Rich McCaffery To Be Honored with Arbor Day Planting
COOPERSTOWN—Village of Cooperstown officials will honor the late Richard M. McCaffery on Monday, May 19 at the village’s annual Arbor Day Celebration. McCaffery, who led a life devoted to community service, passed away on December 2, 2024 at the age of 72.
A graduate of Cornell University, McCaffery received countless awards in recognition of his volunteerism and humanitarian work, receiving the Lions Foundation’s Robert J. Uplinger Distinguished Service Award for Community Service, Lion’s Club International’s Melvin Jones Fellowship, Cooperstown’s Community Citizen of the Year award in 2000 and, in 2012, he was the recipient of the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Community Service Award. In 2013, McCaffery was named Conservationist of the Year by the Otsego County Conservation Association, and he received a Gold Lifetime Museum Pass from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2016, among other awards.
McCaffery served on a number of municipal and nonprofit boards, was the original coordinator for Cooperstown’s Lakefront Concert Series and, in 2011, established a Leadership Scholarship for Cooperstown High School graduates. He also created and served as the volunteer coordinator of the Village of Cooperstown’s Adopt-A-Fire-Hydrant and Adopt-A-Drain programs and coordinated the cleaning and maintenance of Main Street’s rain gardens.
According to Deputy Mayor Cindy Falk, who chairs the Tree Committee, “Rich McCaffery was involved with the Village of Cooperstown throughout his years as a resident, beginning in 1974. During my time as trustee, McCaffrey kept our Main Street clean and attractive by engaging volunteers to clean the rain gardens, promoted swift emergency response by ensuring fire hydrants got shoveled out all winter, and reduced the risk of flooding by coordinating the maintenance of storm drains throughout the village.
“McCaffrey also reestablished an annual village-wide yard sale day and made the winter months more tolerable through the reinvigoration of Winter Carnival. It is a privilege to remember him through the planting of a memorial tree,” Falk said.
Village officials and residents will gather at 9:30 a.m. on Monday near the intersection of Delaware and Beaver streets to plant a tree in McCaffery’s memory.
Arbor Day, celebrated nationally each year on the last Friday in April, originated in 1872 in Nebraska with the planting of more than one million trees. Arbor Day aims to raise awareness about the environmental, community, and economic benefits of trees and encourage their planting and preservation.
AllOtsego does well to remember Rich McCaffrey and his contributions to the larger community. His public service stands as a reminder to all how important volunteerism is to the greater good. One aspect of his contributions that has been neglected is to the Cooperstown Village Library, a public library that is coterminous with Cooperstown CSD. (This is a +/-99-mile area that includes parts of Middlefield, Fly Creek, Hartford, and elsewhere. This month will see a budget vote for the library and the school.) I appreciate Rich McCaffrey ‘s efforts on behalf of the library as he recruited me from the Friends of the Village Library to the library board treasurer. Rich’s legacy stands as an inspiration for all. We may not effect change on a national scale, but locally we can and do work at the margins to make life incrementally better. Rich’s legacy is a reminder Salute to Rich McCaffrey on Arbor Day.