Published in the Current
Seeking some early success stories to boost fund-raising, the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation is soliciting applications from school staff.
In October, the foundation expects to give teachers a total of $15,000 in project money.
Teachers have responded well to past approaches from the foundation, in which school staff were asked to describe “projects that would significantly enhance your curriculum, or allow you to go beyond the status quo if you had funding for the time or materials.”
“Forty-plus teachers responded very enthusiastically,” said Gail Rice, chair of the foundation’s grants committee. “They were (proposing) exactly what we were looking for.”
Some of those proposals included field trips to subject-related museums and public buildings in Portland and Boston, guest lecturers and workshops on specific subjects already addressed in the curriculum, books for classroom and library use, technological tools for specific curriculum-related uses, and artists-in-residence for painting, music, poetry and dance.
The grant applications were distributed to teachers late last week, and are due August 2. The application process entails writing a two-page project summary and determining a proposed budget.
“It is critical that we do make it easy” for teachers to apply, said Susan Spagnola, CEEF’s publicity coordinator.
Rice and Spagnola are not sure what applications will come in, and the application forms make clear that CEEF may choose not to fund, or to fund only partially, some grant requests, depending on the applicant pool.
To fund the projects and further work by the foundation, donors have pledged $21,000, including three donations of $5,000 each, Spagnola said. Some of the donors are on the foundation’s board, but others are members of the community who have no affiliation with the organization, she said.
“The momentum it’s gained in the last several months has been incredible,” Spagnola said.
In the fall, the foundation expects to launch a campaign to raise between $1 million and $2 million, which will make available between $50,000 and $100,000 in interest each year for future rounds of grants.
Thursday, June 6, 2002
Scouts find, mark veterans’ graves
Published in the Current
A group of Cape Elizabeth Boy Scouts found 30 new veterans’ graves in Portland’s Western Cemetery just before Memorial Day.
Led by Eagle candidate Carl Hagmann, the group of about 40 scouts and parents mapped and marked graves and paths in the cemetery, which has not been used for some time and is overgrown in parts.
“We basically mapped out the entire cemetery,” Hagmann said. The goal was to locate and mark graves of veterans, so they could be decorated on Memorial Day.
He had a list of 142 veterans’ graves, compiled as part of the cemetery’s planning project. But there were more.
“There were some other graves from (the War of) 1812 that weren’t on the list,” Hagmann said.
He and his fellow scouts ended up identifying 172 graves of veterans, 30 more than were marked on the cemetery’s master map, according to Peter Monro, the project coordinator for the Stewards of the Western Cemetery.
The 30 veterans were all in the War of 1812, Hagmann said, and were scattered throughout the cemetery.
Their remains had always been in the cemetery, but their graves had been unmarked for some time.
More recently, headstones were erected, but the locations of the graves were not recorded on the cemetery’s map, Hagmann said.
As part of the project, Hagmann stamped plot numbers on stainless steel medallions, allowing the gravesites to be permanently marked, Monro said.
The medallions, provided by the City of Portland, had a 10-inch stake on the back, so they can be embedded in the ground while still easily moved over, he said.
The scouts also placed stakes at the ends of paths through the cemetery. Some of the paths were overgrown and not clearly identifiable, Monro said. “(Hagmann’s) leadership was instrumental in getting this done,” he said.
A group of Cape Elizabeth Boy Scouts found 30 new veterans’ graves in Portland’s Western Cemetery just before Memorial Day.
Led by Eagle candidate Carl Hagmann, the group of about 40 scouts and parents mapped and marked graves and paths in the cemetery, which has not been used for some time and is overgrown in parts.
“We basically mapped out the entire cemetery,” Hagmann said. The goal was to locate and mark graves of veterans, so they could be decorated on Memorial Day.
He had a list of 142 veterans’ graves, compiled as part of the cemetery’s planning project. But there were more.
“There were some other graves from (the War of) 1812 that weren’t on the list,” Hagmann said.
He and his fellow scouts ended up identifying 172 graves of veterans, 30 more than were marked on the cemetery’s master map, according to Peter Monro, the project coordinator for the Stewards of the Western Cemetery.
The 30 veterans were all in the War of 1812, Hagmann said, and were scattered throughout the cemetery.
Their remains had always been in the cemetery, but their graves had been unmarked for some time.
