Around Town

FieldFest ’19: New Canaan Athletic Foundation Releases Details on Sept. 7 Music Festival at Waveny

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A widely anticipated music festival to be held Sept. 7 at Waveny will feature a ‘70s rock-n-roll tribute band, field games, face painting and bouncy houses, officials announced Wednesday. FieldFest ’19, located at Waveny’s Coppo Field and running 5 to 10 p.m. on the first Saturday of September, benefits the New Canaan Athletic Foundation. The event is open to all and will feature headliner 8Track Band, as well as Funky Dawgz Brass Band and local band Bad Dog Buddy, the nonprofit organization announced in a press release. “We wanted to raise money and celebrate our accomplishments with a fun event that everyone in New Canaan, as well as friends from surrounding towns, could enjoy,” Mike Benevento, the Athletic Foundation’s chairman, said in the release.

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Podcast: The Rise of the New Canaan Athletic Foundation

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free weekly podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk New Canaan Athletic Foundation Chairman Mike Benevento about the organization’s efforts over the past several months not only to formalize a partnership with the town, but to sketch out—for the very first time—a detailed, sustainable master plan for youth and varsity sports facilities in New Canaan. Those efforts include a newly announced music festival planned for Saturday, Sept. 7. This week’s podcast is sponsored by Karl Chevrolet, a proud supporter of the full range of New Canaan Athletics. Let’s go Rams.

Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

Around Town

New Canaan Athletic Foundation Plans Community-Wide Music Festival at Waveny

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A nonprofit organization that supports youth and high school student athletes in New Canaan announced last week that it’s planning to host a community-wide gathering in Waveny this fall as part of a new annual fundraiser. The New Canaan Athletic Foundation’s awareness and capital campaign will be an hours-long concert at Waveny in the style of the hugely popular and successful Greenwich Town Party, according to the organization’s chairman, Mike Benevento. To be held on the Saturday after Labor Day weekend, the music festival is to be held in the area of Coppo Field—behind Lapham Commuity Center, on the far side of the water towers from the new turf fields at New Canaan High School—following consultation with the first selectman, NCHS athletic director and town recreation director and parks superintendent, Benevento told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their June 12 meeting. In future years—unless the Coppo location works out exceptionally well—the event could be held out back of Waveny House, he said (there’s already a wedding booked for that Saturday this year). NCAF hasn’t yet settled on a formal name for the gathering.

News

High Marks for New Turf Fields at NCHS, Despite Delay in Lighting

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Despite a yet-unresolved delay that’s cut down on practice hours, those making use of the newly laid turf fields in their inaugural spring at New Canaan High School are giving high marks for a facility that’s more weather-resistant, flexible and consistent with those of area towns. Though the lights at the new Water Tower turf fields are not yet powered due to recent storms, athletes, coaches and officials from the nonprofit organizations that run youth sports here say the fields—part of a an estimated $5.8 million project that also includes the new track at NCHS, a public-private partnership between the town and New Canaan Athletic Foundation—already are paying dividends. “The new turf is great because there is more space to play when it rains,” fourth-grade lacrosse and soccer player Emma Barnard said. “That’s a good thing.”

The track and fields project has been “a long time coming,” Recreation Director Steve Benko said. “When we’re finished, we’ll have a spectacular facility.

News

‘We Are Very Close To Reaping the Rewards’: New Turf Fields, Track at New Canaan High School Near Completion

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The sub-surface work for the new turf fields at New Canaan High School was completed last month and lighting towers and fencing there have been installed, according to the volunteer committee that’s overseeing the widely anticipated projects. Turf and fill for both fields—a full-size field and a smaller one—will be installed once daytime temperatures consistently reach 45 degrees and that installation will take about three weeks to finish, according to a information supplied by the Town Fields Building Committee. According to NCHS Athletic Director Jay Egan, an ex officio member of the committee, next week’s warm temperatures are expected to deliver a window for the installation. “Thanks to the town’s contribution and the private donations, as we kick off the spring season, we are going to have some tremendous fields and a track complex for our athletes to use, and for the youth-level lacrosse and soccer players, and so I think it’s really exciting,” Egan said. “We are on the verge of having a complex that will be second to none as far as this area is concerned.”