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Spring Clean Up Day
On Saturday May 17th we will be holding our annual community Spring Clean Up. We will meet at the Crystal Chandelier at 9:00a.m. for coffee and doughnuts and then break into work groups to clean up several areas in the Crystal Beach community. We will also be sending volunteers to Waterfront Park to help with the "Re Leaf Niagara" program where work groups will be planting trees that morning. This is your community, come out and help us make it shine. Everyone is welcome to come out and join us that morning. It would help to bring rakes, shovels, brooms if you can. We will supply gloves and garbage bags that day. Hope to see you there, bring your community spirit and pride with you.
We are very pleased to announce that our organization has been selected to receive a $5000.00 environmental grant by the Niagara Community Foundation. This grant is to be applied to help protect and restore the ecological health and integrity of Bay Beach.
Please, Please, Please keep the warm weather coming!
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This architectural rendering is for a portion of the Buffalo waterfront. Wouldn't something like this make the Bay Beach property look so much nicer and truly represent our community in a positive way?
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We have this. . . . . .
Why not something more like this. . . . . . . .
We have had to live with this for 7 years. . . . . going on 8!!! We have to be able to do better than this!
Why not something more like this multi use community building instead?
We have crumbling concrete walls on our beach, why not something more like this?
These are found in places where the muncipality realizes the value of beautifying the parks they own.
What was that about, "If you build it they will come"?
Why is it that those who came before us more than 100 years ago could have created something like this for the community while we look at what is pictured in the photos above?
Come out and and bring the family and friends!
Next Meeting
Wednesday June 4, 2008
at the Crystal Beach Public School on Derby Rd. at 6:30 pm
OUR 2007 YEAR IN REVIEW
This year we added two new projects to our slate of "things to do" in 07. With the intent of beautifying our community, we set out to assure that decorative banners would be displayed on two of our main thoroughfare roads: Erie and Ridgeway Rds. By mid summer we had 19 banners welcoming all to Crystal Beach. Our second project was to environmentally enhance Bay Beach by planting native grasses and shrubs to the fence line along Erie Rd. We hope this will be step one in improving the existing conditions at the Bay Beach property. We kicked off the spring with a neighborhood clean up day. Volunteers donned gloves and work clothes then invested a bit of "sweat equity" to get the area looking sharp for the summer months to come. We continued our partnership with the Fort Erie Arts Council in bringing the 3rd Crystal Beach Art Festival to fruition. We sponsored our 4th Waterfront Park Concert Series which has grown in popularity throughout the entire Niagara Region. Again our organization helped fund the Crystal Beach Festival. We held our 2nd 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament for the youth of our area. Members of our organization stepped up to deal with a rash of vandalism in the community by taking a Saturday morning to paint over graffiti that had been put on several of the businesses on Erie Rd. We staged the 2nd Annual End of Summer Celebration and Parade which doubled in size this year. October saw the coming of our 3rd Crystal Beach 5K Race/Walk which like the parade also grew in number of participants and spectators. Our partnership with the Crystal Beach Public School continued to grow and flourish. Our CBIA has graciously provided insurance coverage for all of our major events and we appreciate their continued support. And finally we were happy to see our membership grow with new individuals/families joining us in trying to make our community shine and be one we can all be proud to call home.
Good News regarding the planting along the fence line at Bay Beach! The initial landscaping has now been done. You can see what a difference it makes and will only get better as the plantings grow and blossom over time. This is just a start there will be more to come in the future.
We have contracted Bill Spear and the Stevensville Garden Centre to put in serviceberry, amur shrub maples, sedum and feather reed grass for this year. We believe It will aesthetically improve the look of Erie Rd. and the beach entrance while also providing a wind break to reduce the sand that blows into the street in the fall and spring. It is our plan to continue this project each year until it is equal to our beautiful Waterfront Park.
Check out the Local Lore page for some new stories regarding Crystal Beach
As Spring brings with it warmer weather we will again begin to put up our community banners. Last year we had 19 banners purchased/sponsored by various associations, businesses, families and individuals from our community. We have already had orders for 3 more and it is our hope that others will come forward to help us beautify the main thoroughfares of Crystal Beach. You can see from the photo above they are very attractive and will brighten up our community. The cost is $290.00, which includes a two sided banner and all the hardware it will take to hang them effectively. The GST and PST actually adds another $40.00 to the cost but the Friends of Crystal Beach has been able to pick that up so far for each banner purchased. Each will have the name of your group on the lower portion of the banner. The banners will be put up each spring and taken down in the fall and are projected to last a minimum of 3 to 5 years. Our organization agreed to get things rolling by purchasing 4 of the new banners. If you are a member of one of the numerous associations in the community, or a business owner, family or street group we ask that you join in the effort to make our community shine. You may pledge sponsorship by contacting us at: plewis@buffnet.net or sending a cheque made out for $290.00 to Friends of Crystal Beach, P.O. Box 978, Crystal Beach, Ontario L0S 1B0. Please specify how you want the sponsorship to read on the banner. Thanks to Sally Graves for spearheading this community project.
Bravo to those on the list below, as they have really bought into the fact that we are all shareholders in the Crystal Beach community.
Norman and Barbara Cantor, The Kane Family, Crystal Wines, Burd Family, the Oakwood Ave. Neighbours, The Buffalo Canoe Club, the McCarthy & Panebianco Families, The Bay Beach Association, The Crystal Beach Hill Cottagers Organization, Crystal Beach Candy Co., Crystal Beach Public School, Crystal Artisan Village, Prudential Town Centre Realty Inc., Bob & Mary Ann Strath, The Crystal Beach Tennis and Yacht Club, the Jackson Family and The Friends of Crystal Beach (4).
What is the story behind this diamond ring? What does it have to do with Crystal Beach? Go to the Local Lore page, then scroll down to the story about the Athletic field for the answer.
Our 2006 Year In Review
In 2006 we hosted the 2nd Annual Crystal Beach Art Festival in Waterfront Park, held our 3rd Waterfront Concert Series, helped fund the Annual Crystal Beach Festival in which we staged our first "3 on 3" Basketball Tournament for the kids in our community, held several neighborhood "Clean Up Days", honored some of the unsung residents who quietly work to improve their neighborhood with our "Good Neighbor Awards", provided funding for the beautiful floral arrangements throughout our town, revived the old Crystal Beach tradition of an "End of Summer" celebration, organized the 2nd Annual 5K run/walk in October. In addition to those events we have formed a partnership with the Crystal Beach Public School in an effort to help with several projects they are taking on to benefit their students (i.e. helping the school purchase some needed kitchen equipment to restart a morning breakfast club for the students, aided in renewing the tradition of having an Easter Egg hunt for all Crystal Beach children on the school grounds this year and purchased a reading rug for the kindergarten). We also repainted the mural at the Ashwood Ave. entrance to the beach this Spring (see photo below).
Congratulations to all of our members for the terrific job you did through 2006. Though there was much work involved there was also and awful lot of fun and satisfaction knowing that we are helping to make this a community people are proud to be associated with. We look forward to another year of positive growth for both the "Friends of Crystal Beach" and the community as a whole. Come out and help us in 2007.
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