Representatives from many local and regional clubs and organizations convened at Newtown Community Center for the latest Newtown 250 Committee meeting on February 5.

Honoring residents who served in the military 250 years ago, a masked ball, an Eagle Scout project, a sing-along, a walk on Newtown’s section of the Rochambeau Trail, film screenings, and a special theme for this year’s Great Pootatuck Duck Race were all among the ideas to celebrate the country’s Semiquincentennial brought to the table during the Newtown 250 Committee’s latest meeting.

Representatives from many local and regional clubs and organizations convened at Newtown Community Center for the meeting on February 5. The meeting was moderated by NCC Director Matt Ariniello, who is coordinating the local efforts to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of The Declaration of Independence and founding of the United States.

The committee’s current focus, he said, is “to create a town-wide calendar of events and happenings to celebrate the 250th over the course of the year.”

Ariniello announced a new tab has been added to the Town of Newtown website, where all things related to America 250 will be posted. Readers can find the America 250 button at newtown-ct.gov, on the right hand side of the blue banner near the top of the page. Resources from CT 250, the State of Connecticut commission administered by CT Humanities to coordinate events across the state, have already been linked to the local page.

“Some new resources are located on their website, and as you can see we were identified within the past week as having a local committee associated, which is great,” Ariniello pointed out. “New resources include educational resources for Board of Education, to be able to use for curriculum based planning. There is also information about areas and destinations in Connecticut that would be appropriate for field trips, and summer vacations, that the state is trying to highlight during this anniversary.

“The state has put some heavy emphasis on connecting with the local Board of Education,” he said. At least one Newtown High School teacher and one Board of Education member will be joining the committee, it was noted. Ariniello said outreach will be made to the Superintendent of Schools “so this gets through the K-12 curriculum. I think that’s important.”

Ariniello encouraged those in attendance to check the state’s offerings to see if there were resources their groups could utilize for local events.

A central email address has also been created for the Newtown 250 group, he said. Anyone with event proposals, suggestions and comments should use newtowncelebrates250@newtown-ct.gov.

A dedicated Facebook page is also being planned, he said.

“Many towns are starting to issue townwide proclamations,” Ariniello also said Thursday night. The committee will work with First Selectman Bruce Walczak “to create something similar,” he added.

Committee Updates

Ariniello invited those present to share the ideas that are beginning to form and feedback being heard from their respective groups.

Rotary President Alex Villamil said the club is thinking about doing a masked ball in July. American Legion Post Commander Donna Monteleone excitedly said “We can dress up as Revolutionary War people!”

While the comment drew a chuckle, Daughters of the American Revolution representative Sandy Schill then said the pattern design company Simplicity “came out with 250th anniversary patterns for people who sew, for costumes that are historically accurate for events like this.”

Monteleone said she and Schill have begun talking about residents who served with the military 250 years ago, with the hope of having students create brief biographies about those people. Newtown Historical Society is also collaborating on that project, it was later noted.

The biographies may be turned into placards to display at different locations around town and/or may be published in this newspaper, Monteleone added. A Boy Scout with an interest in coordinating the effort will do so as his Eagle Scout Project, she also said.

“My thinking is, if we don’t educate and train the young people, what is our country going to be in the future? You never know — doing something like this, working with The Bee, you may have a student who decides they want to be a history teacher, a historian, an archaeologist, a reporter. I think all of these things are good for our high school students to participate in,” she said.

“As we spread the work out among many people,” Monteleone also added, “the easier it’s going to be, the more flexible it’s going to be.”

Newtown Historical Society President Sheila Powers later added to that point.

“The whole idea, as we talked about last month, of finding ways as we’re doing all this to build community and people not working in silos and expanding these projects,” is already happening, she said. “I was speaking with Donna and she said she’d been looking for an Eagle Scout, and then the next day I got an e-mail from someone saying ‘I’m an Eagle Scout and I really want to do something for the 250th.’

“When the universe slams that in your lap, you’ve gotta do something,” she said.

Sandy Schill, a member of Connecticut Daughters of the Revolution, said she had a brief discussion with the Regent and Vice Recent of the statewide organization.

“They are very interested and very excited about the prospect of hiking, with DAR people and the general public, the Rochambeau Trail,” she announced.

The DAR is also interested in “potentially walking in the Labor Day Parade,” Schill also said. “We also came up with the idea of playing the movie 1776 at the town hall, doing a time capsule, doing T-shirts with a logo, doing a play in the park — maybe some scenes from Hamilton — and maybe having the churches in April hang lanterns for Patriots Day. We’ve also talked about doing period appropriate church services.”

Gordon Williams said Newtown Congregational Church has in the past had its minister deliver a sermon “from that period, and it went over very well.”

