The Town of Mattapoisett has many picturesque walking trails, and the Mattapoisett Land Trust manager came up with an incentive for families to walk the trails – ice cream.
Colleen Andrews, working with students at Old Colony Regional Vocational-Technical High School, for a year has planned out a program in which families walk the town’s trails, collect stainless-steel stamps and win a $10 gift card to a local creamery after completion.
Andrews said there are approximately 11 hiking trails, all of which are either a quarter mile or a half mile. Andrews initially conceived the idea in spring 2022 before the program launched this year. Booklets on the program are available at the children section of the town library, and the stamps can be found on landmarks such as bridges or rock monuments within these trails.
“I’ve seen this thing done before at different conservation and land trusts,” Andrew said. “We worked through some of the designs and kinks. It took a while to get it out there. … People are definitely intrigued by it.”
Andrews said the MLT has always worked well with Old Colony’s vocational school in Rochester.
She contacted Old Colony Voc-Tech Coordinator Bethany Botelho, who then connected the MLT with Michael Ferreira, instructor in the Machine & Tool Technology program, and Kathy Peterson, instructor in the Graphic Communications & Design program.
Instructors from these programs and their respective students embraced the idea.
Machine & Tool Technology students helped to design, create prototypes, and then complete the final versions of the stamps cut with the MLT logo and individual numbers.
The Graphic Communications & Design students printed and binded 100 booklets.
“We really wanted to make it a community-based program,” Andrews said during a recent interview.
“Tri-Town students from Mattapoisett and Rochester attend Old Colony Regional Vocational High School, which is part of what makes this partnership so sweet,” Andrews said in a written release.
“Students getting involved in creating something meaningful for their own communities, maybe even for their own families, is something special.”
Andrews added that the student who took the lead in creating the stamp is a Mattapoisett resident.
Passport users can take a pencil or crayon, “lay their booklet on top of the stamp, and create a rubbing of each stamp they find on their adventures,” according to Andrews, who noted that, while an ice cream reward comes at the end, the main focus is to get families on the trails and enjoy nature. She said while the stamps are in visible locations, the hikers must walk the trails and put in the effort before finding them.
“The point is to get them out on the trails and explore,” she said.
By Jeffrey D. Wagner