A group of about a dozen Stafford residents came together to help create more events for their community on Sunday afternoon at Emery Park.
After hashing out ideas for a name, and some possible events before the end of the year, the group is planning to obtain 501(c)(3) status. They already have a Facebook page as of Sunday evening which will keep the community advised of their events.
Link to the Betterment Committee of Stafford, NY below.
“I think because we go off to all the other towns, we need to bring some things back into Stafford. I mean, I know people miss the carnival. Carnivals are just so much liability and so much work, and people work, and they have kids, and they have sports. So, that carnival took a lot of time. I don’t know if that would be feasible to even think of doing a carnival. I know it’s not in my thoughts, but just to try to get the community back doing things together,” says Cathy Worthington, who helped organize the Betterment Committee of Stafford’s first meeting on Sunday.
Steve Foster, co-owner of the Red Osier Landmark Restaurant, says he is on board with the idea of bringing the community together and offered to help with the first event, Music in the Park at Emery Park on Tuesday, September 16th. The community can stop by and grab a bite to eat and listen to music from 5:30-8:00p.m.
The group will meet again, August 23rd at 2:00p.m., at Emery Park to make further plans for a Trunk or Treat event in October. Also in the works, is a December 1st Christmas in Stafford event to coincide with the Red Osier’s kick off of their Annual Community Christmas night. The group also plans to create a board of community members.
“I could help this organization, I have a lot of kids from Le Roy, Pavilion, Bergen who all work for me. They come to Stafford to work, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have people on this board from other places to be a part of this and to make it flourish,” says Foster.
Jamie Lindsley, who is an officer on the Oakfield Betterment Committee Board, also was on hand at the meeting to share her experience in creating a successful betterment committee.
“The Oakfield Betterment committee started in the early 80s by a group of three or four, depending on who tells the story, three or four people who just wanted to make changes in the community and do little things to make everything better. So, they started the first Labor daze in 1984 it was a parade and music and kid’s games. So, from that, it continued to grow, and over the years, it was just an established tradition. And everyone knew Labor Daze and the focus of it was family fun.”
Lindsley says the Labor Daze event had its ups and downs and for a few years lost its way when people stopped volunteering. The event had a one year pause and then the Town of Oakfield took over Labor Daze and moved it from Triangle Park to Town Park and made a lot of changes.
“That’s when I became involved,” Lindsley says.
“We all worked really hard. The small number of volunteers that we had, and feedback from the community was consistently that they didn’t like it. It wasn’t their Labor Daze, and that was really hard to hear as somebody who spent a lot of time, a lot of hard work, but it’s really important to listen to your community and to take that feedback, even if it doesn’t feel great. So, there was, there’s a whole lot that happened, but I ended up being president and just putting it out there. I want to move Labor Daze back to Triangle Park, and I want to make it what it used to be, something for families to remember and just that nostalgia and that feel good, you know, the music festival, the food that end of summer bash, and number of people stepped forward to help.”
Beth Carr a long-time resident in Stafford, spoke about the challenges of getting the community behind local events with the town of Stafford being carved up between four different school districts, Le Roy, Byron Bergen, Batavia and Pavilion.
Lindsley was encouraged by the number of people who showed up in Stafford on Sunday. She says involving all of the community is the key to success in Oakfield.
“We want the community to make sure they know they are the owners of these events and of the betterment committee. It doesn’t belong to us. We’re just the current caretakers. Some things we’ve learned along the way is that collaboration is key. Whether it’s partnering with local businesses or other organizations.”
Cathy Worthington and her husband Dale at Sunday’s meeting
Cathy Worthington says the group would like to plan community events throughout the year.
“We’d like to do food truck rodeos which have been brought up to me a lot, and Steve’s here, so we’re hoping to get some input from him on how to run those. Then community things, Earth Day, maybe planting flowers, because we’ve lost our garden club, they dismantled earlier this spring.”
Gary Snell says he would love to be able to advertise what’s happening in Stafford for all to see each day.
“What I’ve been trying to do, and nobody seems to be interested in it, I want an electronic sign put in front of the Town Hall so we can advertise these types of meetings.”
A common issue among the residents is a disconnect with town officials and the fact that everything is motivated by politics. Residents stressed that The Betterment Committee of Stafford is not political and is open to all community members.