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The above photo contains the names of the stewards in the Village of Ridgewood who banded together in the early 1990s to renovate Van Neste Park. To say they helped restore it to its previous glory would be to do them a disservice, because they made lasting contributions to the overall beauty of the park so that generations to come would be able to continue to enjoy its simple pleasures. What's more, they accepted contributions from the community and in turn used the money so that visitors would long remember who were the benefactors of the park.
The Van Neste Park renovation was the sort of civic project which are harder than ever today to organize and carry out with the aplomb these folks did. It didn't surprise me at all when I first saw their completed efforts because the committee contained members who had watched over me during all the years I lived in Ridgewood. People like Marion Barnett, Jack Bennett, and Bill Kuipers were my neighbors and they and their spouses were the sort of folks who took pride in the idea that we all have civic responsibilities as residents of a town like Ridgewood. The Van Neste Park project was easily their best work and I'm glad they weren't too modest to have their names engraved on a commemorative stone placed centrally in the park. The stone is a simple reminder of the social forces which bind us together as a community, and what better place than in the tranquil setting of Van Neste Park.
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