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Last Saturday afternoon was sunny, warm and busy on the Waterfront Trail
with masked trail users enjoying the fresh air and scenery.
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Dear Friends,
March has arrived, bringing with it longer days and teasing us with the promise of warmer temperatures ahead. After a year like no other, the path to springtime brings with it cautious optimism that we may, with vaccinations and continuing vigilance, finally be getting ahead of this pandemic.
2021 is a yearlong 100th birthday celebration of Stewart Park, our beautiful lakefront gem which opened to the public July 4, 1921. Then Mayor Edwin Stewart’s vision and leadership led to its creation -- Ithaca’s first waterfront public park. FSP invites you to join the celebration with a full plate of virtual events, summer activities in the park (if deemed safe), engaging and informative exhibits, and fall events to highlight this special place.
In 1921, Mayor Stewart donated $150,000 towards the purchase and improvement of the park. One hundred years later Mayor Svante Myrick is serving as Honorary Chair of the Centennial and, along with Friends of Stewart Park, invites each of you who can to accept the Mayor Stewart Centennial Challenge and contribute $100 towards a goal of raising $150,000 by this July 4th. The Centennial Fund will support much needed park improvements, large and small, and set the “people’s park” on a good path for its next 100 years.
Many thanks to Steve Kress, a trailblazer in the world of bird conservation, for kicking off our Centennial Zoom Series with a bang in February! Do join us for our next virtual program, The Many Lives of Stewart Park: Past and Present, on March 31st, and we hope to see many of you at our two spring volunteer events: the Waterfront Cleanup on Saturday, April 17 (note new date) and It’s My Park Day on Saturday, May 1. See details below...
Thank you for your continued support of Ithaca’s waterfront and stay well!
The FSP Team -- Rick, Diana, Janelle and Andrea
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In 1921, Mayor Stewart made a gift of $150,000
to open Stewart Park as Ithaca's first lakefront public park.
Here's your challenge:
Join 1,500 of your friends and neighbors in contributing $100 to create a$150,000 fund for park improvement in the its next century.
This community effort can only succeed if we each step up to the challenge and invite others to do the same. From now until July 4, 2021 —Stewart Park’s 100th birthday— you can join this grassroots challenge and become one of the 1,500 donors to build the Stewart Park Centennial Fund! Your gift is a vote for the park’s future. Together, we can match Mayor Stewart and give the Park an incredible 100th birthday gift.
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There are many many improvements that are owed largely to Friends of Stewart Park.... their passion and their energy and all the resources that they bring — that you help deliver to the park — means that for generations it will be one of the reasons that people fall in love and love to live, work, play, and learn in the city of Ithaca.
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The Many Lives of Stewart Park:
Past & Present
*Free Virutal Event*
Wednesday, March 31, 7:00pm
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Cayuga Nation fishing village of Neodakheat. Swampy farmland. Competitive rowing oasis. Trolley amusement park. Home to the Wharton, Inc. movie studio. And today, one of the area's most popular recreational destinations. One thing's for sure: Stewart Park is a special place!
Explore the rich history of Ithaca's favorite lakefront park with those who know it best, in this free online event featuring the Executive Directors of three nonprofits working collaboratively to revitalize Stewart Park by preserving and celebrating its history. Join Friends of Stewart Park's Rick Manning; Wharton Studio Museum's Diana Riesman who is also Board President of FSP, and FSP; Susan Holland of Historic Ithaca, and Bryan McCracken, the City's Historic Preservation Planner, as they present a virtual walk in the park about Stewart Park's history.
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You can help prepare Stewart Park and the Waterfront Trail corridor for an incredible Centennial year. Join FSP Saturday, April 17 from 10 am to 12 pm for a morning of spring cleaning!
Dress for the weather, wear boots, and bring gloves, garbage bags, litter grabbers or anything else that will help. Together we'll practice good stewardship of our city park in this special year!
Turn left when you enter the park to meet by the Information Kiosk near the new playground. Be sure to wear a mask. COVID-19 protocols will be strictly followed.
Spread the word by RSVP'ing and Sharing the event on Facebook.
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I LOVE MY PARK DAY
May 1 Cleanup
This year Friends of Stewart Park is partnering with Parks and Trails New York for "I Love My Park Day!"
Come out May 1 for Cleanup, Landscaping and Planting in the Park from 10am-noon. MORE DETAILS.
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BIRDING
8 Week Online Course
The Cayuga Bird Club invites you learn even more with Steve Kress: join his 8 week course Spring Ornithology course.
Presentations Include: Bird Identification, Family Life of Birds, Bird Song, Migration Mysteries, Attracting Birds, and Bird Conservation.
Dates: 7 to 9 PM, Tuesdays, March 30 – May 18, 2021, via Zoom
(Classes are recorded for viewing or reviewing at your convenience.)
Cost: $125/Household (includes Cayuga Bird Club membership)
Registration & Information
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WHARTON STUDIO MUSEUM
Finger Lakes Film Trail Launches
New Online Film Series on Race
Race Films/Race Matters: Starting Conversations About Race in America is a new online film series produced by Finger Lakes Film Trail that hopes to initiate conversations about where we are today in terms of race relations and civil rights as individuals, as a community, and as a nation, through the lens of race films.
The series -- which is completely free to all -- focuses on five race films with accompanying video lectures by scholars from Cornell University, Ithaca College, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Eastman Museum, and Ithaca High School.
We invite you to explore this engaging digital series with the hope that, as a teacher, professor, librarian, or community organizer/activist, or interested individual, you will delve into this program with your high school or college class, local library, film group, book group, church or temple group, a social action committee, or friends. Click here to view the series.
Race Films/Race Matters is produced by Finger Lakes Film Trail, created in 2019 by Wharton Studio Museum in partnership with the George Eastman Museum in Rochester and Case Research Lab and Cayuga Museum in Auburn. The series was made possible by a grant from Humanities New York.
To visit the Finger Lakes Film Trail, go to www.fingerlakesfilmtrail.org
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TAG IT
Celebrate 100 years of Stewart Park!
2021 is Stewart Park's Centennial. We invite you to celebrate the park's 100th Birthday with us! Share your love for Stewart Park by marking your social media posts taken in the park with the hashtag #stewartpark100!
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