South Hadley Make A Difference Day will be Saturday, October 18 with a rain date of Saturday, October 25.

-----Original Message-----
From: Linda Young
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 7:26 PM
To: Bob Judge; 'Edward G, Wall'
Cc: 'Michael Szlosek, Town Administrator'
Subject: RE: Proposal for a S. Hadley Falls "Spruce-Up" Day, Saturday, October 18

Hi everyone, both my phone messages and those I saw at Dockside are abuzz about our clean-up day. You all are doing a great job.

Make A Difference Day did not allow for an alternate date except for October 26 so I chose to put the Oct. 25th date into our application… There is no problem with our doing it on Oct. 18th and linking it to the national Make A Difference Day... Doug and I probably won't be back for the 18th but will plan on doing our part during the following week or coordinating efforts for any other volunteers who could do more on the 25th.

I'm really excited about the idea of a mural on the ... building. Mike...Jeff Lebrecque and I are meeting next week in Mike's office...Involving the schools and the college is great. The college I believe is participating in the United Way Make A Difference Day in September. Have they lined their projects up yet? Would you like me to find out and see if they could do the parking lot, etc? Are we still meeting on the 8th at noon for a walk through? - Linda
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From Ed Wall:
Bob, also, may I suggest that instead of 'spruce-up' or 'clean-up' day we officially name this 'South Hadley Falls - Make a Difference Day' - It's a mouthful but it puts us in line with national campaign and specifically identifies the community we are looking to concentrate on.

In terms of the things that can be done before the 8th:
Bob if you could make that contact with the college that would be great. Maybe if you have the time, you could also speak with the right people to begin the process of getting this into the school system. Maybe if they have the right amount of notice, the art departments could take some projects to help us with some signage to put on the rotary that weekend and around town. They could also make a large banner to put up at the "command center" that day. They could also design an ad or notice for The Reminder and we can see if The Reminder will give us some space for that.

I will contact the right people at Intelicoat and let them know our intent and feel them out. I will contact...and try to get him to let some people plant flowers. I will also get the right contact people for Getty and see if we can get somewhere over there as well. We need someone to contact Haas and the Dinn Bros. Haas has some old grafittied trailers that need to be painted over white in addition to the field and weeds on fence situation. Dinn would need to either cover up that graffiti or give us permission to do it. If Michael's Market is coming down, we don't need to worry about that. But Marilyn had a good idea with a mural. Maybe the high school art department could use this opportunity to paint a mural on the bridge side of the 'Crack of Dawn' building of the old river before the dam and that really neat ramp that was built with the water wheels on it. Just an idea.

I think one of the biggest projects is that Egg & I parking lot. In terms of the town's help. I'm going to just throw this out there. Would it be possible for the town between now and the date as a preliminary related project, to cut some trees back in that lot. If they are going to cut one or two, it's not worth it. That lot needs to be beat back about 5 feet including the really high trees that begin deeper in but hang way over.

Those can just be trimmed back. However, this project is not for volunteers. The rest can be taken care of by an army of people: raking, shoveling off the dirt, sweeping the lot. The last piece I would love to see is our street sweeper take a few passes through the lot and then have it re lined with paint.
...
Ed Wall
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Ed,

Thanks for attending last night...As you heard, we got a solid endorsement for the idea from all of the Selectboard members.

What should we do, if anything, before our 9/8 walk-through? I would think you would be the best person to contact the Chamber. I would be happy to contact the College, if you like. I or maybe Linda could also contact the Boy Scouts. It was suggested last night that we contact the high school. Was there any other suggestion last night of who we should contact, who we had not yet thought of?

Let me know what you think.

-Bob
> ----- Original Message ----
________________________________
From: Bob Judge
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2008 8:03 PM
To: edwall; Linda L. Young; Nancy Pickle; Katharine Bedard
Cc: Brenda L. Mathieu;
Subject: FW: Proposal for a S. Hadley Falls "Spruce-Up" Day, Saturday, October 18

Ed, Linda, Nancy, Lin, Kate:

As you see below, our proposed Oct. 18 Falls "Clean-up" ("Spruce-up?") will be on the Selectboard agenda for the 9/2 meeting, probably sometime after 8:15 pm. If you are able, please attend so that one or more of you, not just me, can hear any suggestions from Selectboard members. In any case, I will note carefully what others say about our good idea. - Bob

From: Bob JUdge
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 1:10 PM
To: 'Michael Szlosek'
Cc: Carlene Hamlin, Chair, Town of S. Hadley Selectboard
> Subject: RE: Proposal for a S. Hadley Falls "Spruce-Up" Day, Saturday,

From: Bob Judge
Cc: edwall
Subject: Proposal for a S. Hadley Falls "Spruce-Up" Day, Saturday, October 18

Mike:
Ed Wall owns Pioneer Financial on Bridge Street across the street from Town Hall. Ed started a "Google Group" for those who are interested in improving S. Hadley Falls, at http://groups.google.com/group/shfallsrevitalization. He sent you an email invitation to join that email group.

Ed, Linda Young, several other residents, and I would like to organize a "Help Us Clean-Up South Hadley Falls Day" (name still to be determined), for probably 9am-1 pm, on Saturday, October 18, with a rain date of Saturday, October 25. The date coincides with National Make a Difference Day (http://www.usaweekend.com/diffday/ ). That entity awards grants and Linda intends to submit an application, although she does not expect that we will get a grant.

The plan is to invite all residents to join us for an hour or more on October 18 to help with some simple beautification work in the Falls, primarily on Main and Bridge Streets. We would invite people to arrive at the parking lot across from the Egg and I, which is owned by Holyoke Gas & Electric but is apparently leased by the Town. We would ask people to bring perhaps a rake, broom, glass clippers, and/or gloves, for instance. We would set up a table and sign in the parking lot and hand out simple assignments, such as "Please trim the weeds in front of the police station" or "Please pick up the trash in the gutter on Main Street." During the day, we hope that people will patronize businesses in the Falls, for food or drink, for instance.
After we met on Thursday night, several of us walked from the Police Station to the Roost to look for possible tasks. We need to discuss our idea with business owners and ask for their cooperation and we hope participation.

We hope that the DPW could make a truck available in the afternoon to take away the trash, weeds, and whatever else we collect. We will want direction from the DPW as to what the DPW would like us to do and what the DPW would like us not to do.

Like any such effort, this one it will succeed only if we organize well and communicate properly with those affected, especially the property owners. At some point in the planning process, a couple of us may go door to door to business owners to tell them what we would like to do and to ask for their ideas.

We are open to comments and suggestions about changes we should make to the above early plan. I am sure there are several questions that we have not yet anticipated. For instance, we should think about who and how to ask for sponsorship, for example, to purchase materials, such as trash or leaf bags. When we have finished the plan, we will want to publicize it in the media, hand out flyers, announce it at an October Selectboard meeting, and use any other way to generate enthusiasm and participation.

We plan to meet again at the Egg & I on Monday, September 8 at Noon (rain date Sept. 9) to do another walk through the area to look for good tasks. We hope that you and Jim Reidy and/or his designee can join us for lunch.

This morning, Ed Wall sent an email about our plan to the Google Group, which you can see in the "Falls Clean-up" email conversation at http://groups.google.com/group/shfallsrevitalization>. I like "Spruce-Up" more than "Clean-Up" but maybe there is even a better name than either of those two for the day that we should use!