We’re the Friends of Rye Town Park, a small 501(c)3 not-for-profit volunteer group. Our
mission is to beautify and improve Rye Town Park. We focus on sustainable gardening and land management, park programming and amenities.

In 2024, we invested over $105,000 in Rye Town Park, up from $62,000 in 2023. In addition to our work on the greenspaces and gardens (which we fund annually at a cost of about $25,000), we expanded our reach to include a reimagining of the Tower Building plaza and the crumbling and dilapidated entrance to the building itself. 

 

Highlights include:
● Hiring skilled artisans to restore the building's six main doors, three leaded glass transom windows, second-story balcony doors and pergola, all of which were in a state of
thorough disrepair
● Restoring and painting the entranceway stairs and the balcony columns and railings;
● Enlarging and expanding the gardens in front of the Tower Building, investing in Belgian block, new plants, trees and shrubs

● Adding cheerful new red Adirondack chairs in which to sit and enjoy the gorgeous Long Island Sound views
● Repairing the crumbling fountain in front of the Tower Building and converting it into a
large planter filled with native grasses

We have been delighted to see so many members of the public enjoying a previously unsightly and ignored area of the park this summer and fall!

Additionally, we reclaimed an area that was filled with broken asphalt from the parking lot and transformed it into a grassy picnic area lined with native grasses and shrubs. We will add picnic tables in the future.

In our Dearborn meadow, now in its second year, we removed invasive plant species and replaced them with native and pollinator-friendly plants, trees, shrubs and flowers. We were rewarded not only with the meadow’s extraordinary beauty, but also with the bounty of birds, bees and monarch butterflies that call it home!
 

The park’s needs are great, and its funding is inadequate. If you like what we’re doing,
please donate here, and follow us on Instagram @friendsofryetownpark
for other ways to get involved. We’ll see you at the park!

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With sincere thanks,

Diana Page
President