Norfolk nonprofit launches fresh start with new name

Lisa Atkin, co-president, and Libby Borden, president of The Norfolk Hub.
Jennifer Almquist
Lisa Atkin, co-president, and Libby Borden, president of The Norfolk Hub.
NORFOLK — Thanks to the vision and energy of a few committed residents originally calling themselves The Norfolk Foundation, the town has renewed vitality.
To more accurately reflect the mission of this nonprofit group to enhance the resources of the community, support local business, and create cultural programs in the arts and literature, the name of the organization has been distilled to The Norfolk Hub — a fresh start, with a new logo design, for a group that has already been improving life in Norfolk, reviving the town center, and focusing on the future by serving the technological demands of life in the 21st century.
“Over the last seven years the Hub has become a centerpiece and a place that everyone in town feels positively about. It seemed like the right time to simplify our identity,” said Lisa Atkin, co-president of the Norfolk Hub.
“We are a hub — a center of activity and connectivity for the town,” said Libby Borden, The Norfolk Hub founder and co-president. “We aim to serve everyone in the community by partnering with other nonprofit groups to help them advance their missions, and we contribute to the vibrancy and vitality of the community through programs in the arts and nature — programs that reflect who we are, how we’ve evolved over time, and that will continue to shape Norfolk’s future.”
It is rare to have such a nexus of activity in a small New England town. Back in 2015, Libby Borden got together with friends Pete Anderson and Steve Melville and planted the first seeds of the now essential 501(c)(3) private operating foundation. Borden envisioned a general store to spark the commercial center of town. The Norfolk Foundation encouraged Ryan Craig to move his Cornwall-based sandwich shop, and 6 Station Place, now known as the Berkshire Country Store, was born.
Two Station Place, the brick-and-mortar space across from The Royal Arcanum Building, known as The Hub, provides community gathering and workspaces for individuals, and member and nonmember organizations.
New additions to the Norfolk Hub staff include Christal Preszler, former deputy director of economic and community development for Newtown, Connecticut. She has joined the Hub as special projects and grants manager, and Dianna Hofer, former owner of The Healing Nest and certified art teacher, came on board to support operations and event planning.
“The Norfolk Hub is unique in our community,” explained Atkin. “Because we are fortunate to have the resources to support other local nonprofits, we function as a utility player, helping by providing support staff, office space and other resources, as needed. In other words, we can serve as an extension of their organizations.”
Norfolk Hub’s new logo.
Founder Steve Melville wanted a greater emphasis on the arts, and the Haystack Book Festival was established. Norfolk Hub board member Michael Selleck organized another successful Haystack Book Festival in September as well as readings earlier in the summer.
As reported in Norfolk Now, the event has grown, “From a small conversation six years ago with a biographer of the poet John Ashbery, into a multiday exploration that remains true to its roots in literature but now ranges into criticism, religion, history, foreign affairs, journalism, domestic politics and usually quite a bit more.”
The Norfolk Hub also sponsored the Yale Summer School public art lecture series Freedom to Form. “We sponsored several lectures at the Yale Art School with an eye towards establishing a rapport with the Stoeckel Estate and the Yale campus, recalled Atkin.” Plans to collaborate with the Yale program in the future are being considered.
In addition to owning the Hub and 6 Station Place (the Berkshire Country Store), with the support of the William and Mary Greve Foundation, the organization acquired The Royal Arcanum building with the purpose of ensuring that the historic structure is preserved and occupied. The Arcanum rents out office space, is the home of the Norfolk Pub, and is currently renovating five apartments on the second floor for affordable housing, thanks to a $500,000 Connecticut state grant received earlier this year. The apartments will be subleased to the Foundation for Norfolk Living, a provider of affordable housing in Norfolk. A vacant space in The Arcanum Building is now dedicated to attracting entrepreneurs with ideas for pop-up stores such as the artisans, bakers, woodworkers scheduled over the coming months.
In June, the CT-Asia Cultural Center, The Norfolk Library and the Hub celebrated the traditional Chinese holiday Dragon Boat Festival with crafts, a sample dragon boat, food and a parade.
In November, Norfolk’s Billy Gridley, president of Aton Forest Inc., moderated a panel discussion on “Forever Wild: Rewilding New England: A Vital Solution to Climate Change, Biodiversity Loss, and Threats to Human Health.”
