Posts Tagged ‘AdkAction’

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Keeseville Community Arts Festival July 21- 22

Free Youth Arts Activities: Tie Dye Workshop at Anderson Falls Park

The third annual Keeseville Community Arts Festival will take place July 21-22, with several local organizations and businesses holding visual and performing arts events across the hamlet. The festival brings local residents and visitors together in celebrating the arts and artistic assets of the community.

At the core of the festival is AdkAction’s annual Plein Air Show and Sale. Forty talented artists from near and far will paint Keeseville’s historic architecture, mountains, bridges, waterfalls and farms in the week leading up to the Festival, producing over 120 paintings. Community members will enjoy seeing the beauty of sights in their own backyards by visiting the Plein Air Art Show and Sale which is being held for the first time at Keeseville’s historic Stone Mill on the Ausable River. A wine and cheese reception on Friday night and a brunch on Saturday morning will give festival goers a chance to meet the artists in person and purchase their artwork. A new ‘Uplifting Community’ challenge will help keep plein air paintings at the festival accessible to all by asking artists to submit one painting priced below $250. In addition to prizes in the juried art show, AdkAction will also award three Emerging Artists Fellowships in an effort to support the next generation of fine arts.

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Tuesday, May 2, 2023

Towns report success with road salt reduction strategies

Man in orange pointing at orange tank

Where’s the report from the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force? Well, a Department of Transportation spokesperson last week said the agency expected “to complete and release it soon”—that’s the same response I got two months ago.

Meanwhile, a growing number of towns and counties across the park are already working to implement many of the best practices likely to be recommended in the report. Highway managers that once snuck out at night to add more salt to icy spots on their roads are now leading evangelists in the fight against salt pollution.

I went to Keeseville last week to listen in on a discussion of road managers from 10 local departments hosted by AdkAction. They geeked out about plow blades, brine mixing and more as the small nonprofit seeks to develop a networked approach to spreading salt reduction. 

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Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Adirondack Libraries Selected for AdkAction’s pollinator program

hummingbird and a red flower

Plus 6th annual Native Plant Sale now open

In late 2022, AdkAction invited libraries across the Adirondacks to apply to AdkAction Library Buzz Program–a program that offers free Pollinator Resource Kits to local libraries

to help them empower both area residents and visitors to become informed pollinator advocates and take action to protect these vital species. In response to strong applications and enthusiasm for the project, AdkAction is thrilled to offer these free resource kits to all libraries that applied for the program–20 Adirondack libraries in total.

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Saturday, February 25, 2023

Town of Newcomb gifted new, high flow drum composter

CfG’s John Culpepper and a representative from Agriculture product manufacturer Mud Lake Stalls.

AdkAction and the Compost for Good (CfG) team are thrilled to announce that they have selected the Town of Newcomb as the recipient of a high flow drum composter as part of a USDA Rural Business Development Grant (RBDG). Newcomb was selected upon recommendation from a local advisory committee through a competitive application process based on the Town’s long standing interest in community scale composting, its strong collaborative team, and the educational opportunities it will provide.

The RBDG grant was awarded to CfG and AdkAction in 2021 to promote community scale compost business development in the North Country, including manufacturing, food scrap hauling, compost sales, retail, and more. The 20’x4’ drum composter was designed by CfG’s cofounder, John Culpepper, and is capable of transforming several hundred pounds of food scraps per week into rich soil. There are four community scale drum composters currently in the North Country, and Newcomb, receiving the 5th unit, is the first community-led, community scale initiative.

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Wednesday, February 15, 2023

AdkAction presents a Ski & Yoga Benefit on Feb. 18

AdkAction's Ski and Yoga Benefit Image

All are welcome to gather for an afternoon of skiing and yoga to benefit AdkAction’s Tom Boothe Adirondack Internship program. Organizers and participants will be gathering at Scott’s Cobble Nordic Center on Saturday, February 18 from 1 to 4 p.m. for some beginner-level yoga, a relaxing ski on the trails, refreshments and snacks around the fire. Guests are encouraged to donate what they are able to help AdkAction to raise $6,000 for their Tom Boothe Adirondack Internship program. Interested parties are asked to RSVP online using this link. 

