Placards Way to Help New Park

August 18, 2011

Times Leader

Matt Hughes

The River Common is offering area residents, businesses and organizations the chance to make their mark on Luzerne County’s newest park.

The River Common is launching a new naming opportunities program by selling permanent name placards to be placed on benches along the common and the Susquehanna River levee trail system.

The placards may be purchased in perpetuity for a $2,500 tax-deductible donation, with the option available to spread payment over five years. Proceeds from the program will fund programming at the park, as no public funding is available to support event, organizers said.

“No government dollars are available to support programming; we have to look to private philanthropy in our region,” program coordinator Frank Pasquini said.

“All of this goes to offset some of the costs of the events we put on,” said Jim Brozena, executive director of the Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority. “While all of the events that we put on are free to the public, they aren’t necessarily free to us.”

There are 22 benches with backs in the park and along the levee, and about 20 more without backs, Brozena said. When those have been exhausted, placards will go up for sale on the light fixtures on the common and at the base of trees. For the right price, the opportunity is available to name nearly anything in the park, including the amphitheater, fishing dock and pathways.

“My personal and professional wish would be a gift big enough to name the Northampton Street portal,” Pasquini said.

But organizers also pointed out that the placards will be small and subtle enough to not detract from the aesthetics of the park.

“It’s going to be unobtrusive,” Brozena said. “It’s not like we’re going to have a big sign with a neon arrow.”

“These things that are physical attachments to the park, a lot of people have attachments to them psychically,” said Luzerne Foundation CEO Charles Barber. “It’s building that kind of legacy that people kind of enjoy.”

The Luzerne Foundation is acting as fiduciary for the project, ensuring donations are used for their intended purpose.

River Common Director of Programming and Outreach Karl Borton said the park’s annual operating budget exceeds $100,000, and more than 75 percent of that is spent on programming. The common hosted more than 60 events in its inaugural season and will host more than 70 this summer, ranging in cost from a few hundred dollars for smaller activities to tens of thousands for large festivals like RiverFest, Borton said.

“We want to get to the point where we are replicating events like MusicFest in Bethlehem,” Borton said. “We want to be attracting thousands of people to our area for the weekend. We want this park to be a destination for thousands.”

The program has already sold its first placard. Guard Insurance purchased a bench placard in memory of long-time employee Mary Ann Phillips, who passed away in February following a battle with breast cancer.

“Mary Ann was a great person and gave to everyone,” said Elaine Sola, Guard’s assistant vice president of regulatory compliance and a friend of Phillips. “She did not do a lot for herself; she was always doing things for others, so we wanted to give back to her. We picked the bench closet to Guard; someplace that people could visit and think of Mary Ann and enjoy the River Common.”

Get involved To reserve a bench placard or to request more information about naming opportunities at the River Common, contact Karl Borton at 823-2101 x128 or The Luzerne Foundation at 714-1570.

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