In partnership with Mission Impact, the Norfolk Church of Christ UCC youth group and the Rev. Erick Olsen and Norfolk Hub board member Vishal Grover organized the first annual Haystack Pet Parade, which was a big hit.
Atkin concluded: “I’ve felt engaged, inspired and dedicated to the Foundation since joining because there is an essential spirit of getting things done. Being on the board has provided me the opportunity to meet many members of the community it might have taken me decades to meet. In a town like Norfolk, in today’s political and cultural reality, it’s easy to point to the things that are not working, but my feeling about our work has always been that we aren’t afraid to take on a project if that project had the possibility to improve the lives of this community. While there is a lot more to be done, I feel like the Norfolk Hub has stimulated some momentum towards an evolution of this wonderful small town.”
Learn more at norfolkfoundation.net
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Rosa setigera is a native climbing rose whose simple flowers allow bees to easily collect pollen.
After moving to West Cornwall in 2012, we were given a thoughtful housewarming gift: the 1997 edition of “Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs.” We were told the encyclopedic volume was the definitive gardener’s reference guide — a fact I already knew, having purchased one several months earlier at the recommendation of a gardener I admire.
At the time, we were in the thick of winter invasive removal, and I enjoyed reading and dreaming about the trees and shrubs I could plant to fill in the bare spots where the bittersweet, barberry, multiflora rose and other invasive plants had been.Years later, I purchased the 2011 edition, updated and inclusive of plants for warm climates.
On the cover of the new edition, a quote from Adrian Higgins of The Washington Post boasts, “Michael Dirr is the oracle of ornamental horticulture. I trust his judgements implicitly.”I heartily disagree with Mr. Higgins:I blame this book — and my poor use of it — for some of my worst tree and shrub choices.
I realize some readers might find this declaration inflammatory. The book still occupies a place of high regard among experienced and novice gardeners alike, so please allow me to explain.
In addition to giving the reader his opinion on the aesthetic worthiness of the woody plants included in the book, Mr. Dirr makes good on the book’s title with a review of each species’ hardiness. What makes a tree hardy?It thrives in its intended site, resisting disease with leaves and bark not readily eaten by insects and other critters.
Non-native plants make up the majority of the recommended hardy plants in the book.And here is why:Native trees and shrubs are, by evolution’s design, food source and host to our native fauna — critters large and small. There is no substitute equal to the fauna’s co-evolved flora.A native caterpillar cannot eat a kousa dogwood leaf, as it has not evolved to digest it.Non-native plants seemingly have the advantage if the lens we look through values pristine, uneaten leaves.
In the days when there were sufficient thriving ecosystems to maintain local habitats, a non-native specimen tree here and there was just fine.But where we live in Northwest Connecticut, our woods, meadows, marshes and other natural areas have, for a couple of decades, been severely compromised by invasives that have almost entirely removed the food sources for native insects. It is up to us — now — to plant native plants to save the food chain.Without insects, not only will native animals die, but human food sources will also be at risk.
The security of our food pipeline seems a worthy exchange for some caterpillar-eaten leaves — and to be clear, we’re not talking about non-native infestations such as spongy moth, but rather native caterpillars, which are the singular food source for nesting birds.
My issue is that, in being a trusted source for plant selection, Dirr’s book should give equal — if not prioritized — space to information on ecological impact.For example, it would be good to know when selecting a tree, that a native oak provides food and other ecosystem services to more than 400 native animal species, while a native tulip poplar supports fewer than 30 — though that includes the Eastern tiger swallowtail. Including information on the birds and insects attracted to a given plant would enable reader to weigh these factors in choosing what to grow.But this information is not mentioned at all.
Dirr makes no mention of the role some of these plants have played in the degradation of our natural areas — an omission that is highly relevant, as many of the plants featured in his book are, in fact, invasive culprits. Plants like barberry, porcelain berry and tree of heaven are showcased for consideration alongside native plants without recognition of the devastating infestations they can manifest. Tree of Heaven is now responsible for hosting the spotted lanternfly, which is devastating crops.
