Bay Shore Beautification Society Newsletter www.Beautificationsociety.com PO Box 698M, Bay Shore, NY 11706
I’m not daring to say this out loud, but it does finally look like Spring Has Sprung! Crocuses, snowdrops and irises all in bloom—what a delight to see! Just a few years ago, Beautification led a wonderful Bay Shore-Brightwaters event called Spruce Up Bay Shore-Brightwaters. When our lead person moved out of town, the event was paused, but now it’s back in full swing sponsored by the Beautification Society and the Bay Shore-Brightwaters Summit Council! It was an inspiring day seeing so many groups of people working in so many areas to make our town stand tall! A flyer is enclosed which will give you full details, but it’s time to get out the rakes, shovels, grabbers and cultivators, find a clean-up or garden project that needs to be done, get your neighbors, friends, team, club, church school or organization involved and go to it! Choose a spot that needs a clean-up or a new garden: find a sore-looking empty lot, help an elderly neighbor with raking or weeding, do a litter patrol in your neighborhood, plant or redo a garden. This will all happen on Saturday, May 11 all day long. Don’t forget to register your project on Face Book at Spruce Up Bay Shore-Brightwaters FB page. If you don’t have a project, bring your gloves and tools and head to the Band Shell on Main Street to join in and find a job you’d like to do. Seeing so many volunteers working together–this is Bay Shore-Brightwaters at its best! Beautification’s project is the renovation of the train station gardens. Landscape architect Greg Moran and Tina Moran of Once Upon a Garden have created a beautiful plan for the gardens. We are coordinating with the Planning Department of Islip Town and should have everything in place by May 11. We need volunteers to help with preparing the ground and the planting. All hands on deck, so we will definitely need your time and energy when we put the shovels in the ground.
The Hanging Basket Program is in full swing preparing for the four hundred baskets (increased from last year’s 350) to be hung around Mother’s Day. Many thanks to Suffolk Transportation which generously sponsors ten baskets every year. With the new lamp posts that were installed on the east end of Montauk Highway, Northwell Health has sponsored twenty baskets, so the baskets will now be hung further east on these new poles. Please use the enclosed flyer to support the basket program that brings so much beauty to our town spring through fall. On the reverse side of the Basket Sponsorship Form is a form for Beautification Dues. Dues are only $20 a year and help support our many projects throughout the town, so please join us in our efforts to keep our town clean and attractive.
With the grass turning greener, it’s time to once again start acknowledging the owners of the homes we love to see for their attractiveness, care and neatness. The Nominate Your Neighbor program has been renamed in honor of one of our long-time members who passed away earlier this year and was the force in making the program a success. It is now The Gwen Cox Nominate Your Neighbor Award and we hope you will use the enclosed form to recognize a home that you admire. Thanks to Colleen Valdini for volunteering to chair this program so that it will continue. The form is online and has been updated to include an email address so that it (or just the information) can be emailed directly to Colleen.
We are continuing to work on revamping Light the Night and need new volunteers to help in all capacities: Head Block Captains, Block Captains and luminary lighting. We are working to expand Light the Night into new neighborhoods, so if your street is not lit on this wonderful night, please contact us. We have several new members but are looking for more to come to our meetings. Ideas for making our town even more attractive are always encouraged, so come join in!
A storage facility is needed for approximately two months to store the luminaries. Previously, the storage unit was donated by the facility but it is unable to do this any longer. We need a benefactor who would donate the cost of the storage facility, approximately $300. Please let us know if you would like to sponsor a unit for Beautification.
Questions: Call Sue at 631 666 9517 or Gail at 631 334 1041.