 

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Monday, January 16, 2023

AdkAction: Adirondack area plow drivers take part in road salt reduction workshop

Plow drivers in Adirondack area towns took part in a road salt reduction workshop in Peru.

Plow drivers from Peru, Ausable, Plattsburgh and Hague gathered recently in Peru for a workshop to reduce road salt. Thank you to these communities and individuals for going the extra mile to keep winter roads safe and water clean.

Experts from Hague, [including] Rob, Matt, and Tim, demonstrated drop calibration tests with salt trackers on a plow truck to help other shops in our Clean Water, Safe Roads Network learn what the trackers can do for their winter road maintenance operation. By calibrating with a salt tracker, operators have an exact measurement how much salt their trucks are spreading across a lane mile, allowing them to apply salt with more precision.

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Sunday, January 15, 2023

New York’s The Hub on the Hill to Become First Food Hub in the Nation to Accept SNAP EBT Payments Online

The Hub on the Hill in Essex, NY.

Essex-based Hub On the Hill (the Hub) is now the first food hub in the nation to accept EBT SNAP payments through their online grocery store, thanks to a collaboration including local and national organizations and businesses.

 

Food hubs connect local farms and producers with community members, to make sure everyone has access to the highest quality local food. The cost is often subsidized by local non-profit organizations. The Hub joins a list of just 30 SNAP Online vendors in New York State, a group almost exclusively composed of large businesses, such as Walmart and Amazon.

 

“The Hub is very focused on increasing food access and building a regional food system in Northern New York, and already has an active e-commerce presence. We wanted to extend that to our customers receiving SNAP EBT benefits,” said Jori Wekin, Co-Founder of the Hub on the Hill. “Navigating the USDA approval process to accept EBT online would have been difficult without the help of Forage, which guided us through preparation and testing. The Hub’s ability to accept SNAP EBT online will make an enormous difference for the thousands of customers we serve, many of whom rely on government programs to purchase food.”

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Wednesday, November 2, 2022

AdkAction and ANCA Announce Three Grants for Compost for Good

SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. — Turning food waste into compost will be easier for North Country communities, thanks to expanded funding for a regional community-scale composting program. AdkAction and the Adirondack North Country Association (ANCA) announced that the Compost for Good (CfG) initiative has been awarded $170,000 in grants to provide technical assistance for organizations, municipalities and other institutions interested in designing and implementing composting programs in their communities.

The three grant awards — $120,000 from the USDA Rural Business Development Program, $30,000 from the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Program and $20,000 from the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute (NYSP2I) — will help AdkAction and ANCA bring the composting initiative to more North Country communities.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Give new (after)life to those Halloween pumpkins

pumpkins composting

Compost for Good Announces 2022 Pumpkin Composting Events

After the Halloween festivities have died down, instead of putting your pumpkins in your garbage can, Compost for Good recommends giving them a new life by dropping them off at a local composting facility.

When mixed with wood chips, sawdust, straw or other high carbon materials, pumpkins can be turned into beautiful, life-sustaining compost. Before donating your pumpkins, please remove candles or other non-organic material that cannot be composted. Chopping or smashing them into small pieces would also help the microbes out, but is not necessary.  

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Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Cross Pollinating Success at the Lake Flower Boat Launch

The Lake Flower boat launch waterfront is abloom with pollinator-friendly plants. A successful public-private partnership between New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and AdkAction transformed the waterfront from a suburban lawn into a necklace of various native shrubs, trees, and many pollinator plants.

Historically, the boat launch site featured a manicured grass lawn stretching from the parking lot down to the water’s edge. This lawn allowed constant erosion which washed sediment into the lake. Nitrogen-rich grass clippings also blew into the lake along with other sources of pollution from adjacent lawns and parking areas.

