Pollinator Gardens, Dog Friendly Watering Stations & Art @ Rye Town Park
Rye Town Park is our 62 acre gem along the shore of the Long Island Sound. Most residents have enjoyed its 28.1 acres of rolling terrain and the 34.5 acre Oakland Beach, stretching 1200’ in length. What you may not know about is the active Friends group that supports the park by expanding pollinator gardens, installing people and dog friendly water stations and showcasing art installations.
We wanted to share their annual appeal letter that gives a good view on 2022 updates in our park:
From Friends of Rye Town Park:
Dear Neighbors,
How lovely it has been to see so many of you enjoying Rye Town Park this year!
The Friends of Rye Town Park is a small 501(c)3 not-for-profit volunteer group whose mission is to beautify and improve the park, focusing on sustainable gardening and land management, park programming and amenities.
In 2022, we expanded our pollinator gardens all around the park, funded the installation of a second water bottle filling station and purchased two shower towers which will be installed after some repair work is done to the wall in the shower area. We are particularly proud of two projects we funded this year:
Rye Poetry Path. We were delighted to work with project founder Amy Vijayanagar and her team throughout the process of bringing this collaborative public art installation to life in our park. We funded the initial group of poems which were installed as unique art pieces in the park last spring, and our gift opened the door to additional funds from Arts Westchester and others. We have been gratified to hear from so many of you – in person, by email, or by tagging us in your photos on Instagram – how much you enjoy exploring the park and discovering all of these treasures.
The Rye Poetry Path has also served as a valuable learning tool for all ages. For example, the 5th grade classes from all three Rye elementary schools created the artwork for “Butterfly Cloth” on the Children’s Poetry Path around the pond, and the Rye High School Advanced Placement English classes visited the Path accompanied by Westchester Poet Laureate B.K. Fischer as part of her Floodwaters outdoor writing workshop.
Daffodils. In November of last year, we partnered with the Little Garden Club of Rye to fund and plant over 20,000 daffodil bulbs in Rye Town Park. We were delighted to see so many park visitors reveling in the sea of joyful yellow blossoms this past spring. We are again collaborating to plant additional bulbs this fall, which will grow and multiply in the years to come.
Investments like these are only possible through generous donors like you. As we look to 2023, we want to make significant investments in sustainable land management in our park, eradicating invasive species and investing in the planting and maintenance of native, pollinator-friendly trees, flowers and shrubs. We hope to invest in a dog washing station and other amenities and improvements. And as we have seen with our successful collaborations this year, our path forward will see us fund wonderful projects which come to us through the ingenuity of partners we may not even have met yet!
We need your help. Please donate at www.friendsofrtp.org or by check payable to the Friends of Rye Town Park. Please contact us on our website or Instagram if you have any ideas you’d like us to consider, and encourage friends and family to sign up for volunteer opportunities. We’ll see you at the park!
With sincere thanks,
Diana Page
President
