Archive: Around Town

The Fine Arts Booster Group (FABG), an affiliate of IPEI, has awarded $5,207 in grants to Ithaca City School District (ICSD) programs that will reach 886 students.  Grant funds are made possible through Fine Arts Booster Group performance booklet ad sales and donations. The boosters produce performance booklet programs for middle and high school concerts and plays, totaling over thirty events each year. District arts events are open to all.

All secondary schools received Drama Program grants, including DeWitt Middle, Boynton Middle, Lehman Alternative Community, and Ithaca High. Secondary school arts trips will be supported by scholarship assistance. The Josh Endo Memorial Award for the Continuing Support of Music Education (JEMM) was awarded to support elementary instrument rentals and secondary instrumental music trips. 

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Over the past year I've unfriended several people on Facebook for a variety of reasons. Some are too political, or at least hold views in the extreme opposite of mine. Others are too 'Christmas letter-y'. You know the type. Their spouse is wonderful and has a lucrative new job, kids are honor roll students, and they vacationed in fabulous, exotic destinations during the year. Others are just annoying. The problem is that I'm running into these people when I'm out and about. I'm feeling like they know I unfriended them because of the way they look at and avoid me. Shall I go through the process of re-friending them and make up an excuse (lie) about how it came about that I unfriended them in the first place?
Friends Unfriended

By Doug Scott

Hi folks, my name is Hyde! I'm only 2 years old! I love human attention. If you give me a minute to get used to your smell, then I would love to be pet... and I just might become your new best friend! I also love to play, and a wand toy is my very favorite. If you love orange cats, boy am I the cat for you. I can get over stimulated at times, so a home without children would be purr-fect for me. And I would like to be your only cat, please and thank you!

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Cass Park Arena Enclosure Campaign supporters were hosted by coordinator Mary Grainger at the facility during the final week of the 2017-18 ice season. Ithaca Youth Bureau (IYB) Director Liz Klohmann and IYB Recreation Facilities Director Jim Dalterio also attended the gathering at Cass Park.

Grainger expressed great appreciation to the campaign donors who attended; there have been over 260 individuals and families and 31 businesses and organizations making gifts toward the Cass Park Arena Enclosure between summer 2016 and winter 2018. "Supporters of the capital project - to build a glass enclosure and install a system that will control air temperature and humidity - have shown there is community belief and passion about the proposed facility improvements," she said.

The emerald ash borer – an invasive beetle that has destroyed ash trees across the country – has been detected for the first time in Tompkins County in the 4,200-acre Arnot Forest, Cornell University's largest teaching and research forest.

The arrival of the pest is not exactly a surprise. Arnot Forest land managers anticipated the insect's spread and have been actively managing the forest's ash trees for a decade. Ash accounts for about 15 percent of the total number of trees in Arnot Forest and are valued at many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Lansing Historian Louise Bement was among five honorees at the 3rd annual History Center of Tompkins County awards gala.  The awards ceremony followed a reception at the First Unitarian Society of Ithaca building March 1st.  Bement was honored along with Ithaca College Director of Programs & Outreach Dr. Sean Eversley Bradwell, the Ithaca Aviation heritage Foundation, Wharton Studio Museum Executive Director and Co-founder Diana Riesman, and Tompkins County heritage Tourism founder Stuart W. Stein.

"She is known as the 'Good Will Ambassador of Lansing' and takes special pride in helping out newcomers to the community, people who may want to know about the history of their house, or maybe a relative that lived there," said Lansing Community Library Trustee Ron Ostman. "She's good with genealogies and many different things."

United Way of Tompkins County (UWTC), in partnership with the Hangar Theatre and Target Corporation, has delivered 1,000 pairs of socks to local schools for children in need. These socks were purchased with the proceeds of the Christmas Carol Fund.

The Christmas Carol Fund was created to address the basic needs of area youth. The Hangar Theatre donated a portion of August ticket sales from their production of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" to kickoff the Christmas Carol Fund. The Christmas Carol Fund was promoted throughout the run of the show in December and attendees were invited to contribute through a text to give campaign.

Hidden in plain sight is a modest red building on Rt 13 hill leading out of Ithaca to Newfield.

Perhaps it is more like a small compound. When I was growing up, it was part of Seaney's Greenhouses, where mom would pick up garden stuff - at that age, I was just happy to go for a ride so I paid little attention. Then in the early 2,000's I noticed that every time I passed by the property looked just a little better, a little nicer, then a sign 'Stella's Barn' appeared, advertising itself as a gift shop.

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell's Ithaca campus have established a new center to better understand why health outcomes vary among demographic groups. Through partnerships with communities in New York City and central New York, the Cornell Center for Health Equity will generate new evidence on how to eliminate such differences with the goal of achieving health equity for people locally, regionally and nationally.

Working with local organizations and providers, the center will study the causes of health care disparities – which include unequal health care access and quality, as well as social influences – among minority communities. Investigators will use their findings to develop new interventions that can surmount adverse health outcomes caused by that imbalance. They will also train the next generation of researchers who can tackle this critical public health issue. A symposium on March 15 and 16 at Weill Cornell Medicine officially launched the center.

The annual News Talk WHCU Wine & Dine Radiothon took place on Friday, March 2, raising over $4,000 for the United Way of Tompkins County (UWTC). Each hour from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., WHCU radio host Lee Rayburn auctioned off a case of local wine or beer that was paired with a gift certificate to a local restaurant to raise money for United Way.

Throughout the day listeners were able to learn about the variety of programs and services that are supported through UWTC. Guests included leaders of UWTC funded agencies that shared the value of their partnership with United Way, including Leslyn McBean-Clairborne from GIAC, Sue Dale-Hall from the Child Development Council, Dan Brown from Racker Centers, Dale Schumacher from The Learning Web, Lucia Sacco from Lifelong, Kristen Wells from Gadabout, Kate Shanks-Booth of the Women's Opportunity Center, and a panel of program directors from the Human Services Coalition.