Community Corner
Sustain White Plains Celebration Caps Earth Week 2011
Live music, green exhibits for residents, schools, and businesses, and environmental awards were all featured at the Sustain White Plains Celebration on Main Street Saturday.
Before the Sustain White Plains Celebration even got underway on Saturday afternoon, there was a full morning of Earth Week events around the city.
There was a free-cycle event at the city’s Take It or Leave It Shed at the Gedney Way Recycling Yard. Jack Harrington, a 55-year White Plains resident and the “father of the Greenway,” led a Greenway history tour. Each of White Plains’ public schools held a school clean-up event. White Plains Community Girl Scouts led a cleanup at Baldwin Farm. A “Growing White Plains” planting was held at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and a ribbon cutting was held at 86 DeKalb’s new DeKalb Community Garden.
Saturday’s celebration was the final event for the city’s first weeklong Earth Day celebration. After a kick-off event on April 25, the week included an EcoArt exhibit, a Green Business Challenge led by Reckson SL Green—the gold sponsor for Earth Week 2011—a fashion show featuring clothing made from recycled materials, an organic cooking class, and a tree planting at Church Street School held by the White Plains Beautification Foundation, among many other events during the week.
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At Saturday’s event, which closed Mamaroneck Avenue between Main Street and Martine Avenue to traffic, several dozen booths were set up to educate the public on environmental issues, and a diverse lineup of live music book-ended awards ceremonies to honor groups and organizations making an environmental difference in White Plains.
Antonio Ciampa of White Plains, a home performance contractor, had solar panels on display, along with information on using the panels to generate hot water and electricity for homes. Ciampa’s company specializes in the design and installation of solar collectors. Besides being environmentally friendly, Ciampa said, solar energy is pocketbook-friendly, and he has a calculator to demonstrate as much to customers. The calculator gives customers an idea of how much they’ll save on energy, how long a new system will take to pay for itself, and other financial considerations. He stressed that a solar system is an investment that appreciates in value, as opposed to a new car, “which depreciates in value as soon as you drive it off the lot.”
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Other contractors were on hand to offer tune-ups, upgrades, and consultations on climate control. Bruni & Campisi was offering advice and information on its high-efficiency climate control system, and BrightHome Energy Solutions was offering advice on increasing efficiency and earning tax credits and incentives.
The White Plains Beautification Foundation, which received an award for their work, was there to raise awareness about what the Foundation does “to make White Plains a beautiful place to live and work,” according to co-president Marie Silverman Marich.
Frances Jones, co-president of White Plains’ Concerned Citizens for Open Space (CCOS) and co-president of the city’s Council of Neighborhood Associations, was at the CCOS booth to raise money for the organization’s two annual scholarships, which will be given in June to two students who have demonstrated a commitment to environmental and open-space issues.
Jones was also educating people on the CCOS’s goal of extending the Greenway Nature Trail from its current terminus at Gedney Way to Bryant Avenue. Jones said that Mayor Tom Roach has pledged to make this happen during his administration.
Roach gave awards to several individuals and organizations, including Jones and the White Plains Historical Society.
John Vorperian, the Historical Society's first vice president, fittingly put a historical bent on White Plains’ evolving views on conservation and other environmental issues.
“White Plains has a rich heritage of embracing and looking forward to its challenges,” Vorperian said. “When we were a village, the primary concern was our farmlands; as we moved forward and progressed into a city, the concerns were the river and the infrastructure; today, take a look to your left [at the City Center], and take a look to your right [at new commercial tenants on Mamaroneck Avenue], because we are now in a historic period, because we are looking to our quality of life, and we are looking forward to sustainability and going green.”
