Community Garden Update

 The Greencastle community garden has 19 4’x8’ raised bed plots, 18 of which have been rented.  There are also two 4’x8’ public plots.  Compost for the plots was donated by DePauw University.  Over time the compost has turned into excellent soil.  We have mulched the areas between the plots with leaves provided by the city. This makes the areas between the plots low maintenance.   

We have a fair number of public plants that are mostly flourishing with little care.  The public plots contain donated peppers, tomatoes, and a watermelon plant.  There was also a squash plant that died, but not before we were able to harvest a couple of squash.   We received a donation of irises which we planted along the western fence. 

There are a fair number of tomato and squash plants, and a gourd plant which have come up wild between some of the plots.  

Anyone can harvest from the public plants.  The community garden is open every day during the growing season, from dawn until dusk. 

Early on, the individual plots included spinach, radishes, lettuce, and dill.  Now they contain tomatoes, peppers, green beans, squash, okra, corn, and herbs among other things.  There are also some ornamental flower plants.  We have two water barrels which the city graciously keeps filled.  In this drought year that has been our main source of water.  Despite the drought, the private plots are absolutely flourishing.  It’s really quite amazing to see. 

In the fall, we plan to add a few more raised bed plots.  If you haven’t joined us in previous seasons, we hope you consider becoming a part of our community of gardeners in 2013.  

Bruce Sanders

Community Garden Director

Come On Out for Music Fest This Saturday!

Following is a guest post from Gail Smith, owner of Almost Home Restaurant in Greencastle, and host of this Saturday's Greencastle Music Fest.


We hope you'll join us for this year's Greencastle Music Fest, which will take place this Saturday, August 25, from 3 until 11 p.m.  

Hosted by my restaurant, Almost Home, the festival is sponsored by York Automotive (celebrating 25 years in business!) and Headley Hardware,as well as First Financial Bank, National Center for College Costs and Cyclone Custom Products.  

Lee Smith, the former MLB great (pictured, with me) who spent most of his playing career with the Chicago Cubs, will be at the festival signing autographs from 3 to 4 and 6:30 to 8:30.  He will also be having lunch with the DePauw University baseball team at noon at Almost Home.  

The music extravaganza kicks off at 3:30 with The MacDaddys.  At 5:30, Philip Steven & The Open Road will take the stage. Ellusion will be entertaining the crowd at 7:30, and the night will end with The Flying Toasters' performance at 9:30.  

The festival's cornhole tournament is open to the first 20 teams that sign up before 6 p.m. on Saturday, and individual cornhole matches will begin at 6:30. 

Music and fun are definitely on tap for Saturday -- and it's all free on the square in downtown Greencastle.  Tasty food and drinks will also be available for sale.  See you there!

Sixth Annual National Night Out

On Monday, August 6^th, our annual National Night Out event will take place at Robe Ann Park in Greencastle from 5 – 8 p.m.  This community outreach allows us the platform to stand together to promote drug awareness, health, safety and unity in our fight to build a safer nation for our children.

We are pleased to continue to bring this tremendous event to families with children in elementary to middle school.  There is no cost to attend and by registering when they arrive, families are eligible for the free concessions:  hot dogs, snow cones, popcorn, pizza and drinks, and of course, all the activities including the bicycle rodeo and raffle items.

We could not continue without the sponsorship of so many of our local businesses:  Area 30 Career Center, Bounce House Fun Rentals, Butler’s L.P. Fertilizer, Casey’s General Store of Roachdale, Chicago’s Pizza, Co-Alliance, Community Partners, Cross Cuts, Dance Workshop, DePauw University Athletic Department, Figs Follies, Flowers Bakery, Garls Bike Shop, Greencastle McDonalds, and Greencastle Parks & Recreation.  Also supporting us are:  Hendershots Service Center, Jean Holder, DDS, John Hennette, DDS, Holiday World, Humble Pie, Kings Island, Monical’s Pizza, Monster Mini Golf, Putnam County United Way,  Papa Johns Pizza, Pizza King, Purdue Cooperative Extension, TCU, Terre Haute Children’s Museum and Pizza Hut.

The following agencies continue to participate:  Air Evac, Air National Guard, Dennis Knuth, DDS, John Hennette, DDS, Ivy Tech Community College-Greencastle, Boys Scouts of America, PC Girl Scouts, DePauw University Public Safety, Department of Child Services, Family Support Services, Greencastle Fire Department, Mental Health America PC, Madison Township and Reelsville Fire Departments, Roachdale Police Department, Johnson Nichols Health Clinic, PC Head Start, PC Operation Life, PC Tobacco Cessation Coalition, PC PIE Coalition, Purdue Cooperative Extension, Kiwanis, Greencastle & Indiana State Police Agencies, PC Community Corrections, PC Juvenile Probation, PC Prosecutor’s Office,  PC Sheriff’s Department and PC Adult Probation.  Our local schools continue to participate in our “Dunk Your Favorite School Administrator” contest. 

Back again this year will be the free toothbrush and toothpaste along with a nutrition component educating our families on eating healthy.  Dance Workshop will be doing a Zumba workout and a new addition will be the first annual rookie run with our local law enforcement officers.  A visit by our National Night Out Knight will be a real hit as he attempts to join in all the fun.

This event could not be possible without the hard work and commitment of so many committee members and community volunteers. 

We hope to see you on Monday, August 6^th.  Should rain cancel our event, our rain date is Thursday, August 9^th from 5 – 8 p.m.  Join us – you won’t be sorry! 