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Sunday, September 25, 2022

Beyond the Peaks Student Film Festival open to high schoolers in NY, VT and QC, runs through 2022-23 school year

 

 

Mountain Lake PBS is proud to present the fourth Beyond the Peaks Student Film Festival — a festival celebrating creativity and amplifying youth voices across our region through film and digital storytelling. The film festival is open to high school students in NY, VT, and QC, and will run through the 2022-2023 school year. Applicants will have the opportunity to win three prizes, first place is $1,000, second place is $500 and third place is $250. Submissions will be due April 30, 2023, and a Red Carpet Showcase event will take place in May 2023.

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Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Protecting Monarchs in the Adirondacks

by Lisa Salamon, Adirondack Pollinator Project

 

The iconic Monarch butterfly was added to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species in July. The List, known as the IUCN Red List, founded in 1964, is the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. It uses a set of precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and is recognized as the most authoritative guide to the status of biological diversity.

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Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Keeseville Community Arts Festival Returns July 22-24

The second annual Keeseville Community Arts Festival will take place the weekend of July 22-24, with several local organizations and businesses holding visual and performing arts events across the hamlet. The festival brings local residents and visitors together in celebrating the artistic assets of the community.

At the new ‘Arts in the Park’ event on Saturday July 23, artists and artisans local to Keeseville will set up alongside the Ausable River in Anderson Falls Park. In addition to selling their artwork, each artist will be actively demonstrating their craft, talking about their work, and answering questions from festival goers. Pottery, jewelry making, graphic arts, woodcrafting, and culinary arts will all be included, as well as performances by local musicians Alice’s Fault and Joanna D’Ascoli.

Youth art activities have been greatly expanded for this year’s festival. Keeseville Free Library will host Children’s Story Morning with Local Authors on Friday, July 22. On Saturday, kids can get creative with some free hands-on art activities including an outdoor painting class, face painting, a zine makerspace, and a tie dye workshop. All supplies are provided, but advance sign-up is recommended for outdoor painting and tie dye to ensure space. Sign up at www.Adkaction.org/art

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Friday, July 8, 2022

AdkAction to Transfer Saranac Lake Whitewater Park DRI Grant to Village of Saranac Lake

AdkAction and the Village of Saranac Lake recently announced that AdkAction is transferring its $411,000 Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) grant awarded in 2018 for a new Whitewater Park in downtown Saranac Lake to the Village of Saranac Lake.

The transfer comes following several years of work by AdkAction on the Whitewater Park project. After suspending work on the project in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the project team–Steve Maikowski of AdkAction, former AdkAction Board member Scott McKim, Tyler Merriam of the Ausable River Association, and past AdkAction Executive Director Brittany Christenson–resumed work on the project in 2021.

A Request for Proposals for Design and Permitting of the Whitewater Park was issued, and a company with extensive experience in whitewater park design and construction was selected for the project.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Clean Water, Safe Roads Partnership” Launched to Reduce Road Salt Contamination in the Lake Champlain Basin

hold the salt car magnetNew York communities within the Lake Champlain Basin are invited to join a new Clean Water, Safe Roads Partnership to reduce road salt use by adopting improved winter road maintenance techniques. The Clean Water, Safe Roads Partnership will address the threat to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, water quality, and the safety of drinking water caused by the excessive use of road salt, while maintaining safe winter roads. The partnership is funded by a $50,000 grant from the Lake Champlain Basin Program and the New England Interstate Pollution Control Commission and is part of AdkAction’s decade-long effort to reduce road salt use in the Adirondacks.

 

This project builds on AdkAction’s Pledge to Reduce Road Salt, developed in 2017 for municipal partners, which demonstrates a community’s commitment to work  to reduce the levels of road salt application. The Partnership will implement a comprehensive, personalized outreach and education program for communities which have already signed on to the Pledge to Reduce Road Salt, and add additional municipalities.

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