaca and Elmira airports were on display.

"In all likelihood the individual who carried this had no intention of doing harm," said TSA Public Affairs Manager Lisa Farbstein, holding one of hundreds of knives handed over in the past three months.  "It's still a prohibited item.  You don't know what the guy next to you might be thinking if he sees that he has access to a weapon.  Before I worked for TSA I was stopped at checkpoints twice, and I ended up mailing the items back to my house.  It's very hard to remember to take a little knife off your key chain."

The Cayuga Medical Center Foundation announced that this year's 10th anniversary gala, An Evening to Care, had the largest support from our community – with the highest attendance ever – 434 people.

The gala raised a net of $118,000 to support Cayuga Medical Center Foundation's 2015 fundraising initiative –Enhancement of the Neonatal Department. Of the $118,000, $36,000 was raised by the live auction with auctioneer David Hall of National Book Auctions and Laurie Linn of Communique' Design and Marketing presiding over the live auction.  All of the auction items were generously donated by local businesses and members of our community.

Sally RamirezEach summer Lansing has the popular concert series in Myers and Ludlowvile Parks.  Last year the East Shore Arts Council (ESAC) started a Saturday night Concerts In The Courtroom series for the rest of the year.  This year ESAC is trying something different -- Sunday afternoon concerts for the whole family.  The new series kicks off this Sunday at 3pm in the Lansing Town Hall Courtroom with Latin jazz and American swing jazz with a touch of musical theater when Sally Ramirez and Chicos Dorados take the courtroom stage.

Ticket sales, program ads, and sponsorships fund the concerts.

The Phyllis B. Brodhead Library Media Technology Fund has helped Ithaca City School District (ICSD) media centers invest in technology, making it possible to engage a new generation of tech-savvy students and help them develop a love of reading.  Charles W. Brodhead (aka Chuck) created an Ithaca Public Education Initiative (IPEI) special fund to provide grants in memory of his late wife Phyllis to honor her 33 year career as teacher and librarian at Boynton Middle School.  She was keenly aware of the educational value of technology in school settings, and the $1,000 annual grant assists in maintaining her legacy.

Since creating this fund, Chuck died in fall, 2011.  Through his generous bequest, his estate added funding for this important endeavor, as well as for two IPEI Red and Gold Grants each year in his memory through the Charles W. and Phyllis B. Brodhead Memorial Fund.

United Way of Tompkins County along with partners, Alternatives Federal Credit Union, Challenge Workforce Solutions, Finger Lakes Independence Center, Catholic Charities Tompkins/Tioga, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, and Tompkins Workforce NY is participating in the Reach Outcomes. Achieve Dreams.

Succeed (ROADS) to Financial Independence, an initiative aimed at improving the financial well-being and economic security of individuals with disabilities. This initiative is being piloted in six communities across the country; with the goal of connecting financial counseling with employment, independent living, and other support services that are being provided to individuals with disabilities. ROADS to Financial Independence is an initiative of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the nation's first federal agency whose sole focus is protecting consumers in the financial marketplace. The initiative will be managed through a contract with the National Disability Institute (NDI).

New Classes for Groton Preschoolers
 
Groton Central School District has been awarded a Universal PreK Expansion Grant. As a grant recipient, the elementary school will be adding a full-day preschool classroom and forming a new half-day preschool class. These expanded class offerings include an additional full-day class available to four year olds, and a new half-day preschool class for three year olds.

The expansion project will involve hiring additional staff and a comprehensive plan for supporting the incoming students and their families as they transition into a K-12 school system. The New York State Education Department awarded up to $30 million in total to fund grants for the 2015-2016 school year. This funding is linked to the federal initiative to expand public education by enrolling more children into high-quality preschool. Currently, Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma are the only states that offer Universal Pre-K for all four year olds.

Tompkins County, in a collaborative effort of the Health Planning Council, Office for the Aging, the Department of Emergency Response, Finger Lakes Independence Center, Visiting Nurse Service, Lifelong, the Ithaca College Gerontology Institute, and the Department of Occupational Therapy participated in the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York's Step Up to Falls initiative. Tompkins County has seen a decrease in hospitalization due to falls from 221 to 208 per 1000 persons between 2008 and 2013.

Each year, nationwide, one in every three adults over the age of 65 falls and one in 10 falls end up in hospitalization.  According to the New York State Health Department, 140 older New Yorkers are hospitalized due to a fall each day, costing $1.7 billion on hospitalization charges each year.