FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE and JUNE EVENT CALENDARS:
Contact Person: Catherine Potter, Administrator
Telephone/Fax: 508-997-6425
nbps2000@yahoo.com

THE NEW BEDFORD PRESERVATION SOCIETY ANNOUNCES DATE OF HOUSE AND GARDEN TOUR

This year marks the 23rd anniversary of the New Bedford Preservation Society's House and Garden Tour. This year‚s event will take place on Sunday, June 11th from 1 to 6 p.m., starting at the Wamsutta Club, 427 County Street, New Bedford, where an elegant pre-tour brunch will be served from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. If you‚d like to attend the brunch and tour ($28 all inclusive), you should make reservations early by calling the Wamsutta Club at 508-997-7431.

Advance tour tickets are $14 with a $3 member/senior discount. All tickets will be $16 on the day of tour at the Wamsutta Club, tour headquarters, where ticket holders will receive a guidebook with the location and description of each property on the tour. Tickets will go on sale May 23rd at the following locations: Roseland Nursery, Periwinkles, Marion General Store, Baker Books, The Ultimate Touch Nail Salon, The Woodhouse Shop, Davoll‚s General Store, New York Shoe Repair, and the Surrey Shoppe. Buy your tickets early and think "sunshine," as tour will be held rain or shine.

This eagerly-awaited event provides a unique opportunity to visit a selection of lovely private homes and hidden city gardens in historic New Bedford. The tour is self-guided at your own pace. Volunteer hosts and hostesses will greet and guide you through each property, and local artists will be on hand exhibiting their work in several of the gardens.

Donations are welcome to the popular Spring Raffle, which is held during tour hours at the Wamsutta Club. Please call the society office 508-997-6425 or visit www.geocities.com/nbps2000 <http://www.geocities.com/nbps2000> if you would like to make a contribution or for more information.

Proceeds benefit the society‚s ongoing projects, such as New Bedford Re-Leaf, the Historic Marker Program, production of the Historic District Walking tour brochures, semi-annual house tours, summer walking tours, and other programming efforts.

For Immediate Release
March 11, 2006
Contact: Dave Prentiss, (508) 991-4556 x12 or dprentiss@bpzoo.org

Buttonwood Park Zoo Breaks Attendance Record
Buttonwood Park Zoo established a new single day attendance record for March as over 2,000 people visited the Zoo on Saturday, March 11. Families enjoyed the warm weather by walking the Zoo grounds and visiting exhibits such at the Asian elephants, bison, mountain lions and Buttonwood Farm. The Zoo Choo-Choo ran throughout the day, giving over 500 visitors a train ride through the Zoo. North Woods Gift Store cashier Veronica Lima stated “it was the busiest I have ever seen this early in the season. I was selling zoo memberships the whole day.”

Zoological Society Executive Director Dave Prentiss stated “once the warm weather breaks we always see an increase in attendance, but never to this extent. In the past, a warm day in March would mean a thousand visitors or so. It’s great to see more and more people learning about the Zoo and bringing their families to enjoy it. We had people from the Cape, Rhode Island and all over Southeastern Massachusetts visit us today.”

Buttonwood Park Zoo was recently called “one of the finest small zoos in the United States” by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA). Buttonwood Park Zoo is accredited by the AZA and is open year-round, 10 am to 5 pm. The Toe Jam Puppet Band performs at the Zoo every Monday. Bear’s Den Café and North Woods Gift Store open daily. Train rides are available, weather permitting. Admission: $5 adults, $2.50 children. Zoo members and children under three are free. A family membership is $45. For more information, call (508) 991-4556 or visit www.bpzoo.org. Directions: Buttonwood Park Zoo is located at 425 Hawthorn St., New Bedford, MA. From Rte. 195, take exit 13A (Rte. 140 S). Take Rte. 140 to the end. Go straight through the light. At the next light, make a left onto Hawthorn St. The zoo entrance will be the first left. Parking is free.

May 25, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE W/ PHOTO
CONTACT: Julie Glaser 508-997-1401

GARDENING IN ETHNIC AMERICA
An Informative Talk & Book Signing
The Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum and Baker Books welcome Patricia Klindienst to speak about her newly released book The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans. The talk and book signing will be held on AHA! Night on Thursday, June 8 at 7:00 PM at the RJD Museum on 396 County Street in New Bedford.

Klindienst is an award-winning writing teacher and master gardener who resides in New England. Her new book explores the important connection between cultural history and gardening. "The Earth Knows My Name speaks directly to . . . the deeper implications of what it means to cultivate a garden and to grow one’s own food," as described by Beacon Press.

To demonstrate this strong connection between one’s heritage and gardening, Klindienst discusses fifteen gardens labored by Native Americans, Hispanics, West African slaves and immigrants. These ethnic gardeners have aimed to preserve and cultivate their threatened heritage while straddling two cultures- mainstream America and their culture of origin. Klindienst provides an overview of the gardeners as they relate to their gardens, and recites their catalogue of vegetables from corn, wheat and potatoes to sweet-sticky-pumpkin flower brought by refugees from Cambodia.

Klindienst’s book was inspired by the discovery of an aged family photograph and her own curiosity of her family’s Italian American heritage as it relates to gardening. She poignantly describes in her book, "The absence of memory among my mother’s generation, and my own failure of recognition, soon propelled me across America to collect the stories of ethnic Americans for whom the making of a garden is a way of keeping memory alive and protecting their cultural heritage from everything that threatens their survival as people."
Dr. Jane Goodall, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute praises The Earth Knows My Name as, "a moving tribute to those who keep the ancient love of the land in their hearts, and who stand up to the giants . . . in their fight to preserve their cultural heritage." Publisher’s Weekly writes, "This book’s broad scope touches on the best of nature writing, singing the rhythm of growth in both plants and people."

Patricia Klindienst will discuss The Earth Knows My Name, followed by a book signing on Thursday, June 8 at 7:00 PM at the Rotch-Jones-Duff House & Garden Museum, and co-sponsored by Baker Books of North Dartmouth, MA. There is no fee to attend, and the book will be available for purchase. The Museum will also be open free to the public that evening from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM for AHA! Night.

Built in 1834, the Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum preserves one of the nation’s finest Greek Revival mansions along with its grounds and gardens. The period rooms of the house chronicle 150 years of the history of New Bedford, as reflected in the lives of the families who lived and worked at the House. The Museum offers ongoing educational cultural programming. The Museum is located at 396 County Street in New Bedford. For more information, please call the Museum at 508-997-1401.
Baker Books, Purveyors of Information and Imagination, maintains over 25,000 titles of varying subjects, from children’s picture books to "how-to" books on computers and cooking. The store has an in-store Bean & Leaf Café that hosts a variety of book signings, author readings and children’s events. Baker Books is located at 69 State Road (Route 6) in South Dartmouth, and can be reached at 508-997-6700.