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Heroes of the Park 2005

posted August 13, 2005 from the August Newsletter

GOOD DEEDS FOR THE PARK

We got a wonderful gift from long-time park friend Kyla Dixon-Muir: two brand new chafing dishes for serving Friday Night Supper: stainless-steel hot water basins, food tray inserts, gleaming lids and all. Kyla found them in a dumpster! But she now lives in on the other side of the Don Valley, and people have been so busy at the park there was no one to go across the viaduct and pick them up. Then Kyla sent a message for us to post on the Dufferin Grove Friends list serve and we got four offers for pick-up within the day. Sheila Pin went and got them (we thanked her with fresh park oven bread and cinnamon buns). Thanks to Kyla, Sheila, and also Emily Visser and Bernard King, faithful moderator of that list serve for almost five years now.

The August 2005 special double edition newsletter was sponsored by '''Tere Oulette, the owner of a wonderful toy store called Scooter Girl''' (187 Roncesvalles), and by Abe Altman (one of the regulars helping at the cob courtyard) and Nathalie Grondin. They are all friends of the park and together they contributed $92 for us to print 350 copies of this newsletter.


posted March 3, 2005 From the March 2005 Newsletter

THIS MONTH'S PARK HEROES, March 2005

...the City's Property Department's electrical foreperson Al Berney, who was successful in finding us the scarce replacement lights for our donated (and now discontinued) track lights inside the rink house - the main room is once again beautifully lit

...the homeschoolers who gather at the playground on Thursdays in the summer and who decided, out of the blue, to give the park a $75 donation, delivered in February by Stefani Brown (we bought seeds from Colette Murphy, and dirt to start them, at the Thursday farmers' market)

...Suchada Promchiri of Osogood Foods on College near Ossington, for making colourful cookies-on-sticks for the kids to nibble at "Puppets on Ice"

...Judy Simutis, for bringing over Valentine treats for the snack bar in February (in the past, Judy has also made dog pizza for the park dogs in the bake oven)

...Anne Ruetz and John Dent, for organizing a "love the park" better-late-than-never Valentine Friday Night Supper on February 25, a wonderfully peaceful, friendly dinner that also gave our park's Hungarian staff intern Gabriella Mihalik a chance to shine as a cook (and she'll do more)

...Janet Nicol and Peter Wall, for ordering up some firewood for the park from the Happy Farme. Now the rink house wood stove can keep a fire in for the extended-rink season in March

...Alan Carlisle for persuading Downtown Lumber to give him skids, and then hauling them up to the park to keep us in bake-oven wood for the whole winter (so we could bake park bread)

...Connie Chisholm, carpenter, who's fixing the park's rocking bench that Leemala Ragubance and Shanti Nahata gave the rink house, so that two can rock together in front of the wood stove

...Alvaro Venturelli of Plan B Organics, who donated leftover produce at the end of the farmers' market almost every week, for the rink suppers

...Ben Sosnicki, who donated whole boxes of organic onions to the snack bar to go along with Jessie Sosnicki's delicious perogies

...the city rink staff, supervisors Brian Green and Scott Atwood and their never-say-die crews, for giving rink lovers the best outdoor artificial ice rink maintenance of any winter in living memory (no exaggeration!); and the Parks and Recreation city rink manager, James Dann, Director Don Boyle and Acting General Manager Brenda Librecz, who supported the improvement in rink service - and to the mechanics who kept even the tired old zambonis running: James Lamb and his colleague CK . A triumph after years of struggle. All these people should get an Oscar.


posted June 7, 2005

THANK YOU'S TO (June 2005):

Connie Chisholm, park friend and carpenter, who fixed the rink house rocking bench that Leemala Ragubance donated last winter. The rocking bench was really popular but not designed for use by so many people. Connie reinforced it so well that it's all set for the next five hundred people who want to sit and rock in it (not all at once).

Park supervisor Brian Green: despite (or because of) his strained park maintenance budget, Brian scrounges things for the parks he looks after, whenever he comes across anything lying unused in a back corner of a parks service yard. So he found some old pieces of plywood and his crew fixed the worn-out, holey tennis practice board on the rink fence. Now he's located some solid chess/checkers tables and stools that are being removed from other parks (at the community's wish) (?!). Those tables will let Chris Schallert expand the kids' chess club this summer, down by the playground.

Shanti Nahata: he had the idea that every Sunday at 10 a.m., park friends who like exercising could meet at the rink for 20 minutes of park cleanup followed by a 30 minute run/walk/stroll and refreshments. Shanti's motto: "Help your community and your body." If you want to join them, just come to the park at that time or contact: Shanti at sln@itgsys.com or Bruce Whitaker at whitaker@rogers.com.

Forestry supervisor Mark Procunier: he came to the park at our request to do a tree inventory and figure out which trees may have to come down (before they fall down on someone) and where some replacement trees could be planted. After many years with no new plantings, Mark was very encouraging about our chances of getting some new trees.


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