(3) Erosion Control and Wetland Restoration (with Borough Environmental Commission (2002-2006)
(2) Score Sheet for the Fund's
Second Farmland Project:
(1) Score Sheet for the Fund's
First Farmland Project:
Monmouth Conservation Foundation continues to make a very important contribution to the success of the first preservation project of the Fund for Roosevelt. We extend to them our sincere thanks for their support and trust. Frankly, they took a risk on us. The MCF view of their support is described in the Fall/Winter 2000 issue of their newsletter, Green Spaces. We encourage our supporters to learn more about and to support MCF. MCF can be contacted at (732) 671-7000 or, by letter, at P. O. Box 191, Middletown, New Jersey 07748.
Monmouth County Agriculture Development Board (MCADB) - praises innovative preservation by Fund for Roosevelt in the Spring 2001 issue of their newsletter ECO-LOGIC.
About the Fund for Roosevelt - Roosevelt (Monmouth Co.) is the only municipality in New Jersey that is, in its entirety, a registered National and State Historic District.
At present, Roosevelt is a town of about 340 homes and less than 1,000 people. It was established in 1936 as a utopian experiment of the New Deal era. We are small enough so that we don't have mail delivery. We walk or drive to the post office every day.
The post office, the deli, and the bulletin board between them are the main means through which news of the community is exchanged on a daily basis...births, marriages, deaths, politics, school affairs, and our future as a town.
Because of the innovative "greenbelt" design of the Borough, our town fits in among existing wetlands in such a way that we can walk a "block and a half" from practically any house in town and be in wetlands habit of the New Jersey threatened Wood Turtle (Clemmys insculpta) or the New Jersey threatened Blunt-lobed Grape Fern (Botrychium oneidense).
The farmland in the Borough was part of its orginal design and is called out explicitly in the documentation of our National Historic Site status. Hence, the farmland in the Borough should, to the greatest degree possible, remain farmland. The wetlands should be protected similarly -- to the greatest extent possible, and a stewardship program for the wetlands and forests should be established.
Without our Roosevelt Public School, we would cease to be a viable town and slip away into a "bedroom community with a history."
The members of the Fund for Roosevelt, Inc. and our active contributors want to preserve our history, our natural environment, and our town's future as a real community. We want to preserve those things that make Roosevelt Roosevelt.
"Judy was affiliated with the Center for over 16 years, first as a staff member and then as attorney-consultant, providing legal and management assistance to newly forming and established non-profit organizations. She also maintained a private legal practice in Roosevelt, NJ.
"Judy was a passionate activist who brought warmth, humor, integrity and a strong sense of social justice to every aspect of her life. The existence and well being of thousands of thriving non-profit organizations in New Jersey are a direct result of her efforts. She served on the boards of many organizations, including the Roosevelt Arts Project, the Fund for Roosevelt, New Jersey Policy Perspective, Mercer Street Friends, and Storytelling Arts. She was deeply involved with many others, including the Housing and Community Development Network and Legal Services of New Jersey, which awarded her its Equal Justice Medal in 1995 in recognition of her dedication. The Center for Non-Profits owes its continued existence to her tremendous knowledge, loyalty and strength. Words cannot fully capture all the lives she touched and the immeasurable difference she made to the people of New Jersey. We mourn the loss of a colleague, mentor, advocate, teacher, and close friend.
In mid-January, 2001, the Fund lost an endlessly optimistic friend, trustee, and exuberant supporter, Sol Libsohn. Sol was a man filled with so much joy and enthusiasm for life that it was uncontainable and was always spilling out around him. A child, a fresh fig, a tiny spring flower, a fern successfully transplanted to his eclectic garden, an old jazz record, a new recording of Handel quartets, or preservation of his home town, all these received the bounty Sol had to give.
Sol was a great photographer with an uncanny eye for human emotion and a firmly founded social conscience. He photographed for the Works Progress Administration; was a member of the Film and Photo League (later, the Photo League), called the only U.S. organization "worthy of mention as being dedicated to social photography," and the first teacher of photo-technique at the Photo League School (1938); was part of an amazingly unfettered team of photographers working with Roy Stryker for, among other organizations, Standard Oil and the Pittsburgh Photographic Library; was a teacher of art and photography; and, when he could no longer steady a camera, became an abstract painter. Many times his friends have waited alertly for the next words when Sol began, "I have a bright idea." Confidence? The man was loaded with it.
He is said to have had impeccable taste in all manners of design, to have been able to select clothes unerringly for friends and family, and to have made the best rice pudding in town.