Around Town

‘Smart, Strong and Special’: New Canaan Camp To Bring Together Girls from Neighboring Communities

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The idea for Camp LiveGirl—that’s a short ‘i’ in ‘Live,’ a verb—came to the West family over the winter. Transformed after hosting a Fresh Air Fund girl from Queens, N.Y. last summer, mom Sheri and dad Brian gathered the kids (Conor, then an 8th-grader, Olivia, 6th and Donovan, 2nd) to discuss how else they could make a difference, now that their Fresh Air Fund guest, Janiyia Rodriguez, had aged out of the program. “We all felt very grateful, but we were cognizant that there are plenty of Janiyias out there, and as a family, we brainstormed about some way we could touch more lives,” Sheri recalled on a recent morning. What was born at that family meeting will materialize next Monday, as 30 middle school-aged girls from Bridgeport and Stamford join 20 similarly aged New Canaan girls for a unique, weeklong camp designed to empower, educate and engage its participants through multiple sports, identity- and confidence-building exercises, camaraderie, healthy living instruction and inspiring and informative speakers. Dubbed ‘LiveGirl’ because the Wests call their daughter ‘Liv’ for short, the camp is not only a deeply personal effort led by Sheri West that follows months of planning—it also results from a coordinated effort across a large swath of the New Canaan community.

Business

New Canaan Gears Up for Aug. 21 ‘Taste of the Town Stroll’

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New Canaan’s business community is gearing up for an increasingly popular annual event that connects local merchants with customers while benefitting the local food pantry. The New Canaan Chamber of Commerce’s third annual Taste of the Town Stroll, benefitting the New Canaan Food Pantry, runs from 6 to 9 p.m. next Thursday, Aug. 21 (rain date Aug. 22). Chamber Marketing Associate Laura Budd calls the event “a triple win.”

“Number one, the food pantry gets stocked.

Business

360 Fitness Closing; Plans Filed to Renovate Grove Street Space

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A longstanding Grove Street gym will close Saturday, and an application was filed this week to put an estimated $325,000 into renovating the space. 360 Fitness at number 45 Grove (in the ground floor of the New Canaan Racquet Club) was unable to find a new space after it no longer could stay in its location, according to a message posted to the gym’s website by owner Steve Bazewicz. On Wednesday, plans were filed with the New Canaan Building Department to renovate 14,000 square feet in the lower level of 45 Grove St., including new floors and doors, removal of sauna, hot tubs, updated locker rooms, new interior wall partitions, extended sprinklers and reworked HVAC system. The application notes work being done “for personal training fitness.” According to the application, the plans were drawn up by Balance Architecture LLC of Norwalk.

News

New Canaan Youth Baseball Roundup: May 11

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The Cubs were the big winners in the AA Division last week, as two wins over the Braves pulled them to within a game of the league-leading Reds and Mets. Meanwhile in the hotly contested AA Division the Yankees took over the top spot, moving a half-game in front of the previously unbeaten Athletics. Here is a look at some of last week’s action on the New Canaan youth diamonds. 

AAA

Cubs–5; Braves-4

The Oxygen Fitness Braves and Camsan Electric Cubs opened their season with a 5-4 barnburner, won by the Cubs. The Braves grabbed the lead early.  Peter Jardim ripped a single before Matthew Benevento crushed a triple to deep center.  The Cubbies took the lead back in the 2nd, as Mike Sanseverino and Nick Garcia led-off with singles, and were driven home by Matt Balkun and Ryan Werneburg. The Braves would grab the lead again when Carson Perlman laced a single to center to drive home Will Galvan and Jardim.  But the Cubs would again rally.  Werneburg knocked in Balkun, and Sanseverino drew a bases-loaded walk to grab a 5-4 lead.

Business

One Year Later: Oxygen Fitness ‘A Great Addition to New Canaan’

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Sara and David Koch had lived in New Canaan since 2000—starting a family and raising four kids here—when, two years ago last fall, they began discussing an idea for a new type of gym with friend and fellow town resident Rich Fedeli. The industry had seen a trend toward boutique fitness facilities—in fact, Sara Koch had met Fedeli’s wife at a barre studio here—and they saw New Canaanites doing just what they did: traveling out of town to find a single, full-service location. “We all had done different things for fitness since we moved here, either in town or out of town, and the trend that we all saw happening was that people were leaving New Canaan every day to go work out,” Sara recalled on a recent morning from the office at Oxygen Fitness as a steady stream of members moved about the Pine Street entrance just outside her doorway. “So in order to go to a full-service fitness facility, they were going to Equinox in Darien or Intensity in Norwalk. People were traveling all over and there was no great option or place here in town to get a little bit of everything under one roof.”

They spent about 18 months planning the business, finding the 22 Pine St.