Lake Placid, adirondacks, usa - The business community in Lake Placid invites all to participate in a fundraising event, “Beyond the Blaze: A Benefit for Main Street Fire Victims,” from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11, at the Alpine Mall and Lake Placid Center for the Arts Main Street Gallery. The Alpine Mall and LPCA Main Street Ticket Office will host appetizer, beer, wine and spirit tastings while attendees participate in a silent auction and raffle for the benefit of victims of the Main Street fire that occurred on July 25. The event will be followed by the final Songs at Mirror Lake concert of the season in Mid's Park. Individuals who would like to bid early, donate or purchase raffle tickets may do so online at https://m.biddingforgood.com/auctions/244478965. For more information, contact Cathie Cusick at cathie.cusick@gmail.com. To donate items or for more information related to the silent and online auction, contact Catherine Bemis at HSAC111@yahoo.com. ###

PRESS RELEASE August 4, 2015 Contact: Tracey Legat, tlegat@wildcenter.org WILD WALK LOOKING LIKE A WILD SUCCESS Center says attendance breaking all previous records Regional impact felt Tupper Lake, NY - It was eight years in the planning. Now, one month after it officially opened to the public on July 4th, all the planning seems to be paying off for the Center and surrounding towns. The Center reports that it has broken every single attendance record set over its 9 year history. It has more members than at any time in its existence, admitted more customers in its first 30-days since the Walk opened than it did in any other 30 day period, including its big initial opening in 2006. Local food emporium Well Dressed Food owner David Tomberlin says he is seeing 30 percent more people in his shop wearing their Wild Center admission stickers. “It’s been a great boost.” Local restaurant owner Ted Demarais of Little Italy says his lunch business has doubled from both prior years since the Walk opened. In Lake Placid, Jim McKenna, who heads the Regional Office for Sustainable Tourism (ROOST), said “The Wild Walk addition to the Wild Center has already proven to be an engine that helps the whole region. There’s absolutely no question that this new attraction-within-an-attraction has emerged as a real driver of new visitors to the Adirondacks.” Wild Walk, with more than 1,250 feet of bridges and platforms that rise up into and eventually over a living Adirondack forest, was featured in New York State’s I Love NY television advertising campaign. It continues to get wide coverage from national media with stories in Travel + Leisure, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and ABC News to name a few. The experience includes a giant spiders web visitors can hang out in, a four-storey tree house, and a treetop bald eagle’s nest that offers a 27-mile view on a clear day. “A walk around our parking lot looking at license plates is like a tour of America,” said Stephanie Ratcliffe, Executive Director of the Center. “We’re seeing people from everywhere.” Ratcliffe says a survey of visitors shows that more than half of the people are coming because a friend told them about the Walk. “That means the most to us. We know I Love NY gave us this huge boost, and now we’re seeing another boost from all the people who seem to really enjoy the whole experience, and are telling others to come see for themselves.” The resulting numbers are outsized, and on some days the Center turns into one of the biggest population centers in the area. “In a single 10 day window,” said Ratcliffe, “we’ve had more that 18,000 people visit. To put that in perspective, it’s a good deal more than the entire year round population of Tupper Lake, Lake Placid, Saranac Lake, Old Forge, Inlet, and Lake George combined.” In the month of July, more than 50,000 people visited the Center. Dave St Onge, the facility manager of the Center says they are keeping up with the crowds. “The experience here is almost twice the size we used to be, with people using the trails, coming inside, hanging out on the Walk, taking canoe rides. We have a huge crew of interns this year, and while some of them are clocking up to ten miles a day showing people around, the end result feels less crowded than in years past when everyone would come inside for a movie screening or when rain watered the campus.” The Center has plans to maintain the momentum by boosting leaf peeper visits with a ‘Climb into the Color’ promotional campaign starting this month. “National Geographic Traveler and others have been by with cameras and reporters,” said Tracey Legat, who has guided more than 50 press visits. “We’re looking forward to next summer, when more stories about Wild Walk will be published internationally, and seeing what happens when all the people who came this year spread the word to their friends and families.” Legat said reviews in places like Tripadvisor were already drawing new visits. “We’re getting reviews like this one - ‘Wild Walk is unprecedented’, or this ‘I highly recommend this place as a must visit’ and we’re listening to feedback to make the experience better and better, so we’re really hopeful that Wild Walk will have a lasting impact.” # # #

