By Dawn Evans Greenberg
Now that my role as a full-time store owner and retailer has come to a close, I’m working on my biggest undertaking ever: to make the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival a permanent part of the town’s landscape and a landmark annual event in the region. We were thrilled and pleasantly surprised at how well the festival did in its inaugural year, so we want to keep up the momentum and again, make this a very special and important day for our community and children. We will continue to work hard to attract new authors, add new and exciting activities, draw area residents to our town and make it something we can be proud of year-round.
I keep a quote from John Wesley in mind all the time: “Do all the good you can by all the means you can, all the ways you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can as long as ever you can.” In the spirit of these thoughtful words, I recently started working with the Ossining Children’s Center. My goal is to help the students, parents, teachers and administrators with emergency needs, as they arise. To me, nothing they could possibly need should be impossible to find. It’s very gratifying to me to make someone else’s life a little easier with even a small gesture.
I was raised in a small town in Florida by very involved, community-minded parents. If someone was hurting, we, as a community, helped–with a meal, a bag of groceries, watering their garden and lending a hand any way we could. It wasn’t ever a conscious decision to help; it was just how we lived our lives. I remember stories about my maternal grandparents, who owned a small restaurant in the mountains of Georgia, where they offered meals, hot showers, and a place to sleep for the “boys” returning from World War II. I have always believed if you are fortunate to have something that others would benefit from–time, talent, money, things–it’s your job, and should be a privilege, to share. I feel that we live in an extraordinarily blessed town in terms of resources and generosity of spirit. My goal is to keep tapping into that, and also set aside some time to have a little fun with my amazing husband and boys.
Dawn Evans Greenberg has lived in New Castle for 15 years, eight of which have been in Chappaqua. She earned a degree in journalism from the University of Florida then worked for 15 years in international publishing rights for United Features Syndicate and DC Comics. Her boys are in second grade at Roaring Brook and fifth grade at Bell.
