Around Town

Garden Club and Beautification League Partner To Create Wreaths, Holiday Decorations for Downtown New Canaan

By |

The white lights are in the trees on Elm and, thanks to a longstanding effort of two of New Canaan’s most cherished volunteer nonprofit organizations—with help from the town—the village center will be fully transformed into a winter wonderland come the Holiday Stroll on Friday night. More than 40 members of the New Canaan Beautification League and New Canaan Garden Club gathered Friday morning to create the wreaths, bows, garlands, holiday arrangements and evergreen roping that will adorn Town Hall, the police and railroad stations, library, new Post Office and windows throughout town. “Our members are vitally interested in this from both organizations because it’s such a great joint effort,” Jane Gamber, president of the Garden Club, said from the Visitors Center at the New Canaan Nature Center, amid tables piled with ilex bush cuttings, winterberries, pinecones and branches. “We enjoy collaborating together. It’s the holiday spirit and it’s a great way for everybody to give back a little to this town.”

For the past week, members of the Department of Public Works have been collecting the greens and—together with others supplied by New Canaan-based Mill River Tree Service—supplied the makings of the decorations.

Around Town

PHOTOS: New Canaan Beautification League Thanks Volunteers, DPW Workers at Annual Breakfast

By |

Members of a nonprofit organization dedicated to beautifying New Canaan gathered Monday morning at Mead Park to thank their volunteers and town employees during an annual breakfast. About 25 representatives from the New Canaan Beautification League met at the colonnade with Department of Public Works employees to celebrate their longstanding collaboration to maintain plantings around town. The league’s co-president, Faith Kerchoff, said the organization’s services include creating 207 hanging baskets for the downtown, plantings at 33 traffic triangles in New Canaan and seasonal holiday wreaths, as well as overseeing a public garden off of Chichester Road. The league last week won town approval to demolish a single-family residence at the Lee Memorial Garden and replace it with a potting shed. “We have about 150 members with a core of 30 or 40 that are really ‘in the dirt,’ ” Kerchoff said on a bright, cool morning from the grassy area inside the colonnade, where a table had been laid with coffee cake, muffins and coffee.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

By |

Seven women with direct connections to New Canaan—see the gallery above—will share their leadership experiences and encourage women and girls to pursue their goals in “Being Queen: Thoughts from the Throne,” a panel discussion hosted by NC Women Mean Business that will be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at New Canaan Library. Read here for more information to this free, open event. ***

A New Canaan woman spotted a bobcat on her Canoe Hill Road property on Saturday morning—the sixth such sighting in one month of the reclusive feline. “I happened to be in the kitchen and turned and looked out the window and saw a bobcat on the front lawn,” Carol Miller said of her sighting at about 4:35 p.m. Saturday. “It meandered across the driveway and headed into the woods, and not a minute later there were six prancing deer that followed it.

Around Town

Beautification League, Garden Club Create Large Wreaths That Adorn Major Buildings through the Holidays

By |

More than two dozen volunteers from a pair of the town’s longest-serving and most hands-on nonprofit organizations gathered at the New Canaan Nature Center on Thursday to create the giant wreaths that adorn major buildings in town through the holidays. Officials say the New Canaan Beautification League and New Canaan Garden Club have collaborated for some 50 years to create the wreaths—an effort that’s also supported by the town in that public works supplies evergreen cuttings and mounts the creations each year. “It’s a tradition. This is really a tradition,” Beautification League President Faith Kerchoff said from the bustling, sunlit Sturgess Room, which smelled sweetly of the wide variety of evergreens used for the wreaths, including holly, arborvitae, spruce, boxwood, pine, cedar and juniper. Buildings that will get large wreaths include New Canaan Library, the Railroad Station, Police Department, Outback and Town Hall.

Around Town

SCROLL: New Canaan Ornament Collection

By |

Scroll through the gallery above to view some of the 100 hand-painted New Canaan ornaments that are part of town resident Faith Kerchoff’s collection (the oldest one is the Little Red Schoolhouse, from 1979). They depict New Canaan buildings, businesses and scenes from throughout the town’s history, and the full collection can be viewed in person at the New Canaan Historical Society. (They also will be on display at the 2015 Holiday Stroll downtown, to be held Dec. 4 and 5.)

For those interested in purchasing ornaments, the 2015 collection is now ready—see this flyer for details on ordering. All proceeds from the ornaments benefit the Historical Society.