Trail Towns Outreach Corps 2011

Here's a few of things happening in the Trail Town of Meyersdale, PA:

I have been attending at least one of the Meyersdale Area Merchants Association (MAMA) meetings each month if not both. The group is starting a clean and green program for the town to help promote a better community both visually and environmentally. This program is an extension of the Preservaiton Plan and other community outreach.

I stopped by the Farmer’s Market after the last MAMA meeting and it had a good turnout with vendors from the area. Many of the good produce includes homemade breads, jellys, and pies from the local Amish community. The market is every Wednesday from 7:30-12:30

-Mandy Metzger

June was another busy month for the Connellsville Community gardens! Among the Trail Town Outreach Corps (TTOC), a watering schedule was written up and Elisa, Will, Emma, Phil, and Mandy all were given a weekly watering assignment. If you see these faces in the gardens, thank them for their help!
The Youth Action crew and TTOC put together June’s first community garden event, where they planted wildflowers, marigolds, and sunflowers in the CCG beds in East Park. We had hoped to spend the afternoon in the park and play some kickball, but storm-clouds rolled in just as we began to plant and the sky darkened through the afternoon. We hurried to put the last seeds in the final bed just as the rain began.
We donated our first bag of endive greens, mustard, and arugula to the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen here in Connellsville. It was exciting to see the greens planted by the Youth Action Crew ready to be shared and enjoyed! The community center garden had an impressive number of tomatoes pop up again from last year’s planting, so they were herded into one bed for mystery tomatoes. The squash and melons have stretched their long vines and the sunflowers are getting taller! June’s heat proved wonders for the peppers, but the pea season is almost up.
We gathered some dried, rattling pods from the 3rd Street. beds to save as seed for next year. By the end of June, a bountiful display had grown along the 3rd Street beds with the Lions’ Club roses still in bloom, La Boheme’s swiss chard and peppers, and the CCG berries and greens. In the CCG plots along 3rd St., the endive and lettuce mixes are thriving around pepper bushes; the Golden Raspberries, Red Raspberries, and Strawberries have been neighborhood favorites. We found our first pepper of the season on June 14th along 3rd Street.
Later in June, we had a volunteer night in the garden across from the Armory. Community members came out to build a compost bin, remove poison ivy, and plant seedlings. The Domino’s here in Connellsville donated pizzas for the event and we snacked on some Golden Sweet Peas growing along the garden’s fence! It was a great chance to get to know the volunteers in the garden and learn about garden lime, poison ivy, and lasagna mulching.
July should be a calmer month for the community garden with more food to donate to the food bank and the start of pepper, tomato, eggplant, and bean seasons!

Amanda Metzger is a native of Connellsville, PA who briefly lived in Norfolk, VA. She attended Old Dominion University before completing her degree at California University of Pennsylvania in History and Women's Studies. In her leisure time she enjoys being active outside with her dogs.

William Prince hails from Elizabeth, Pennsylvania – just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with an undergraduate degree in Humanities in 2009 and returned to Pitt in the fall of 2010 to complete a certificate in Historic Preservation, and he is very passionate about this subject. Over the last few years, William has studied, lived, and traveled to Europe particularly London, Paris, Rome, and Prague.

Connellsville Youth Action Crew

• The group planted two plots in East Park with wild flowers and sunflowers.
• YAC assisted in the planting of the new South Side Community Garden Plot.
• We are continuing to work toward getting the parking meters painted.

-Emma Strong

Connellsville Recycling
• Due to a very productive meeting with some Connellsville City Council members, the Board of Health Director, and a representative from Veolia Environmental Services, a large, centralized recycling bin will be installed the first weekend in July near the Street Department in Connellsville. Because residents currently have once a month recycling, and businesses do not have any recycling, this will make recycling much easier for both groups of community members.
• At Art on the Yough in Connellsville, the SCA Trail Town Outreach Corps served as a recycling receptacle and also provided information on how and where to recycle in Connellsville for community members.
• We will continue promoting recycling and informing community members on where and how to recycle at Farmers and Artisans markets in Connellsville.