Attracting & Retaining Youth is Focus of 2nd Annual Adirondack Diversity Symposium NEWCOMB, N.Y. -- Most news stories about economic trends in the Adirondack Park cite surveys showing that the population is getting older and fewer. The Adirondack Diversity Advisory Council believes it can help to reverse this trend by discovering how the park’s businesses, institutions and communities can be more welcoming to a broader range of customers, clients, students and residents. Making the Adirondack Park more attractive to youth of all backgrounds and preferences will be the focus of the Second Annual Towards a More Diverse Adirondacks Symposium, which is sponsored by the Adirondack Diversity Advisory Council (ADAC) on Saturday, August 15, at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Newcomb. More information/register for the symposium: www.esf.edu/nfi/diversity/symposium.htm “This is our second annual workshop designed for any person, business or organization seeking to bring new visitors, residents and investors home to the Adirondacks,” said ADAC Coordinator Peter Nelson. “Participants will learn how to identify and remove the barriers that can drive away business and opportunity, and become more appealing to all.” Organizers hope to share lessons in what motivates some of our young people to remain here to seek employment and start businesses, while others take their talents elsewhere. “I think we are offering the opportunity to do well by doing good,” said Nelson. “You can change someone’s life forever by making them feel at home in the Adirondacks. Think of how the peace, beauty, wildlife and people of Adirondacks have enriched your own life. Imagine what you would be missing if you never came here. Better yet, by offering a warm welcome to someone who never felt welcome before, you will make new connections that benefit your life, your business and your community for years to come.” At the one-day symposium, high school and college students, civil rights leaders, community activists, social scientists and organizations will get together on the SUNY ESF campus in Newcomb to talk about the ways to broaden diversity in race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender-identity among residents and visitors to the largest park in the contiguous United States. Discussion points will include questions such as how millenials view diversity, their needs and aspirations, what their experiences in the Park have been, or why they have not experienced the park, and how the park can be more welcoming to all youth. ADAC affiliate organizations include: the Adirondack Almanack, Adirondack Council, Adirondack Common Ground Alliance, Adirondack Foundation, Adirondack Futures, the The Adirondack North Country Association (ANCA), Adirondack Park Institute, the Adirondack Research Consortium, the Central Adirondack Partnership (CAP-21), Indian Lake Chamber of Commerce, John Brown Lives!, the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST), the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) Northern Forest Institute, Paul Smith’s College, Adirondack Wild, Friends of the Forest Preserve, and The Wild Center. The ADAC was formed as an outcome of the first diversity symposium Towards a More Diverse Adirondacks in Newcomb in August 2014. For more information: Pete Nelson Coordinator Keene, NY 12942 AdirondackDAC@gmail.com

If you see Jess Collier next week, give her a high five. Jess, who is the communications manager for ROOST, has been quite busy planning for and welcoming a group of bloggers for a week-long tour of New York’s North Country. Playing at the Wild Center! The group consists of one representative from the UK, three from Canada and 4 from various locations in the U.S., and all 8 are online influencers with a variety of specialties - primarily travel. Bloggers "tied" their hand at fly fishing in Wilmington. As most travel planning occurs online, and word of mouth is one of the most important ways that potential visitors’ decisions are influenced, ROOST has prioritized the development of relationships with online influencers and travel bloggers for many years now. We continue to host these types of storytellers as well as traditional media representatives for familiarization tours of the region. This tour, however, is a ROOST-led effort to promote the entire North Country Region of New York with the theme “Eat, Play, Love New York", and is being conducted in partnership with Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Hamilton, St. Lawrence and Jefferson Counties in both the Adirondack and 1000 Islands Regions. The tour began August 9 and will conclude in the 1000 Islands region on Saturday, August 15, but we’ll continue to see blogs and social media activity related to the tour for weeks to come. Bloggers trying out a flight of Paradox Brewery beer and pretzels in Schroon Lake. The group will experience the food, drink, historic, natural and recreational assets of the region with stops in Plattsburgh, Peru, Schroon Lake, Ticonderoga, Lake Placid, Wilmington, Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake, Long Lake, Blue Mountain Lake, Canton, Potsdam and Alexandria Bay, Watertown and other stops in the 1000 Islands. Check it out! A website was developed to aggregate all social media activity utilizing the campaign hashtag #EatPlayLoveNY, and will display at the URL elpny.com for the duration of the campaign. You’ll see that they’ve enjoyed fly fishing, hiking, museums, wine tours, breweries, great hotels and more on their way to LOVING this part of New York! And Jess organized the logistics for all of it; so a high five is merited, I think! -Kim Rielly is the director of communications for ROOST - and glad she hired Jess. This project is supported by a grant awarded to the Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority, administered by the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism in coordination with Thousand Islands International Tourism Council, the Adirondack Coast Visitors Bureau and the St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce, Inc., by New York State's Empire State Development and the I ♥ NY Division of Tourism under Governor Andrew Cuomo's Regional Economic Development Council Initiative.

Assemblywoman’s occupancy tax legislation becomes law Assemblywoman Janet Duprey is pleased to announce that her legislation (A.6313) to strengthen Franklin County’s economic development was signed into law by Gov. Cuomo today. The legislation imposes a 5-percent motel and hotel tax for Franklin County that will generate essential revenue to help support and promote tourism within the county. “I’m thrilled that Franklin County will finally be given critical resources to compete with the rest of New York State,” said Duprey. “The occupancy tax will not only bolster economic development and tourism throughout the entire county, it will also help generate much-needed revenue and enhance marketing services through the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST). I’m happy to support legislation that will give Franklin County the resources it needs and deserves to thrive economically and to provide tourists with a chance to see all that this beautiful county has to offer.” The legislation has garnered support from the North Country business community and several municipalities, including Garry Douglas, President of the North County Chamber of Commerce and Co-Chair of the North Country Regional Economic Development Council, and Franklin County Legislature. “This is a major advance for the entire future economy of Franklin County,” said Douglas. “Following the model of Clinton and Essex Counties, the proceeds will be dedicated to tourism marketing and development, thereby sustaining and creating jobs, attracting new investment and benefiting every county resident through the generation of additional county sales taxes. Without this tool, Franklin County was being left at a competitive disadvantage, which is why the North Country Chamber and the REDC both identified passage of this legislation as a top priority this year. Our thanks to Governor Cuomo, Assemblywoman Duprey and Senator Little for getting it enacted, and to Franklin County, its Tourism Advisory Committee and our partner chambers in Malone, Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake for all of their work toward this positive conclusion.” ###