Village, Businesses Team Up for Expanded Holiday Meet, Greet

By DARLA M. YOUNGS
COOPERSTOWN

The Village of Cooperstown’s monthly “Welcome Home Cooperstown” gathering next week will feature a special Main Street stroll. “Meet & Greet and Stroll the Street” will be held on Tuesday, December 5 beginning at 4 p.m. at the Village Hall, 22 Main Street.

Community members are welcome to begin the stroll at the Village Hall, where refreshments will be served and a community firepit will warm the night. The library will host holiday crafts and story time with Cooperstown Police Chief Frank Cavalieri, and the Cooperstown Art Association will open their holiday show and sale for special evening hours. After enjoying snacks and fellowship, participants are encouraged to follow the lighted path of luminaria down Main Street, where more than two dozen local businesses and restaurants will be staying open for holiday shopping and dining until 7:30 p.m.

Meet & Greet and Stroll the Street is the final event of 2023 for Welcome Home Cooperstown, an initiative of monthly gatherings designed to bring together new area residents with longtime community members. The goal of the monthly meetings is to welcome area newcomers, assist them in building connections to established residents and institutions, and encourage them to make this community their permanent home. In general, events take place on the first Tuesday of each month. After a break for the holidays, the gatherings will resume on February 6, 2024.

Village of Cooperstown Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh said she is happy with the results of the meet and greet initiative thus far.

“I have been very pleased with the turnout,” Tillapaugh wrote in an e-mail. “We have tried to single out a particular group with invites each month… Thus, one month it was Columbia-Bassett students; other months we reached out to Bassett’s new medical staff, Cooperstown Graduate Program students, and so on.

“Recognizing Diwali in November was a fabulous gathering! At every gathering I met people who had recently moved here, or were visiting and were planning to move here,” Tillapaugh continued. “Actual attendance has probably varied from 20 [people] to close to 50.”

Tillapaugh credits Jess Gorman of J Gorman Fine Jewelry with coining the phrase “stroll the street” in a conversation with WHC Committee and Friends of the Village Library’s Lynne Mebust, who the mayor described as the “major worker bee” in this endeavor.

“We were talking about the upcoming meet and greet, and possible promotions around the holiday. It was Jess who came up with ‘stroll the street,’ and it stuck,” said Mebust in a phone conversation earlier this week.

Mebust said she is thrilled so many Main Street businesses have agreed to extend their hours for this event. She hopes the modest scale of this year’s stroll will invigorate participants to expand upon the concept next year.

Members of the WHC Committee include village citizens and members of Cooperstown-based entities. All are welcome to attend and participate in the work of building a stronger, more diverse and welcoming community.