Freeville Community Council looks to expand in 2021

The Freeville Community Council (FCC), founded in 2003, has long been an advocate for the village’s welfare, coordinating everything from recreational events and activities to the distribution of supporting funds to organizations and projects throughout the area.

Last year, much of the council’s usual work was put on hold, but 2021 brought with it a near return to normalcy. Now, the council is looking to expand, sending out a call for new members to help better serve the village.

In a normal year, the FCC organizes activities for getting the village together like its summer picnic, walk and talks on the Dryden Rail Trail, ice cream socials, winter potlucks and guest speakers.

“It’s not just all parties and dish to pass,” member Arlene Krebs explained. “We look around the community and say ‘How can we help?’ And we’ve helped the PTA a lot in Freeville Elementary School. And also, we put a lot of benches in Mill Dam Park. We’ve done birdhouses on the Genung Trail. … We put a lot of money [into] the summer rec program that is in Freeville and to the Freeville Food Pantry — we donate a lot of money to there. So, we do all that work, which is very important.”

As of the time of this publication, the Freeville Community Council has only three officers — President Ryan Maher, Vice President Penny Sutterby and Treasurer Will Olson — and is still looking for a secretary.

Krebs has been with the council for over 10 years, starting as secretary and moving up to president last year, serving as president until just last week, when Maher took over the position. As Krebs explained, the council used to have more members, but as the years have gone by, membership has continued to shrink.

“We’re supposed to have a president, vice president, treasurer and the secretary — that’s bare bones,” she said. “And if we can’t fill the positions, then I think we’ll have to dissolve the Freeville Community Council. So, we’re really hoping that people will step forward.”

Krebs is hoping to attract more members to help keep the council going. She said that, should the FCC be dissolved, the community would miss “those core things that we do.”

“We always are asking the community, ‘What do you want?’ And they respond back, ‘We want the community garage sale. We want the summer picnic,’” she said. “And so, we always want to listen and try to figure out how to spend this money in a way that they want. So, [it’s] important that when I leave this committee that we really want them to listen to that.”

The pandemic put a hold on many of those core events like the summer picnic and effectively halted the FCC’s usual schedule, as Maher explained.

“Our primary function as a community council is to bring people together. So, basically, we couldn’t,” he said. “We couldn’t do all the things that we wanted to do. We were, like everybody, playing it by ear, learning by the day and not really knowing what the year could bring, and, to be quite honest, just being grateful for our health in the family and recognizing that we had our limits as far as what we could do to bring people together.”

Maher is one of the council’s newest members, having joined just a couple of years ago when the council was “looking to bring in some new, fresh faces,” he said. Since he joined, he’s been looking for ways to help the council serve other young families in the village like his with new programming, and now that 2021 has brought back some of the events and projects the FCC helps coordinate, he’s hoping to finally see some progress with that mission.

“I’d love to come up with some other opportunities, some newer things that will bring in families and kids together, things like outdoor movies … or other kinds of activities,” he said. “[We can] come up with some new things and perhaps search for some grant money … to think about how we as a village community, as a community council and as a nonprofit can support some larger visioning and projects within the village, not just these seasonal events.”

Maher said that bringing in new members will also help expand the FCC’s reach.

“I feel like there are newer families in the village, like myself, that probably don’t know what we do or what our potential is,” he said. “And so, now that things are opening up, I think we have an opportunity to bring people along and say, ‘here’s what we can do, bring your ideas, and bring in some new active members to the council.’”

Krebs and Maher both expressed how impactful the FCC has been in the past, with many Freeville residents eager for any chance to get together as a community.

“The council’s an important asset for the community to formalize and bring people together around larger events that need some leadership in some ways,” Maher said. “It doesn’t take a lot. In some cases, it just takes picking a date and having a small bit of money in order to bring together food or an activity or a speaker. And then, people jump at it.”

The FCC’s most recent meeting was June 7, and members will continue to brainstorm new ideas for the rest of 2021. Krebs and Maher shared their ideas on possible projects, and they encouraged other residents to reach out with more ideas.

“I would like to do a book club,” Krebs said. “I think that that’s something [where] people could read, and you could do a Zoom, and then you could still continue on with that from your own home. So, we’re going to throw ideas out and try to figure out different things.”

Maher said many of his hopes focus on taking full advantage of all the village has to offer.

“As a parent in the village, I’m always thinking about the connections between, say, the community as we see it, folks living in the community and other institutions or organizations in the village. And one of those is the Freeville Elementary School,” Maher said. “It’s something that we really want to strengthen and support in any way that we can. … We have a lot of assets here like parks that could use ideas about what folks want to see out of it. So, we’d like to think about getting people involved and thinking about ways that we can build on the assets that we have.”

Anyone interested in joining the FCC should email Maher at rmaher11@gmail.com. Meetings are held four times annually.

In Brief:

Open house for Rail Trail bridge

The town of Dryden, in conjunction with its design consultant Erdman Anthony, invites area residents and stakeholders to attend a public open house for the Dryden Rail Trail Phase 2 Project (PIN 3950.71 in the State Transportation Improvement Plan). The event will be held June 30 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Neptune Fire Hall, 26 North St.

The project proposes the construction of a 10-foot-wide, stone dust trail along the former railroad bed from Monkey Run Road to Hall Woods Road in the town of Dryden. The trail will be carried over State Route 13 via a new steel, prefabricated pedestrian-bicycle bridge.

The purpose of this open house is to present the preferred design alternative for the proposed trail and bridge and to address questions and comments from the community.

“The Rail Trail Task Force and Friends of the Dryden Rail Trail look forward to meeting with all community members interested in this exciting phase of the Dryden Rail Trail project,” said Bob Beck, chair of the Dryden Rail Trail Task Force.