Around Town

New Canaanites Help Drive ‘Fairfield County Hospice House’ Project

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STAMFORD—New Canaan’s Julia Portale stood on the grass verge just off of this residential road in Stamford on Tuesday afternoon, the Douglas fir frame of a new structure rising on the 1.3-acre lot behind her. Known in New Canaan as a longtime Girl Scouts leader who taught Sunday School at the Congregational Church and now serves on the New Canaan Land Trust’s board of directors, Portale holds master’s degrees (from Yale) in both public health and business administration. For the last few years, she’s been running a home care hospice program in Fairfield—and, next year if all goes as Portale and a host of advocates for this project off of the Merritt Parkway’s Exit 33 are planning, she’ll be running a new type of hospice program that will serve New Canaan and other area families. “This is the setting that is the next best thing to home for people who are dying and who do not need intensive care, do not need facility-level care and can’t stay at home,” Portale said from the future site of Fairfield County Hospice House (see rendering at right), where she will serve as executive director. “If patients cannot stay at home, it is an opportunity for them to be in a home environment, a house that allows family to come in and spend quality time with loved ones in a home setting.”

Founded and governed by a nonprofit organization that’s been actively fundraising, site-seeking and otherwise galvanizing support for four years, Fairfield County Hospice House is expected to meet a pressing need that affects scores of area families.

Around Town

Land Trust Finalizes Plans To ‘Complete the Loop’ on New Public Greenway

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More than one year after town officials approved a subdivision on Weed Street with an attendant conservation easement—a strip of land that provided the “missing link” in what advocates have called a “dream greenway,” connecting the New Canaan Nature Center to Irwin Park—the architects of that project say they’re poised to take a final step toward realizing their vision. The greenway—essentially a loop that would include a new walk through the woods between Oenoke Ridge Road and Weed Street—includes Nature Center property as well as the easement and separate pieces of New Canaan Land Trust property. The open question that Land Trust Board of Directors Secretary John Engel and others have grappled with for a year is: How to traverse the wetlands that stand between the easement and Weed Street itself? Now, Engel said, the Land Trust is working with a wetlands scientist “to give us a report so that we can make a raised walkway through the wetlands that will, on the one hand, be the least impactful on the environment and yet it has to be sufficiently substantial so that it is safe for the public.”

If completed, New Canaanites would be able to walk a loop from downtown New Canaan—say, up Elm to the intersection at Weed Street, then to Irwin Park (which itself may connect via a sidewalk to the top of Elm), then through the “new” walkway, across Land Trust and Nature Center property through the woods, then out to Oenoke Ridge Road and down toward God’s Acre and the heart of the village again. “What is important is that we are completing the circle,” Engel said.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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Welles Lane House Christmas 2015

Uploaded by Michael Dinan on 2015-12-22.

We got an inside tip to go check out the Griswold-worthy Christmas decorating that one spirited homeowner did at 54 Welles Lane. Wow (see video above). We’re hearing that this dedicated celebrant blew at least one circuit with all the lights, plus nine inflatables and more to see on the property—don’t miss it. ***

A “Match-A-Thon” online fundraising campaign launched Monday to benefit Chabad New Canaan Jewish Center already had passed the halfway mark toward a $54,000 goal by 10 p.m. Donor dollars are automatically tripled as part of the campaign, thanks to a general local (and anonymous) family, the campaign says. The online campaign continues through most of Tuesday.

News

Letter: Andrew Clarkson ‘A True Champion of Philanthropy’

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Dear Editor,

Our community lost a very special citizen with the passing of Andrew Clarkson. I will miss him as a professional inspiration as well as a unique colleague and mentor to me in my role as the Executive Director of New Canaan Community Foundation. Andrew was a true champion of philanthropy and challenged us all to do the most good for our community. He believed that we all have a role to play in nurturing our community resources and led by example. Andrew was generous with his time, talent, and treasure and has left an incredible charitable legacy.

Around Town

SCROLL: ‘I [Heart] New Canaan’ Photo Contest Winners

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A special fund that empowers New Canaanites to help fellow town residents when they need emergency financial assistance is one beneficiary of this year’s “I [Heart] New Canaan” photo contest. Launched last year by the New Canaan Community Foundation, the contest calls for entrants to take a picture that illustrates something they love about the town—the people, places or activities that make New Canaan a great place to live. For five contest winners, NCCF makes a donation in their name to a charity of their choice. In addition to the Touch a Life Fund, which is operated by the NCCF itself, charities named this year include South Avenue Cottage, a residence for developmentally disabled adults, New Canaan Library, Filling in the Blanks and the Mikey Czech Foundation. This year’s winners and attendant beneficiaries are:

First Place: Carrie Deane Corcoran (Little Red Schoolhouse)—$250 to the Touch a Life Fund
Second Place: Andrea Chalon (Youth Football Team)—$150 to South Avenue Cottage
Third Place Norm Jensen (Fishing at Mead Park)—$75 to the Library
Youth: Abby Thomas (Lighting Up Boulevard 18)—$100 to Filling in the Blanks
Honorable Mention: Valerie Stryker (Boys at a Long-Ago May Fair)—$50 to the Mikey Czech Foundation

Scroll through their photos, and some others, above.