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10/19/2016 08:30 AMA spot here, a spot there—ever since Deborah Rie moved to Westbrook with her husband John, things have been looking a little bit better in town. After moving to town nine years ago, Deb become involved in several different groups. Her volunteer efforts shared a similar focus, one that she carried over from a very visual background working in corporate real estate for Aetna.
“One thing that’s important to me is how things look,” says Deb. “When I moved here, I transferred that thinking. I want Westbrook to be the best it can be.”
Initially, Deb looked at the move as a way to simplify her life. Instead, she found herself busier, even after her retirement a few years ago.
“We decided one way we’d spend our retirement is to give back,” Deb says. “Westbrook has made it very easy for us to do that. They’ve welcomed us with open arms.”
Through the Town Center Revitalization Committee, Deb kicked off Westbrook’s Adopt-a-Spot program alongside Libby Waldron. She saw it as a way to balance the committee’s large, long-term projects with something more immediate. Today, there are 40 town-owned spots adopted by individuals who clean up litter, install plantings if they wish, and generally care for a little piece of Westbrook. Each spot is marked with an oval sign declaring who maintains it.
“People have really been wonderful. The people that initially adopted have stuck with it,” she says. “We’re beautifying Westbrook one spot at a time.”
The Revitalization Committee also expanded its efforts through a “Quick Hits” program, which focuses on small, high-visibility projects in the Town Center.
“We have things that can be done quickly as well as with pretty low-cost items, but they’re very visible,” says Deb, who has also been a member of the American Association of University Women for many years. “So far we’ve done the little triangle in town that the town crew redid, and somebody in Adopt-a-Spot—Aida Moore—planted the spot and maintained it.”
Funding, as for many of the project that Deb’s been involved with, is through the Westbrook Foundation.
“The Westbrook Foundation has basically funded everything,” she says. “They’ve been very generous in supporting these efforts.”
Adopt-a-Spot funding from the Westbrook Foundation also helped pay for a recent effort to revitalize the 1904 library building on the Town Green. The town crew redid the landscaping and installed a screen to conceal the seasonal porta-potty.
“Westbrook Foundation gave us a grant, we used some remaining grant from Adopt-a-Spot, the town threw in some dollars,” says Deb, “and everybody worked on it and it was a great project. Now everybody is admiring the building—noticing things about it they never noticed before.”
Deb credits Libby and also Mindy Gordon for their help with that particular project. With anything she’s involved with, Deb is quick to name other names. Whether she’s working on windowboxes and planters with the Garden Club, starting up an environmental education program at Daisy Ingraham School, or encouraging people to install plaques on historical buildings in town through the Westbrook Historical Society, Deb emphasizes that it’s the work of the group as a whole that gets things done.
“It takes a lot of people,” she says. “It’s kind of like packaging people together and ideas.”
One of her greatest hopes is that the next generation will continue to contribute their own time and efforts to give back to the places where they live, too. At Daisy Ingraham, the program she helped start takes 4th graders out to watch shore birds at Duck Island.
“We have such a wonderful environment here and I think it’s great if the schools could take advantage of it,” she says. “It’s like their own laboratory—we hope they will be better conservation citizens.”
That theme of education leading to caring for something—whether it’s a windowbox, a historical site, or a sensitive shoreline environment—is the common thread of Deb’s efforts.
“If people know about it and they appreciate it, then they’ll take care of it,” she says. “If we all did something, just think how great it would be.”
To participate in Westbrook’s Adopt-a-Spot program, call Deb at 860-399-0664 or visit westbrookct.us/adopt_a_spot.php. To request a plaque for a historical site that is 100 years old or greater (requested donation: $200), call the Westbrook Historical Society at 860-399-7473.