Similarly Euonymous alatus (winged euonymous) and Actinidia arguta (hardy kiwi) — two highly invasive plants touted in the book — have been banned or are close to being banned for sale from nurseries in the state of Massachusetts. To his credit, Dirr does point out the invasive nature of Ligustrum sinense (Chinese privet), calling it “a terrible and devastating escapee that terrorizes floodplains, fencerows and even open fields, reducing native vegetation to rubble.” Yet Japanese honeysuckle gets an understated warning, with Dirr describing this massively invasive shrub as “bullying their way into understory and open areas.”
The latest edition of Dirr’s book devotes seven pages of copy and photos to various Berberis species, about which Dirr waxes poetic. He notes the addition of “30 new cultivars” in the latest revision and complains that “this species is under assault for its aggressive invasive nature.” He refers to Berberis thunbergii — Japanese barberry, the most invasive of them all — as “the species of major importance in garden commerce.” This plant has already been outlawed for sale in New York, Pennsylvania, New Hamphsire and Maine.A few weeks ago, a bill was passed in Connecticut recognizing the harm of a broad group of invasive plants. Under this new legislation, barberry will be phased out from sale or transport by October 2028.
In understating the invasive nature of many non-natives and de-prioritizing the importance of native species, Dirr’s widely used reference may be partly responsible for many a devastated woodland, forest, meadow and marsh in New England — if not across the U.S.Certainly, the evolution of species, and scientific knowledge about the environment, is changing faster than new editions of books can be printed. I can only hope that if a new edition of Mr. Dirr’s reference book is in the works that it will account for this criteria we now know to be vital in plant selection.
Which brings me back to that quote on the cover from The Washington Post and the larger issue it suggests:Should “ornamental horticulture” get a pass when it comes to ecological survival?I think we can agree — it should not.The consequences are simply too destructive.
Dee Salomon ‘ungardens’ in Litchfield County.
Foxtrot Farm & Flowers’ historic barn space during UAW’s 2024 exhibition entitled “Unruly Edges.”
Art lovers, mark your calendars. The sixth edition of Upstate Art Weekend (UAW) returns July 17 to 21, with an exciting lineup of exhibitions and events celebrating the cultural vibrancy of the region. Spanning eight counties and over 130 venues, UAW invites residents and visitors alike to explore the Hudson Valley’s thriving creative communities.
Here’s a preview of four must-see exhibitions in the area:
1. Wassaic Project (37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic)
“So It Goes” is a powerful group exhibition curated by Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino, Jeff Barnett-Winsby, and Will Hutnick. The title, drawn from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” signals a reckoning with how we process the horrors of the world. Through play, reflection, and immersive scale, 43 artists respond with urgency and imagination. Installations can be seen throughout the town of Wassaic at Maxon Mills, Gridley Chapel, and Luther Barn, each space transformed by this deeply thoughtful show.
2. Foxtrot Farm & Flowers (6862 Route 82, Stanfordville)
“Queer Bestiary,” a group show curated by Charlotte Woolf, is inspired by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian’s book “Forest Euphoria.” The exhibition investigates queer ecology and human relationship to land through the work of 10 artists using painting, sculpture, textiles, and photography. The exhibit is accompanied by a variety of interactive experiences including tattoo pop-ups, karaoke, book readings, and pick-your-own flowers.
3. ChaShaMa North/ChaNorth (2600 Route 199, Pine Plains)
ChaShaMa North (ChaNorth) will have open studios all weekend and has partnered with Paradice Palase, a platform for emerging artists, to mount a site-specific sculpture exhibition featuring 20 artists entitled “Alone, You Are Heard.” On Saturday evening, July 19, stop by for Weird Music Night for an audio-visual synthesis of experimental music, performance art, and unexpected happenings. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience an eclectic lineup of acts that redefine the boundaries of performance.
4. Millbrook Arts Project(3 Friendly Lane, Millbrook)
The Millbrook Arts Project is hosting a curated exhibit entitled “Generated Utility” at the newly renovated gallery at the village library. The exhibit will feature the work of artists Natalie Beall and Kathy Greenwood. Additionally, visitors will have access to 12 open artists studios across town. The weekend culminates in a free outdoor concert on Saturday evening at 6 p.m. at the Millbrook Bandshell. Enjoy the Indie-Folk sounds of Strawberry Runners and She Keeps Bees.
For more information and a complete list of participating artists and locations, visit: upstateartweekend.org