Linda Merkel

Executive Director

PC Youth Development Commission

Metronet Moves to New Downtown Home

Metronet's new downtown home at 51 S. Indiana Street. 

Metronet, local provider of Greencastle’s 100% fiber optic network, has a new home. The Courthouse Square Business District downtown. You’ll find us at 15 South Indiana Street one block south of the square, across the street from Crown Equipment and next door to Moore’s Bar & Restaurant.

After more than six successful years on the southeast side of town, the opportunity for this new home downtown presented itself and we knew it was the right move for us.

We purchased a fantastic historic building built in the late 1800s with great bones and were able to breathe new life into it. Starting with complete interior renovations which modernized the inside with our fiber technology, we then installed a new roof and gutters, repaired the historic brick exterior, and finished the outside by giving our building a facelift with historically accurate paint colors.

Seeing first-hand the changes and improvements around Greencastle due to the Stellar Community Grant only confirm that our decision was the right one. We’re proud to be participating in Phase Two of the Stellar program which will allow us to further improve the building with transoms and new windows based on historic drawings.

During the purchase process several folks shared with us some of the history of the building. As Bill Dory, executive director of the Greencastle/Putnam County Development Center, noted, “Communications in Greencastle is coming full circle. Metronet’s new office location once housed the local newspaper and later the first telephone exchange in the community.”

Metronet is proud to have invested millions of dollars to build our 100% fiber optic network in Greencastle and to be a community partner.  It’s our goal to offer outstanding local service and superior products at competitive prices. And we’ll continue to do that, only now from downtown.

Our service offerings include high-speed Internet with speeds up to 100Mb without slowdowns because you don’t share a connection with neighbors, a sharp television picture whether you’re watching HD or standard definition, and reliable phone service with all the features and unlimited long distance. 

Our 100% fiber optic network also offers unlimited possibilities for the future — like games, apps, interactive TV and other features.

Metronet is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. Come visit our new home. We’d love to see you.

Marianne E. Cox

Simple Steps to Reducing Energy Consumption

When it’s 100 degrees outside, most people don’t want to think about electric costs.  In today’s economy, households are being forced to reduce usage to avoid soaring energy costs.  When confronted with the choice of “to pay or unplug,” there are simple steps—sometimes hidden in plain sight—we can take to reduce energy consumption.

 

Shannon Norman, City Planner, City of Greencastle

 

Article:  Electric City

By Claudine Zap | Electric City 

We live for gadgets. But even the smallest ones can consume an enormous amount of power. See some of the worst offenders.

Game Consoles—It's all fun and games, until you get your energy bill. If you leave your Xbox or PlayStation on when you're not playing, you are wasting as much energy as leaving a desktop computer running.

Plasma TV—Plasma TVs consume about two times more power than LCD versions. To save even more energy, go for a smaller screen. A 32-inch set uses about half as much power as a 52-inch LCD.

Digital picture frames—These little items pack a power punch. Consider this: If every home in the U.S. had one of these displaying around the clock, it would take five power plants to keep them on, according to the Electric Power Research Institute.

Laptops—If your laptop has a screensaver with images, it consumes more power than an idle laptop.

Battery chargers—Your mobile devices doesn't take up that much power on their own, but if they are left plugged into electric outlets, even when the charger isn't connected, they continue to draw power. Add up that most households use more than one charger, and across the country, they could consume the energy of several power plants.

Power-saving solutions—One way to stop power use when you're not using your devices: Turn them all the way off. Another way to save -- try an energy-saving power strip. The power-savers are designed to cut power to devices that don't need it.

You can also change your new device's default settings: You can manually change the brightness settings on your TVs and computer screens to suck up less energy.

The green website Treehugger has helpful tips for getting more eco-friendly gadgets, including: checking with Energy Star and Consumer Reports before you buy; and, take advantage of local recycling programs when you do switch out gadgets, or even consider selling your old one instead of throwing it away.

To view this article, visit:  http://screen.yahoo.com/blogs/electriccity

A Karaoke Night with the Stars

ParkFest's Karaoke Contest was such a treat!   We had 15 people sign up to sing songs from Elvis to The Judds.   Constants ranged in age from ten to 67 years old.

We awarded two $100 cash prizes.  The judges – Sue Brucks of Studio B, Jared Jernigan from the Banner Graphic, and John Fisher from WREB radio – awarded the Judges’ Choice Award to ten year-old Sydney Anderson, who blew us all away with her version of James Brown's "I Feel Good.”  Sydney walked up to the microphone shaking and nervous, but after the crowd chanted, "you can do it, you can do it" she took a deep breath and decided to go for it.  As soon as the music started Sydney took off like a rocket and every face in the crowd wore a smile!

Our audience had a chance to pick their favorite to win the People's Choice Award as well.  When all the contestants had finished, the crowd voted by dropping money in the mason jar labeled with the name and song of their favorite singer.   The People's Choice award went to Katie Null of Indianapolis, whose grandfather is a Greencastle native, and invited her to come give it a try!  She sang Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”

Voting for the People’s Choice Award also was a fundraiser for the Greencastle Civic League's Splash Park Project.  We raised more than $250, thanks to the generosity of our ParkFest audience, and the boldness of our Karaoke contestants.   THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO MADE THIS EVENING SUCH A WONDERFUL AND FUN ONE!

On my way home that evening, my cheeks ached, and I realized that I hadn't stopped smiling all night. 

Thank you Greencastle! 

Bobbie Lancaster, ParkFest co-chair