Fort Trumbull stage funded by donations opens with Coast Guard Band concert
New London — A fundraising effort at Fort Trumbull State Park paid off Sunday afternoon, as the oom-pah of a military song announced the official opening of a concrete performance and event platform that park officials said will draw more people to the park and generate revenue.
The Friends of Fort Trumbull, the New London state park’s fundraising group, donated $10,000 and raised another $12,000 to pay for a concrete platform at the southern tip of the park.
The platform, completed in April, had its debut event Sunday with a Memorial Day concert by the U.S. Coast Guard Band.
Henry Alves, who became the superintendent of Fort Trumbull State Park in 2015, said Sunday that the platform is another way to bring people into the park who wouldn’t otherwise visit, and a way to make hosting events and concerts there easier.
The U.S. Coast Guard Band has performed Fort Tumbull on the western side of the park in the past, and last year moved to the bigger, grassy space on the other side of the park.
“They (were) just kind of in the field, and it didn’t really look that professional,” he said.
He raised the idea to the Friends of Fort Trumbull last spring, and the group responded by donating funds and raising money from local donors.
On Sunday, the Coast Guard band sat behind Alves, members of the Friends group and Mike Lambert, the head of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection's Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, as the men cut a red ribbon and officially handed the stage over to Alves.
Lambert said the Friends' effort showed the importance of fundraising in a time of uncertain state budget support for state parks.
Earlier this month, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy released a two-year budget proposal that would cut support from the state's general fund to DEEP to about $52 million annually, $11.4 million less than the current year. That amount is more than triple the cut proposed in the original budget plan released by Malloy in February.
And under a separate budget proposal, funds from rentals of park facilities for weddings, picnics and other events would be absorbed into the state's general fund for this year, including the funds generated at Fort Trumbull.
"We rely more and more on fundraising groups and volunteers to maintain our parks," Lambert said Sunday before the ribbon cutting.
Park officials will be able to rent the stage out for musical events, weddings or parties, Alves said, and have already booked two wedding parties there this summer.
Platform donors included The Day's Bodenwein Public Benevolent Foundation and Day publisher Gary Farrugia, as well as Linda Mariani, the president of the Rennaisance City Development Association; John Johnson, the treasurer of the National Coast Guard Museum Foundation; Janet Steinmayer, the president of Mitchell College; the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund; Dime Bank; the Chelsea Groton Foundation; Alva Greenberg and the Waterford Group Charitable Foundation.
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