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09/15/2021 08:30 AMModel sailboats often skim across the pond at Plattwood Park in Deep River but on Saturday, Sept. 25: Glowing lanterns, each illuminated by an LED candle, will float across the water. It is the third annual Water Lantern Celebration to benefit A Little Compassion, the non-profit organization that sponsors The Nest coffee shop in Deep River.
Donna Dione, who has worked on the Water Lantern Celebration since the first year it took place, will be at Plattwood Park, giving out party bags with snacks and activities for children that Water Lantern participants can pick up and take home as they watch a livestream of the event on The Nest’s Facebook page.
At the first meeting Donna went to for the first Water Lantern event, she was asked to take minutes.
“I’ve been doing it ever since,” she says.
Moen said the Delta variant of COVID-19 made livestreaming rather than on-scene participation necessary.
“We moved the event to livestream because want to be sure everyone is safe with the rate of COVID growing,” she said.
Sarah Cody, a longtime presence on Connecticut television news, will be live at the park as the master of ceremonies.
The Nest is a coffee shop that is about more than coffee. It is about giving opportunity to a population of young adults with neurological, physical, and emotional challenges. The idea is not to have staff work at The Nest as a career, but rather, as a result of their Nest experience, to equip young adults with the skills to join the larger work force.
“Together we can and are changing the way people see, include, and value those who may interact with the world differently,” Jane Moen of A Little Compassion notes.
At the moment, there are 12 staff and 6 interns working at the coffee shop. In addition to work experience, the Nest sponsors social gatherings open both to its target population and the general public. One of the results of COVID-19 is that all the social gatherings are now on line.
For Donna, a favorite order at The Nest is not coffee; it is not a shake or a smoothie, nor the salads or sandwiches now available to go. It is a gluten-free, chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich.
Professionally, Donna, who lives in Deep River, is the education coordinator at the Niantic Children’s Museum. The museum, designed for youngsters up to age of nine, has different playscapes, among them a lobster boat, a fire truck, and a garden area that allow children to create their own imaginative scenarios.
According to Donna, the museum is better known in communities on the East side of the Connecticut River.
“There’s something about rivers and crossing them,” she says.
During the COVID shutdown, Donna made her own videos, Miss Donna’s Woodland, to introduce children to the natural world.
“I talked just as I would if the kids were with me,” she says.
Topics included geology, trees, and birds; the most popular of the videos has been watched at least 1,000 times.
Donna also works on part-time basis as an environmental educator at Bauer Park in Madison, where she has led weekend programs for preschoolers and their families as well a two-week summer program for young children with themes like Animal Adventures and Habitat Happenings. During the year, she leads family maple sugaring outings. She is hoping that after COVID canceled the maple sugaring last year, it can once again be part of the schedule this year.
Donna, then Donna Roberts, grew up in Clinton and graduated from The Morgan School and Connecticut College. She had planned on majoring in zoology but then switched to a major in human ecology, a broader look at environmental science.
Her first job was at an outdoor education center in Willsboro, New York, in the Adirondacks. She has also worked as a program coordinator at the Mystic Aquarium.
Donna and her husband Donald moved to Deep River in 1997. They are the parents of 24-year-old twins, Dakota and Donnie. The couple met because they lived across lived across the street from each other in Clinton. Donna says Donald’s background is French-Canadian and his family is distantly related to the famous Canadian Dionne quintuplets.
“But we lost one of the ‘n’s” she says of the different spelling of the names.
For more than 20 years, Donna has taught Sunday School at the Deep River Congregational Church. Now, she enjoys seeing the adults who were once her young students. When her daughter was younger, she was involved in Girl Scouts and remains active in the Southeastern New England Marine Educators Association, a group she has been involved with since her days working at the Mystic Aquarium.
She is unsure how she will decorate her own water lantern this year.
“I’m not very artistic,” she admits.
She is thinking of drawing hearts and shamrocks. The explanation is simple: “I have an Irish background and I like shamrocks.”
Water Lantern Celebration
Water Lantern Celebration: Lighting the Way for People of All Abilities is livestreaming on Saturday, Sept. 25, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.; the raindate is Sunday, Sept. 26. Lanterns may be purchased at The Nest coffee shop in Deep River or online at www.alittlecompassion.org, which also offers complete instructions for picking up and dropping off lanterns.