More recently, headstones were erected, but the locations of the graves were not recorded on the cemetery’s map, Hagmann said.
As part of the project, Hagmann stamped plot numbers on stainless steel medallions, allowing the gravesites to be permanently marked, Monro said.
The medallions, provided by the City of Portland, had a 10-inch stake on the back, so they can be embedded in the ground while still easily moved over, he said.
The scouts also placed stakes at the ends of paths through the cemetery. Some of the paths were overgrown and not clearly identifiable, Monro said. “(Hagmann’s) leadership was instrumental in getting this done,” he said.
Vandals cut trees at high school
Published in the Current
Three maple trees between the Cape Elizabeth High School and the senior parking lot were cut down on the night of May 27 in an action school Principal Jeff Shedd called “ugly.”
“Somebody vandalized the school in a very ugly and meanspirited way,” he said.
The maples were planted in the late 1960s and 1970s, and were cut off a couple of feet above the ground by a handsaw, leaving stumps about 10 inches across.
The trees were left there. “I came in Tuesday morning and there were three trees on the ground,” Shedd said.
Town workers have since cut the stumps off level with the ground and removed the trees.
Shedd said school staffers were alarmed by the vandalism, and students were too.
“As a whole, the student body is as horrified about it as the adult population,” Shedd said.
Students are raising money, he said, to replace the trees, and the senior class may make the replacement their class gift.
Detective Paul Fenton said there are no suspects in the case, but said he continues to investigate it. He encouraged anyone with information on the incident to call police.
Several people told the Current one or more of the trees were in memory of people, but school officials said that was not true.
Plaques can be found at the base of two trees on the high school campus, said Superintendent Tom Forcella. No plaques are near the sites of the trees that were cut down.
Three maple trees between the Cape Elizabeth High School and the senior parking lot were cut down on the night of May 27 in an action school Principal Jeff Shedd called “ugly.”
“Somebody vandalized the school in a very ugly and meanspirited way,” he said.
The maples were planted in the late 1960s and 1970s, and were cut off a couple of feet above the ground by a handsaw, leaving stumps about 10 inches across.
The trees were left there. “I came in Tuesday morning and there were three trees on the ground,” Shedd said.
Town workers have since cut the stumps off level with the ground and removed the trees.
Shedd said school staffers were alarmed by the vandalism, and students were too.
“As a whole, the student body is as horrified about it as the adult population,” Shedd said.
Students are raising money, he said, to replace the trees, and the senior class may make the replacement their class gift.
Detective Paul Fenton said there are no suspects in the case, but said he continues to investigate it. He encouraged anyone with information on the incident to call police.
Several people told the Current one or more of the trees were in memory of people, but school officials said that was not true.
Plaques can be found at the base of two trees on the high school campus, said Superintendent Tom Forcella. No plaques are near the sites of the trees that were cut down.
Thursday, May 30, 2002
Land Trust tour shows off Cape Elizabeth gems
Published in the Current
On a rainy Saturday, 11 Cape residents went on a tour of the town’s green spaces. It wasn’t a day for walking the trails, but a driving tour visited the 500 acres of land the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust has preserved.
With another 500 of town-owned acres also conserved of the 9,300 acres of land in Cape Elizabeth, land trust director and tour leader Susy Kist said, “well over 10 percent of Cape Elizabeth is protected in perpetuity.”
The first parcel visited on the tour held earlier this month was the first land the trust preserved, a three-quarter acre plot on Reef Road to which the trust holds a conservation easement. The spot has a beautiful view of Trundy Point, which Kist said is private land.
Kist said the land trust does approach owners of “significant parcels” of land in town to ask if the land can be conserved, but emphasized that all of the conservation is according to the wishes of the landowner.
“We wish to be a resource for voluntary land protection,” Kist said.
Many of the protected parcels throughout town have trails on them, and other property, including Gull Crest, which is next to the high school, has trails in the planning stages.
Trails through Gull Crest, Kist said, could help school athletic teams who now have to take a bus to get to the fields located on the other side of the conservation land. The complication, she said, is that the land between the fields and the high school is very wet and may require boardwalks or other construction.
The land trust has worked with landowners to protect woodland and open land near farms, and is in discussions with Billy Jordan and his family to conserve their farmland as a viable agricultural resource, Kist said.
