This week on 0684-Radi0, our free weekly podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to New Canaan CARES Executive Director Ellen Brezovsky, about strategies that local parents may employ in speaking to their children about the tragic case of Jennifer Dulos, a missing New Canaan mother of five. Resources can be found on this on this page of the CARES website, under the Parenting Skills-Toolkit tab, including article on how to talk to children about difficult news, disasters or traumatic events. This installment of 0684-Radi0 is sponsored by the Domestic Violence Crisis Center, providing victims of domestic violence with legal, counseling and financial empowerment assistance confidentially and at no cost. Call the Domestic Violence Crisis Center—your life could depend on it. Information can be found at dvccct.org.
The New Canaan Food Revolution, inspired by Jamie Oliver returns for a FIFTH year on Saturday, May 18th between 9.30am – 11:30am. The Bravery Passport and Food Trail was created by local resident Rachel Lampen to encourage children of all ages to sample small bites that they would never normally try. Food they haven’t heard of, food that looks or smells different or food that just sounds weird. In previous years, parents have been amazed to see their children’s food barriers broken down as they try everything from Kale Smoothies, to Snails! Nowadays children AND adults are encouraged to participate – as long as you are wearing a special wristband.
The town on Dec. 11 issued an after-the-fact permit for an $8,500 job at 5 Cecil Place. The work was done by the homeowner and covered a full bathroom installation “in the already finished basement,” the permit said. “Kindly note that all the above work was done without obtaining the necessary permits,” the permit said. “This means that all required inspections during construction were not performed.”
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A wreath appeared briefly last weekend on the long-vacant Richmond Hill Road building known as the “Mead Park Brick Barn.” Those seeking permission to restore and reuse the building recently asked town officials to remove a “Notice of Demolition” sign from it, and to allow them to place a wreath on it.
Irwin House, the 1963-built brick structure that sits on a hilltop in a public Weed Street park of the same name, is to be renovated and rented out to a handful of nonprofit organizations seeking new homes, the town’s highest elected official says. Vacant since the municipal offices that had occupied it during the renovation and expansion of Town Hall moved out three years ago, Irwin House would see its first floor used as a “nonprofit center,” according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. The organizations expected to move in and pay a below-market rent so that the town covers its maintenance and utility costs would include Staying Put in New Canaan, New Canaan Community Foundation, New Canaan Land Trust and New Canaan CARES, Moynihan told reporters during a press briefing held Aug. 23 in his office.
“The idea would be that they would have the synergy of being not-for-profits together rather than isolated in little offices,” he said. “They’d share conference space, they’d share a lunchroom.
A licensed clinical social worker who for four years has overseen communications for a world-renowned psychiatric hospital in the town will take the reins next month at one of New Canaan’s foremost human services organizations. Ellen Brezovsky will start June 11 as executive director of New Canaan Cares, according to the nonprofit organization’s incoming Board of Directors chair, Sara Schubert. Brezovsky, most recently director of community relations at Silver Hill Hospital, brings wide knowledge of New Canaan families to the role, as well as qualities of creativity and collaboration, said Schubert, who also led New Canaan Cares’s search committee. “She has been working with 13 different communities, so her personal outreach and connections to programming and new speakers is going to be wonderful for us,” Schubert told NewCanaanite.com. Brezovsky said she was “very excited about the prospect of leading up Cares” and “to do justice” to what longtime director Meg Domino has helped build in some 17 years at the helm.