-Emma Strong

West Newton, or as I’ve come to call it “WN,” has had a busy year thus far! We initially started doing town tours in early March, and I immediately fell in love with the WN. I have been to West Newton before as I grew up about 10-15 minutes away in Elizabeth, PA, but never spent much time here. Each month, I attend at least one Downtown West Newton Inc (DWNI) meetings, usually the Design Committee. At my first meeting in March, I was introduced to existing projects and plans for West Newton including Simmeral Square, History Ribbon for the Bridge, and the annual events. Also at this first meeting, we discussed interested projects for me to work on as well as add to the list, and as discussed, to create a historic district. I am continuously working on this each day in the office and while in town. One of my favorite things to do is explore Main Street and its back alleys finding the variations of brick patterns, the diversity in architectural details, the span of styles, and much more. The ultimate goal of my research is a listing on the National Register of Historic Places. At this time, I’m still working on the descriptions of about 40 some buildings and their significance in history. I am starting with a Historic Resource Survey Form to find out if this potential district is eligible for the National Register. This first step should be completed sometime in July before sending it to the State Historic Preservation Office for approval.
A few of the activities that I’ve helped out with in West Newton include their yearly “Great American Clean-up” on May 7, 2011. Members of DWNI, the community, and myself went out and conquered several parts of downtown by collecting trash, planting flowers, and beautifying WN. About 20 individuals volunteered their time to help make West Newton a better place to live on this late spring morning.
Another on-going project that actually started at our town tour was the creation of a brochure for the West Newton Cemetery which is situated right along the GAP. In recent years, many cyclists have explored into this picturesque landscape known as the cemetery. In 2010, DWNI received a grant to improve the entry to the Cemetery. Many trail users, both local and visitors have only just recently noticed the new signage for a graveyard dating back to 1852. The next step is to finalize the brochure and print for visitors to tour and learn about this attraction in WN.
Other news DWNI includes working with one of their partners, Mon Valley Initiative (MVI), to create a housing improvement initiative, increasing promotion of available properties, and getting even closer to breaking ground on the Simmeral Square green space and park right along the Yough River and West Newton Bridge!

As the West Newton point person, I also work with the Westmoreland Yough Trail Council (WYTC). They are the group that maintains the portion of the GAP in Westmoreland County. I attend their monthly meeting to hear what they are working on to help improve the GAP as well as what activities and events coming up.
One of their major improvements that they have been working on is an overlook at the trail head looking over the Yough and downtown West Newton. This was originally set for the early summer, but due to its flood plan location, a more involved plan needs to be reviewed by West Newton Council.
On June 5, 2011, WYTC celebrated Trail Day at the West Newton Station. Here they provided free drinks and snacks to trail users. I helped by passing out snacks and running in and out for the hot dogs which sold out! WYTC gave out 250 hot dogs, made $340 in donations, gained four new memberships, and celebrated the trail with other trail users and even my parents!
For the remainder of the year, WYTC is working to promote and organize the Poker Run and Fall Oldies Dance among other projects.
West Newton is working on many things between the Downtown and The Great Allegheny Passage! I love WN and so should you!
-William Prince

Elisa grew up in Asheville, North Carolina and graduated from UNC - Chapel Hill with a BS in Environmental Science. She first worked with SCA doing an internship with the Keene Valley Nature Conservancy and then as a member of the Adirondack Conservation Corps. She received her master's in Urban Planning from the University of Groningen, Netherlands. Her work with the SCA Trail Town Outreach Corps began with the initation of the corps in December 2008. Her passions include local agriculture, traveling, dancing, cooking, skiing, and bicycling.

The premise of the synchronized count was that, as the organizations that promote the use of and economic development along the Great Allegheny Passage, the Trail Town Program and the Allegheny Trail Alliance wanted to better understand trail use patterns. Each season we monitor trail use via electronic and manual counts at 10 locations (from Boston in Elizabeth Township to Cumberland, Maryland), but one key piece of information that was missing is how busy the various sections of the trail were in relation to one another. This synchronized count was a first-time effort and took place on the 36th anniversary of the last Western Maryland passenger ride of May 21, 1975. By holding this count, we were out en masse working to understand the tremendous impact this trail (and everyone's local efforts) have had on this region.

We had 24 volunteers counting at about 16 locations, including McKeesport, Boston, Cedar Creek Park, Smithton, Adelaide, Connellsville, Ohiopyle, Confluence, Rockwood, Meyersdale, Deal, Frostburg (Maryland), Woodcock Hollow (Maryland), Cash Valley (Maryland), and Cumberland (Maryland). The volunteers counted trail users simultaneously from noon to 2 pm on Saturday, May 21. The task was to stand at a certain location along the trail (partnered with another volunteer) and tally the number of bikers and walkers who passed by. I had a sheet for each volunteer to note not only how many users have passed but also whether the trail user was going toward the north or south direction, as well as whether the user was a biker or a walker.

This synchronized count was vital to our understanding of trail use dynamics, and we'll be having two additional similar counts during the rest of the summer to gain more insight into the use of the trail. In the meantime, we will continue to do traditional manual counts in the middle of the trail during the whole year. In these counts, we obtain zip codes from trail users and compare our tallies to the data we get from the electronic counters.