Trails, Literature, and Service for New York’s Outdoor Spaces
Have you ever been curious about trails on Long Island? Interested in the ties between literature and the outdoors? Need a Board Secretary? (Joking, he has enough jobs…)
Let us introduce you to Tom Casey.
Tom is a retired English teacher turned full-time Long Island trails advocate. From the big to the small, Tom is on it.
Tom’s love of the outdoors grew out of his love for the written word. “I grew up a city kid—all I knew about wildlife was pigeons and sparrows,” Tom says. It wasn’t until he took a course on the outdoors and literature at Montana State University in the 70s that he truly caught the hiking bug. “We took day trips, night trips, week-long backpacking trip in the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness.” Back in Long Island, though, Tom needed spaces to hike. He got involved in trails work on Long Island and, after meeting Nancy Manfredonia (who started the L.I. Greenbelt Trail Conference in 1978), he was hooked on supporting L.I. trails.
Nowadays Tom is indefatigable in his work for Long Island trails. He sits on the Boards of the L.I. Greenbelt Trail Conference, L.I. Pine Barrens Society, Friends of Connetquot, and L.I. Environmental Voters Forum, to name only a few. For many of those Boards, Tom performs multiple functions, but for many he holds the role of Secretary. As Tom notes… “Notice a pattern? No one else ever wants to be Secretary.“Until last year he was also on the Board of the NYS State Trails Council as, you guessed it, Secretary.
Tom has been working on another passion project for the past several years: a guide to and history of Long Island’s Greenbelt Trails. “I figured somebody’s gotta record this.It’s such an amazing thing in a built up area like this—to have an organization that has so many miles of trails—that has also spawned the creation of so many other groups.” The book will be a detailed guide on how to access the trails, provide section-by-section navigation, cover history of Long Island and the L.I. Greenbelt Trail Conference, and even provide information on the geology of the island and why that makes Long Island trails so interesting. The book will be co-authored with John Turner, one of the co-founders of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, and is expected to be finished in the winter of 2023.
But, other than co-authors and storied Long Island founders and luminaries, Tom has a critical partner in this work… Parks & Trails New York. Tom first became a member of PTNY in 2008 when he was introduced to our work while serving on the NYS Trails Council. “I thought: this is a good thing to join. PTNY does such great work around the state.” And in his years of service for Long Island’s green spaces, he’s become even more convinced.
“I see each year the good you’re doing around the state with Park & Trail Partnership grants, helping not-for-profits. Two of the Boards I’m on received PTNY grants this year. Grants such as these not only make worthy projects feasible, but energize a group. It’s a huge boost in morale to know that our efforts are recognized.
Your partnerships with state agencies have created a sharper focus on the need for more open space, better management of that space, and more public awareness of New York’s great park systems. For example, we’ve never seen a state budget as good as this for green space. To have an organization like PTNY pushing it, I think that helped a lot.”
As the winner of our first-round raffle for renewing members, Tom is getting a little back as a “thank you” for all his years of service and generosity: a three-year NYS Parks Pass. The Parks Pass (also called the “Empire Pass”) provides holders unlimited day-use vehicle entry to most facilities operated by New York State Parks and the State Dept. of Environmental Conservation, including forests, beaches, trails and more. Tom and his wife are planning some amazing upstate adventures over the next three years, with their pass in hand.
If you’re a PTNY member and it’s time to renew, keep an eye on your mailbox! Renew your membership at $50 or higher by November 30th and you’ll be entered in the second raffle of the year. It’s just a small way to say “thank you” to our members, who help us accomplish so much.
Article & Interview by Linden Horvath, Director of Development