The Dyer-Hutchinson Farm on Sawyer Road is home to one of the oldest farmhouses in town, which is now undergoing a renovation according to national historic preservation standards. New owner Jay Cox also will expand the business his parents run on nearby land with a Christmas tree farm, Kist said.
Farmland, she said, is “ideally developable land,” as it is already fairly free of rocks and does not have much ledge. Preparing the land for building, she said, is simple, which places farmland or former farms in danger of being developed rather than conserved.
Much of Cape’s land remains open though, giving Kist some good prospects. “In Cape we still have the potential to conserve hundreds of acres of land,” she said.
One example is Cross Hill. That development is on 200 acres of land, but half will remain open and unbuilt, Kist said. Each phase of the development has a trail network that ties into the entire development and the town greenbelt.
Other areas of town have smaller parcels of land protected and trail networks running through them. Two of the larger pieces are Hobstone Woods and Robinson Woods.
Hobstone Woods is the land originally slated for the third phase of the Hobstone development. The trust bought that land for $75,000.
On a rainy Saturday, 11 Cape residents went on a tour of the town’s green spaces. It wasn’t a day for walking the trails, but a driving tour visited the 500 acres of land the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust has preserved.
With another 500 of town-owned acres also conserved of the 9,300 acres of land in Cape Elizabeth, land trust director and tour leader Susy Kist said, “well over 10 percent of Cape Elizabeth is protected in perpetuity.”
The first parcel visited on the tour held earlier this month was the first land the trust preserved, a three-quarter acre plot on Reef Road to which the trust holds a conservation easement. The spot has a beautiful view of Trundy Point, which Kist said is private land.
Kist said the land trust does approach owners of “significant parcels” of land in town to ask if the land can be conserved, but emphasized that all of the conservation is according to the wishes of the landowner.
“We wish to be a resource for voluntary land protection,” Kist said.
Many of the protected parcels throughout town have trails on them, and other property, including Gull Crest, which is next to the high school, has trails in the planning stages.
Trails through Gull Crest, Kist said, could help school athletic teams who now have to take a bus to get to the fields located on the other side of the conservation land. The complication, she said, is that the land between the fields and the high school is very wet and may require boardwalks or other construction.
The land trust has worked with landowners to protect woodland and open land near farms, and is in discussions with Billy Jordan and his family to conserve their farmland as a viable agricultural resource, Kist said.
The Dyer-Hutchinson Farm on Sawyer Road is home to one of the oldest farmhouses in town, which is now undergoing a renovation according to national historic preservation standards. New owner Jay Cox also will expand the business his parents run on nearby land with a Christmas tree farm, Kist said.
Farmland, she said, is “ideally developable land,” as it is already fairly free of rocks and does not have much ledge. Preparing the land for building, she said, is simple, which places farmland or former farms in danger of being developed rather than conserved.
Much of Cape’s land remains open though, giving Kist some good prospects. “In Cape we still have the potential to conserve hundreds of acres of land,” she said.
One example is Cross Hill. That development is on 200 acres of land, but half will remain open and unbuilt, Kist said. Each phase of the development has a trail network that ties into the entire development and the town greenbelt.
Other areas of town have smaller parcels of land protected and trail networks running through them. Two of the larger pieces are Hobstone Woods and Robinson Woods.
Hobstone Woods is the land originally slated for the third phase of the Hobstone development. The trust bought that land for $75,000.
Making the most out of high school
Published in the Current
As high school graduation approaches in Cape, the Current went out to find students who were determined to make the most out of their high school years. These are not the traditional high school stars, but they are clearly young people who are taking charge of their own destiny.
Late-bloomer
For Ryan Garrity, graduation day has been a long time coming, longer by a year than for many of his classmates. Garrity didn’t graduate last year, but decided he really wanted to make it this year. He buckled down and is proud of his achievements.
He will graduate with a cast on his right arm that keeps him from playing basketball, something he used to do daily. Instead, he has been keeping busy with his other hobbies, ones he hopes will turn into money someday: art and
music.
He may be on the brink of discovering a gift. This year he took a number of art classes, and won $100 from the Cape Elizabeth Arts Commission for a piece of ceramic work he did. “It was actually the first ceramic thing I did,” Garrity said.
Drawing—usually with pen and ink—is another passion of his. “I want to make a comic book when I get older,” Garrity said. That may be another good beginning: he may yet find he has the drive and dedication to make it happen. “I can do it for hours,” he said.
