Town Party Celebrates 15th Year on the Green
by Laura Cahners-Ford

The Town Party, Charlotte’s biggest summer event, will take place on Saturday, July 11, from 11 a.m. to 2.p.m. on the Town Green on Ferry Road. Annual favorites – the parade, book fair, food sale, town organization displays, Quinlan Schoolhouse kid activities, Fire and Rescue demos – return for your enjoyment. The party, hosted by the Friends of the Charlotte Library and the Town of Charlotte, was originally held to showcase the fundraising effort underway to build a new library. It quickly developed into an all-town annual event now in its 15th year.
Floats, antique cars, tractors, fire engines, walkers, bikers, trikers all join in the parade that passes by the Town Green around 11 a.m. All of you who like being part of the action decorate your bike, your scooter, your skateboard, yourself, your car or lawnmower, and come join the fun. Attention all music makers! The parade can always use musicians – bring your drums, flutes or whatever you can play and carry.
Parade participants should be at the Old Lantern on Greenbush Road at 10:30 a.m. Fire Chief Chris Davis shared that “whatever anyone wants to bring and whatever shows up goes down the road. The more the merrier.” Officials will be on hand to manage traffic.
The Book Sale, an annual favorite, will open at 11 a.m. Sale proceeds add to the library’s annual book budget. Check out adult fiction and non-fiction, children’s books and audio books. Find some funky treasures – old cookbooks, art books and maybe even an early edition. (Books in good condition will be accepted for the sale at the library until July 8.) Haul your book finds back to the car (bags and Gardenway carts provided) and then have lunch at the Fire Station.
The Fire & Rescue Auxiliary will serve food under cover of the firehouse engine bays. Rita St. George along with daughters Chardy and Dawn, Fire & Rescue’s administrative assistant Kay Gault, and Fire & Rescue members are again taking on this mammoth task. This year’s menu features hot dogs and hamburgers along with pasta salad, chips, soda, water, juice boxes and coffee. Don’t miss the baked-goods table with breads, cookies and cupcakes as well as Rhino Food’s Chesters (ice cream sandwiched between chocolate chip cookies) Also tour the fire station and check out equipment demonstrations and hands-on fire and safety exercises.
Stop in at the Senior Center next door to enjoy freshly brewed coffee and view the current art show featuring watercolors by Charlotte resident John Calcagni. Be sure to check out the center’s schedule of activities – from t’ai chi to bridge.
The Charlotte Children’s Center (just east of the fire station) will be open for tours from 11 a.m. to noon. Visit the premises, meet director Kristy Sargent and see if this preschool fits your child’s needs. (If you can’t tour then, schedule an appointment at the Children’s Center table.
Back on the green, visit the big tent where town organizations will be displaying and dispensing information about their activities. The Charlotte News serves up Judy Laberge’s cake again this year. Everyone making a donation to the paper will automatically be entered in a drawing for great prizes, including a chance at a Charlotte News color cover photograph of your choice of subject – yourself, your kids, pets or garden!
Kids can make play dough animals at the Charlotte Community Playgroup table and make paper bag hats or blow bubbles at the Charlotte Children’s Center table. Bid on one of the Grange’s specialty baked goods and maybe even needlework or quilts at its teacup auction. Put your one-dollar tickets in the teacup beside the item you want. You could be a winner!
The Lewis Creek Association (LCA) has joined with the LaPlatte Watershed Partnership and the Addison County Riverwatch Collaborative to step up the cleanup plan for Lake Champlain. “Our wealth of data has been turned into real-life solutions that can be viewed in color at the Town Party,” says LCA head Marty Illick. If you want to help rid the lake of invasives, you can start by volunteering here in Charlotte on Town Farm Bay. Pick up contact information at LCA’s table.
Charlotte Land Trust members will be on hand to answer questions about land trust activities or conserving your land with maps at hand to showcase their efforts.
Mary Lighthall and Kay Teeter of the Charlotte Historical Society will be on hand to sell and sign copies of Around the Mountains (edited by Lighthall) and The Historic Thompson’s Point Fishing Ground (co-authored by Teetor and Morris Glenn).
Who can resist those adorable pugs at the Pug Rescue table? Tammy Hall will bring a selection of pugs, pug items and information about Pug Rescue. There will be dogs to play with and walk just like last year. After mingling with these cute canines, you might even be tempted to rescue one.
Across the green visit with an alumnus at the Quinlan Schoolhouse to find out what one-room schools were like. Hands-on activities for kids will focus on the Lake Champlain quadricenntenial theme. Children can make paper makaks similar to the folded, birchbark baskets native children used for carrying maple sugar, snacks or small treasures. Or try making “maple helicopters” like the whirlybird winged maple seeds (botanically called “keys”) that have taken maple seeds to new places at least since Samuel de Champlain arrived 400 years ago.
Stop to listen to international folk harp music provided by Natalia Czar on the library porch. As Czar says, “There is something about harp music that seems to go directly to our souls. It’s as if there’s a genetic memory that recognizes we have been listening to this music for many, many millennia.” Czar occasionally plays at Charlotte Congregational Church services.
Don’t miss out on the fun. Join your friends and neighbors on the Town Green for the Town Party on Saturday, July 11, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.