A COMMUNITY COMES TOGETHER A few weeks ago, Icy Frantz launched “The Icing on the Cake” at icyfrantz.net. Although the name may lead you to believe you’re about to learn how to bake a delicious butter-cream creation (which is certainly possible— Icy happens to know her way around the kitchen…), “The Icing on the Cake” is much more. After writing for the Greenwich Sentinel, Icy discovered a unique connection with her readers—in her willingness to be honest and tell her story, others opened up and shared their stories with her, too. Allison “Icy” Scott Frantz grew up in Fairfield County, after which she graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She received her Alcohol and Drug counseling certificate from Marymount Manhattan College and worked in the field of drug and alcohol prevention and education at the Freedom Institute in Manhattan and at Greenwich Academy in Greenwich, Connecticut. She served as the Assistant Director of the International Institute for Alcohol Education and Training, working with professionals in Russia and Poland. Icy is the author of Sargeant’s Heaven, a children’s book that she wrote after the death of her fourth child, to help children process the loss of a loved one. While raising her four children, she has sat on the Boards of Greenwich Country Day School, The Taft School, Arch Street Teen Center, and the Parents Board of Bucknell University, and has volunteered for Liberation Programs, LifeBridge, OSSO, and Inspirica. Icy currently writes a column for the Greenwich Sentinel and is co founder of CT WOMEN UNITED, an organization created to inspire and educate women about local and state politics. She lives in Riverside, Connecticut with her husband, her two dogs, two cats, a fish, and her four children.
THIS TIME OF YEAR, Greenwich rises from a winter of deep hibernation and takes to its streets, to celebrate together the coming of spring. This year could not be more different. Parking places—usually so hard to find—are empty, popular restaurants and retail stores on the Avenue have turned off their lights, 100 QUEST
beaches are closed until further notice, and schools—lacking their usual buzz—have converted to remote learning. But while the landscape is bleak, the community, my community, has opened its heart and found ways to come together like never before at a time when we are physically apart.
COURTESY OF ICY FRANTZ. OPPOSITE PAGE: COURTESY OF ICY FRANTZ; CHRISTOPHER SEMMES PHOTOGRAPHY
BY ICY FRANTZ