And while many people fill high school notebooks with doodles or smiley faces, he focuses on humans. “I like drawing emotions,” Garrity said.
He is less hopeful about his music, as a white rapper from Cape Elizabeth probably should be. But that, too, he loves and can enjoy for hours on his own or with friends.
He said he didn’t start high school as a good student. “I didn’t like going to school,” Garrity said. But then last year he realized, “I’d rather be here than elsewhere. I saw where I could end up,” he said.
Watching his friends graduate a year ago, Garrity decided to finish high school. He said he has been accepted well by this year’s senior class.
Now he will finish his senior project – putting together a highlight video of the fifth-grade boys’ Amateur Athletic Union basketball team – and look for a job in Maine this summer, to be near friends.
He wants to go to college in the near future, and may move to Boston with some friends, he said.
Making the system work
The first thing Malarie Holcomb says about herself is that she has been taking figure skating lessons, and it’s a good metaphor for her life of new challenges and slippery rides.
She grew up the daughter of a Coast Guard officer who was transferred every few years. Before coming to Cape Elizabeth, she was at Massabesic High School. She moved to Cape Elizabeth as part of the state’s foster care system, which she entered at age 14.
“I’m actually one of the lucky ones,” she said. Other friends she has “in care,” as foster children say, are not so fortunate, she said. Holcomb hasn’t seen her father in six years, and hasn’t been allowed to speak to him either. She has been able to talk to her mother and brother, but hasn’t seen them in about three years.
When Holcomb moved to Cape she felt culture shock, she said. “It was hard at first,” Holcomb remembered of those first days and weeks at CEHS. She arrived halfway through her freshman year.
“People were nice but not inviting,” she said.
She soon decided to join activities and get involved at school, but even that was challenging. The swim team was more competitive than she had expected, but she met some friends. By senior year, she had a strong social network.
Holcomb is a friendly teen who is a bit nervous about all the reading she will have to do in college at UMaine-Farmington. This summer she may do some babysitting work, but plans to have some time off and relax, though she will head to UMF for a week in June to get a preview of college life.
Now 18, Holcomb is allowed to have more contact with her family, and graduation day will be the first day she has seen her father since she was in middle school. She’s a bit nervous about that, too.
Holcomb has earned a George Mitchell scholarship to help with college costs, and the state of Maine is picking up her tuition, as they do for former foster children who attend UMaine schools. And, as much as her foster family has changed her life, she too has influenced them.
Her foster mother, Lisa Kittredge, said of Holcomb, “she is one of my heroes.”
Community first
Mike Walsh has one of those friendly, approachable faces found in a naturally community-minded person. He is a volunteer firefighter, which he enjoys so much he wants to work with a fire or rescue squad while in college.
Walsh, a member of the Cape Coalition, was also a member of the Captain’s Club, a program that lasted but one year, bringing together sports team captains to deliver anti-alcohol and anti-drug messages to team members. He worked as a member of the Community Center planning committee, and swims and plays lacrosse.
Walsh was recruited by Wesleyan University to play lacrosse, and will attend next year, alongside his older brother, who will be a senior.
But what he calls “the most amazing” experience of his life has nothing to do with any of that. It was a trip he took in February to Korea with his younger brother Matt, adopted from Korea as a small child.
Matt, Mike, their father and their uncle went to Korea and traveled by train from Pusan to Seoul, crossing nearly all of the country. “It’s a totally different world,” Walsh said. He wants to go to China with his sister, adopted from that country.
In the meantime, he’ll spend the summer in Cape, working at the Shaw’s in Mill Creek and as a prep cook at Joe’s Boathouse. In his spare time this summer, Walsh will fight fires, play lacrosse in the men’s league at Portland’s Deering High School and fish.
After graduation, he and a couple of friends and their fathers will go on a father-son fly-fishing trip in northern Maine.
As high school graduation approaches in Cape, the Current went out to find students who were determined to make the most out of their high school years. These are not the traditional high school stars, but they are clearly young people who are taking charge of their own destiny.
Late-bloomer
For Ryan Garrity, graduation day has been a long time coming, longer by a year than for many of his classmates. Garrity didn’t graduate last year, but decided he really wanted to make it this year. He buckled down and is proud of his achievements.
He will graduate with a cast on his right arm that keeps him from playing basketball, something he used to do daily. Instead, he has been keeping busy with his other hobbies, ones he hopes will turn into money someday: art and
music.
