Around Town

Quiet Heroes of New Canaan: Weezie Reid

By |

Patricia Spugani, a town resident who volunteers to support the New Canaan Farmers Market, has seen hundreds of masks in checking shoppers in at the Saturday event under a new walk-thru model. So it’s unusual for one to stand out as the one New Canaan’s Weezie Reid was wearing a few weeks ago. It had a pattern of strawberries, with little green stems on a white background and red edge trim with white dots. “I said I love it and she told me that she had made it,” Spugani recalled. “We kept talking and I mentioned that my mom is a resident at The Inn and if she was looking to make more—because she said she’d been looking to make more—that I would be happy to buy some for my mom and friends at The Inn.

News

Quiet Heroes of New Canaan: Hunter Van Veghel

By |

The food drive that New Canaan-based nonprofit organization Filling In The Blanks ran that day had already been a huge success. 

Held May 21 at New Canaan Library, it saw about 100 vehicles come through and raised some 5,200 individual food items for the organization, according to co-founders and co-Presidents Tina Kramer and Shawnee Knight. Launched in 2013, the organization provides thousands of area children in need with weekend meals. The generous donations at the food drive organized with the library are especially important at a time of wide food scarcity, Kramer said. ”We are having difficulty purchasing the food we need, because the sources we usually use are not able to get us the items we are used to, so we have to buy retail,” she said. At about 5 p.m. that Thursday, members of the Filling In The Blanks team were unloading a truck of food at the organization’s Norwalk warehouse when the driver, 2012 New Canaan High School graduate Hunter Van Veghel, spotted a few young kids playing basketball at a shuttered school nearby.

Around Town

Quiet Heroes of New Canaan: Thomas Shullman 

By |

New Canaan’s Jeannette Chen, herself an accomplished chef, learned about 11-year-old Thomas Shullman’s latest creation during a social-distance walk around Hoyt Farms on a recent afternoon. Meeting former neighbor Nancy Shullman there, Chen discovered that Shullman’s youngest son had just finished making an Italian pastry stuffed with Nutella and was eager to share it. “It was so sweet, because I know a lot of hard work went into that,” Chen said of the two bombolone she brought back home. “They are a very generous family to begin with, and it [the bomoboloni] was amazing. We have five people here and it’s unbelievable that this kid is cooking up a storm during the quarantine.

Around Town

Quiet Heroes of New Canaan: JoAnn Shaughnessy

By |

[Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a new “Quiet Heroes” series. We’re accepting nominations for it, see guidelines here.]

Robin Bates-Mason, who gives of her time for the town’s Volunteer Shopping Program, visited Walter Stewart’s Market as usual one day last week. 

Picking up groceries for “her” designated senior, New Canaan’s Margaret Cooper, Bates-Mason found herself in JoAnn Shaughnessy’s lane. A cashier at Stewart’s for about two years, Shaughnessy recognized Cooper’s name. “She said, ‘Oh, hold on a sec, I just want to write her a message’ and ran over to get a marker,” Bates-Mason recalled. 

Shaughnessy wrote: “Hi Margaret. Hope you’re well.