Andrew Buzzi noted the first Catholic Mass presented in Fairfield County was “said at the St Rose site. Perhaps St Rose could do something from that period.”

First Selectman Bruce Walczak mentioned an area of Newtown Village Cemetery has a section where many people from the late 1700s are buried. Schill said the graves of patriots should have, “through DAR, a special marker on their grave. We could look into that” and potentially conduct a ceremony to make sure they are all marked, she said.

Multiple cemeteries across town probably have Revolutionary War-era people buried within them, it was also noted. Additional research will be done to make sure those graves are acknowledged, it was mentioned.

Movies, Ducks, And Lions

Newtown Cultural Arts Commission Chair Laura Lerman said the cultural commission used to screen classic movies, so they would be able to handle coordinating a screening of the 1972 musical based on the Broadway show 1776. Ariniello said he and others from the community center have also been talking about films, including having at least one of the summer drive-in movies at Edmond Town Hall be something very thematic.

“We’ve discussed a patriotic movie series,” he said. “Parks & Rec and the community center also do an outdoor movie at Fairfield Hills in August, so we’re hoping to show a patriotic film then as well, and tie in some events around that.”

Newtown Community Center’s summer Crafternoon series, a monthly offering, will also have patriotic crafts this year, Ariniello said.

Newtown Lions Club member Steve Stolfi said one idea being discussed is to have another Chalk The Walk event. Introduced by the local Lions during last year’s Newtown Arts Festival, “it was wildly successful, so we’re thinking about bringing it back and having the theme America 250 for all the artists participating.”

Lions Club Duck Race Co-Chair Arnie Berman spoke next.

“The Duck Race is exquisitely timed this year, on June 13, so we would like to figure out a way to somehow make this a 250-themed race,” he said. Custom rubber ducks would be cost prohibitive, he noted — “It would be too high a cost to possibly make back that money to donate to charities, which is what we’re supposed to do with the duck race,” he said — but other ideas are being discussed.

Berman said the Lions are always available to work with others.

“We are a community project-oriented club. They do not always have to be Lions branded projects,” he said. “We have a group of new members, and old members, that I think would be excited about supporting good ideas that come to the foreground. We’d like to help wherever we can.”

Music And Art

Newtown Historical Society President Sheila Powers said NHS board member and Town Historian Ben Cruson is already working on a project.

“He’s been taking quotes from people who were in town” 250 years ago, “tying them in to The Declaration of Independence and working this into the exhibit space the historical society has at the library,” she said.

Powers also said she and fellow NHS member Abby Symes “are probably the two most excited people right now about the Labor Day Parade this year” because the historical society will have a float in the parade.

“It’s been a while since the historical society had a float, but we are going to have a float, it’s going to be themed, so that’ll be a big project for us,” Powers said. “Abby and I are very excited about this.”

Powers also said a three-session Colonial sewing series being offered this season by the historical society “was so popular, registration closed within 36 hours.” Although that series is not accepting additional participants, she did acknowledge the historical society may organize the creation of a community quilt.

“The logistics need to be worked out, but that would be as wide and public as possible,” she said.

Newtown Congregational Church is hoping to host a town-wide sing-along, Gordon Williams announced. Songs would be patriotic and Americana-themed, he said. Fellow NCC member Rich Collins, who plans to coordinate musicians to accompany the event, said there are “a lot of songs you could incorporate into this.”

Williams said in addition to the music, he’d like to have people recite some patriotic speeches after every few songs.

“The Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty, which is so important today, or other things like The Gettysburg Address, which is not very long but it’s terrific,” Williams offered as some of the readings that could be included.

In response to the suggestion to have that as an outdoor event, Collins said sound systems are key for events like this.

“The church has two locations with very good acoustics and sound systems,” he said. While the sing-along would probably be at the church, Collins emphasized it would be a nonecumenical event.

“I’d be thrilled to have youth involved, and we have a lot of local musicians who would be perfect for this,” Collins added.

Laura Lerman said the Cultural Arts Commission would like to make sure Poet Laureate Lauren Collins is included in Semiquincentennial events. NCAC is already planning to highlight homes that were in existence in 1776, which are featured in its July exhibition at Newtown Municipal Center, she also announced. Andrew Buzzi reminded her of a book available at the library, done by The Connecticut Historic Commission, that has data about “all the houses in Newtown,” which would help the research for that exhibition.

Schill also suggested inviting residents to create “a creative American flag out of other material, other than the traditional material,” to complement the NCAC exhibition.

A History Walk on Main Street or along the Fruit Trail at Fairfield Hills is also being considered, Lerman said.

The next Newtown 250 Committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 19, at 6 pm, at Newtown Community Center. Questions and suggestions or comments should be directed to Matt Ariniello at newtowncelebrates250@newtown-ct.gov.

=====

Managing Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.