He may be on the brink of discovering a gift. This year he took a number of art classes, and won $100 from the Cape Elizabeth Arts Commission for a piece of ceramic work he did. “It was actually the first ceramic thing I did,” Garrity said.
Drawing—usually with pen and ink—is another passion of his. “I want to make a comic book when I get older,” Garrity said. That may be another good beginning: he may yet find he has the drive and dedication to make it happen. “I can do it for hours,” he said.
And while many people fill high school notebooks with doodles or smiley faces, he focuses on humans. “I like drawing emotions,” Garrity said.
He is less hopeful about his music, as a white rapper from Cape Elizabeth probably should be. But that, too, he loves and can enjoy for hours on his own or with friends.
He said he didn’t start high school as a good student. “I didn’t like going to school,” Garrity said. But then last year he realized, “I’d rather be here than elsewhere. I saw where I could end up,” he said.
Watching his friends graduate a year ago, Garrity decided to finish high school. He said he has been accepted well by this year’s senior class.
Now he will finish his senior project – putting together a highlight video of the fifth-grade boys’ Amateur Athletic Union basketball team – and look for a job in Maine this summer, to be near friends.
He wants to go to college in the near future, and may move to Boston with some friends, he said.
Making the system work
The first thing Malarie Holcomb says about herself is that she has been taking figure skating lessons, and it’s a good metaphor for her life of new challenges and slippery rides.
She grew up the daughter of a Coast Guard officer who was transferred every few years. Before coming to Cape Elizabeth, she was at Massabesic High School. She moved to Cape Elizabeth as part of the state’s foster care system, which she entered at age 14.
“I’m actually one of the lucky ones,” she said. Other friends she has “in care,” as foster children say, are not so fortunate, she said. Holcomb hasn’t seen her father in six years, and hasn’t been allowed to speak to him either. She has been able to talk to her mother and brother, but hasn’t seen them in about three years.
When Holcomb moved to Cape she felt culture shock, she said. “It was hard at first,” Holcomb remembered of those first days and weeks at CEHS. She arrived halfway through her freshman year.
“People were nice but not inviting,” she said.
She soon decided to join activities and get involved at school, but even that was challenging. The swim team was more competitive than she had expected, but she met some friends. By senior year, she had a strong social network.
Holcomb is a friendly teen who is a bit nervous about all the reading she will have to do in college at UMaine-Farmington. This summer she may do some babysitting work, but plans to have some time off and relax, though she will head to UMF for a week in June to get a preview of college life.
Now 18, Holcomb is allowed to have more contact with her family, and graduation day will be the first day she has seen her father since she was in middle school. She’s a bit nervous about that, too.
Holcomb has earned a George Mitchell scholarship to help with college costs, and the state of Maine is picking up her tuition, as they do for former foster children who attend UMaine schools. And, as much as her foster family has changed her life, she too has influenced them.
Her foster mother, Lisa Kittredge, said of Holcomb, “she is one of my heroes.”
Community first
Mike Walsh has one of those friendly, approachable faces found in a naturally community-minded person. He is a volunteer firefighter, which he enjoys so much he wants to work with a fire or rescue squad while in college.
Walsh, a member of the Cape Coalition, was also a member of the Captain’s Club, a program that lasted but one year, bringing together sports team captains to deliver anti-alcohol and anti-drug messages to team members. He worked as a member of the Community Center planning committee, and swims and plays lacrosse.
Walsh was recruited by Wesleyan University to play lacrosse, and will attend next year, alongside his older brother, who will be a senior.
But what he calls “the most amazing” experience of his life has nothing to do with any of that. It was a trip he took in February to Korea with his younger brother Matt, adopted from Korea as a small child.
Matt, Mike, their father and their uncle went to Korea and traveled by train from Pusan to Seoul, crossing nearly all of the country. “It’s a totally different world,” Walsh said. He wants to go to China with his sister, adopted from that country.
In the meantime, he’ll spend the summer in Cape, working at the Shaw’s in Mill Creek and as a prep cook at Joe’s Boathouse. In his spare time this summer, Walsh will fight fires, play lacrosse in the men’s league at Portland’s Deering High School and fish.
After graduation, he and a couple of friends and their fathers will go on a father-son fly-fishing trip in northern Maine.
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