Advertisement. Advertise with us

Students Invited To

Decorate Downtown

By LIBBY CUDMORE • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com

ONEONTA – Following the success of the downtown Halloween events, where SUNY and Hartwick students decorated scarecrows and handed out candy to trick-or-treaters, Council Member Mark Drnek, Eighth Ward and chair of the Survive, Then Thrive committee, has invited students to help decorate downtown for Christmas.

“If you or your friends are artistically inclined, we would love it if you would help decorate our windows for Christmas,” he said during the final meeting of the SUNY COVID Control Room this semester. “We think it’s something people would want to see when they’re shopping downtown.”

Similarly, Mayor Gary Herzig also invited them to decorate Neahwa Park as part of the drive-thru “Festival of Lights,” sponsored by First Night in place of the annual New Year’s Eve celebration.

“If you’re staying here for the break, please get involved,” he said.

Drnek praised the students, saying that the pandemic has opened new avenues for the often-fraught Town-Gown relations.

“If we in the downtown can empathize with students, who might feel like they’re underappreciated, then, in turn, students might begin to understand what the local businesses need to survive,” he said. “It’s important that you engage with our downtown, because it’s your downtown too.”

“I’ve found that any time these students are called upon, they’re masked and ready to go,” Said Al Rubin, owner of A&D Taxi and chair of the Otsego County Chamber Board. “We’re building bridges, and that’s exciting.”

Additionally, Rachel Dobkin, a SUNY student and member of the Control Room, said that her group has been working to come up with social media campaigns that would highlight local businesses, including a “Why I Wear a Mask” video that she hoped downtown would contribute to.

Posted

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Related Articles

Killer Ricky Knapp Dies In Prison

Killer Knapp Dies In Prison; Guilty In SUNY Coed’s Death ONEONTA – Ricky Knapp, the man convicted of the 1977 death of SUNY Oneonta student, has died in Mohawk Correctional Facility, according to prison records. Knapp, 66, died March 8, having served 40 years of a 25-to-life sentence for a 1978 manslaughter conviction in the death of 18-year-old Linda Velzy, a SUNY student from Long Island. According to reports, Velzy was last seen Dec. 9 1977, hitchhiking in downtown Oneonta.…

FAM Exhibit Teases, Tickles, Taunts the Imagination

Lewis Carroll’s Alice went down a rabbit hole to be transported to a world of wonder and strangeness. Something similar happens when visiting Fenimore Art Museum’s exhibit, “A Cabinet of Curious Matters: Work by Nancy Callahan and Richard Whitten.”…

Putting the Community Back Into the Newspaper

Now through March 30, new annual subscribers to “The Freeman’s Journal” and AllOtsego.com (or subscribers who have lapsed for two or more years) have an opportunity to help their choice of one of four Otsego County charitable organizations.

$5.00 of your subscription will be donated to the nonprofit of your choice:

Cooperstown Farmers’ Market, Cooperstown Food Pantry, Greater Oneonta Historical Society or Super Heroes Humane Society.