Anna Tzizik - 7th Grade Winner

Trumansburg is a wonderful place to live. I recently moved here and the experience has been wonderful. Trumansburg is a pleasant little town just outside of Ithaca. It's small yet that is one of the aspects that makes living here enjoyable. I much prefer this to the hustle and bustle of city life I just came from. We have neighborhoods just the right size and a few farms tucked away. We don't have many shops or restaurants but we have enough. A new library was just built and I beg my dad to take me there sometiems. We have good schools especially Cornell is so close by. There is a demand for the best teachers so we all get a top-notch education.

There is a very rare sense of community here. Everyone knows each other and I have never seen parents so involved with their kid's life. Everyone knows everyone else and it's fun to live somewhere like that. It's cool, for example, to have the postman as your neighbor.

Everyone here also speaks his or her mind. I have seen protesters on the way to school every Friday since people got wind that there might be a war in Iraq. I think that's good that people are doing something about what they think. We have a right to be heard!

But Trumansburg isn't the perfect town. Some of the buildings are a little dumpy. In the future I think we should do something about restoring those buildings and making the area a better atmosphere. Like just touching up the paint on some signs or replacing the some bricks on a few of the buildings. Just a little stuff like that.

Overall Trumansburg has been a positive experience. My sister, Mara, is taking dance at The Trumansburg Conservetory of Fine Arts, My brother, Ben, ran for student council in the Elementary school, and I've gotten involved in activities such as debate club, yearbook, and newspaper. Over the summer my family would go to Not My Dads Ice Cream and we had fun at the fair. The Grassroots Festival looked pretty cool too although we didn't go. I just wish my family found Trumansburg sooner!