Around Town

PHOTOS: Second Annual ‘Scarecrow Fest’ Adorns Downtown New Canaan

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Downtown New Canaan got a seasonal makeover this week as local families and businesses created dozens of scarecrows now hanging from lampposts on Elm, Forest and Main Streets and South Avenue. Organized by the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce and Young Women’s League, the second annual Scarecrow Fest is sponsored by Weed & Duryea. It’s “just a fun way to dress town up and get ready for the [Oct. 28] Halloween Parade,” Chamber Executive Tucker Murphy said. 

“Anybody who comes downtown—I don’t care if you are two or 102—if you walk up Elm and Main, no matter what street, all it does is bring a smile to your face,” she said. “It’s another great community builder.”

Many of those putting together the scarecrows got very creative, Murphy said, such as Francos Wine Merchants using corks for fingers and grapes for hair, or The Linen Shop, which features a scarecrow tucked under a shower curtain.

Alex Stewart

Nominations for New Canaan’s ‘Volunteer Recognition Awards’ Open Through Friday

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Representatives for an annual awards ceremony that recognizes New Canaan’s generous volunteers is accepting nominees through 8 p.m. Friday. Individuals can visit this page, linked to through the New Canaan Community Foundation website, to nominate people for various categories of the 2018 Volunteer Recognition Awards, recognizing those who give of their time to benefit others. The people who volunteer in New Canaan are “100 percent and totally committed,” Tracey Karl, a member of the committee that helps organize the awards and ceremony, told NewCanaanite.com. 

“That’s why I love this event,” she said. “I find out about people who I know who volunteer and do things and don’t say anything, they just do it.”

Launched 20 years ago, the Volunteer Recognition Awards since 2015 have been sponsored and overseen by the New Canaan Community Foundation. The awards are specifically designed to spotlight people who have not been recognized for their efforts. 

It’s important to do that, Karl said.

Business

Locals Gear up For ‘Taste of the Town Stroll’ on Thursday

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Residents are gearing up for a popular event downtown that’s designed to showcase local businesses while raising food for the New Canaan Food Pantry as well as gently used eyeglasses and hearing aids for the Lion’s Club of New Canaan. The eighth annual “Taste of the Town Stroll” runs 6 to 8 p.m Thursday and will feature more than 15 stores, businesses and restaurants offering food and prizes. To earn a map of those locations and participate in the Stroll, people should bring (unopened and unexpired) goods—such as coffee, juice boxes, crackers, pasta sauce, canned stew, canned chicken, mayonnaise, tea bags and family-sized snacks—to the area out front of the Playhouse on Elm Street. 

For those seeking a one-stop shop for an appropriate donation for the pantry, Walter Stewart’s Market has generously put together bags of goods with a retail value of $30 that the cornerstone New Canaan business is selling for $20. “It is our pleasure to team up with the Chamber and support this fun event again this year,” said Doug Stewart of Walter Stewart’s. “We hope to help stock the New Canaan Food Pantry with much-needed groceries.”

Business

‘It’s Bittersweet’: Mackenzie’s Is Sold

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Phyllis Weinstein and Jim Berry, owners of Mackenzie’s on South Avenue for 13 years, said Wednesday that they’ve sold the business to a young couple in the area. 

Though Berry will continue to work part-time at the iconic downtown New Canaan candy, party goods and specialty gift shop, golden retriever Tahoe and Weinstein herself will be out after this week, she said. “It’s bittersweet, but it’s time,” Weinstein told NewCanaanite.com. 

To the loyal and regular customers of Mackenzie’s, Weinstein said “thank you for making this 13 of the happiest years that I have had.”

“It was a real happy time to come here every day. I was a nurse and director of the Red Cross, so I worked in sad and serious situations my whole life, and to come here and be with happy, upbeat people, it was a thrill.”

A Stamford resident, Weinstein added that what she’s enjoyed most during her stewardship of Mackenzie’s has been “watching the kids grow up and blossom and see the parents.” Through 13 years, the owners have seen New Canaan kids rise from kindergarteners to high school seniors and beyond. “It’s been a relationship,” she said. “It’s like watching your own kids grow up and it’s really special.”

Known during the school year as the primary Friday afternoon destination of Saxe Middle School kids who pile their backpacks outside the door, Mackenzie’s came to Weinstein and Berry when their son purchased more than a decade ago, and they kept operating it even after he took a different job some years ago.

Around Town

Officials Approve Road Closure Downtown for ‘Fall Into New Canaan’ in September

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Town officials voted this month to allow a prominent nonprofit organization to repeat a successful charity event downtown in September. The Young Women League of New Canaan’s “Fall Into New Canaan” will be held on Sept. 8 in the area occupied in past summers by the Pop Up Park, following the Police Commission’s 3-0 vote approving a street closure for part of that Saturday. During its inaugural event last year, Fall Into New Canaan saw 50 stores participate by donating 10 to 15 percent of profits for the day to a chosen beneficiary organization (Meals-On-Wheels), according to Marley Thackray, president of the Young Women’s League. “We had a wonderful day in town,” she told members of the Commission at their regular meeting, held July 18 at the New Canaan Police Department.