A 44-year-old man working on a dock in Montauk died Thursday after he was run over by a piece of construction equipment he was helping to direct. A relative, whom he lived with in Hampton Bays, was behind the wheel of the forklift moving material. 

Hector O. Duarte-Roque died of his injuries at Southampton Hospital in the hours that followed the accident in the roadway in front of the Montauk Lake Club and Marina on East Lake Drive. Montauk Fire Department emergency medical service personnel treated him at the scene, and a Suffolk medevac helicopter tried to take him to Stony Brook University Hospital, a trauma center, but it had to land in Southampton when Mr. Duarte-Roque’s condition deteriorated in the air. 

East Hampton Town police are investigating how the machinery, a Traverse telehandler with an extended forklift, ended up striking Mr. Duarte-Roque. “We don’t know nor does the operator of the machine. We may never know how he got down there,” Capt. Chris Anderson said on Tuesday.  He was “actively assisting the forklift operator in guiding/moving the dock material at the time the accident occurred,” police said.

The operator was identified as Jonnatan Guerrero, who is 24. “At some point, the operator realized that he has struck something or something is amiss. He stops and exits,” the captain said. Mr. Guerrero found the victim crawling out from underneath the equipment. He immediately called for help. Town police received a call at 10:54 a.m.

The construction equipment, often referred to as a Lull, for a brand that makes that type of machinery, has a boom on it that in a certain position blocks the line of sight on one side from the cab, Captain Anderson said. 

No criminal charges are expected. “At this point in the investigation, it appears purely accidental,” the captain said. Police are conducting an accident reconstruction, and an autopsy on Mr. Duarte-Roque was performed by the Suffolk County medical examiner’s office.

Meanwhile, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is conducting its own inspection to determine if there were any violations of workplace safety standards, according to Ted Fitzgerald, the regional director for public affairs with the United States Department of Labor. OSHA investigators responded to the scene of the accident that day. In addition, they conduct interviews and review records. “If the inspection identifies violations then OSHA could issue citations to and propose fines for the employer involved,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. OSHA has six months to complete its investigation. 

The operator and the victim were working for Montauk Beach Dock and Pile Inc., which was contracted to build a dock at the Lake Club, police said. “I don’t even understand how everything happened,” said the company owner, Charles Eric Engstrom, who was reached by phone on Tuesday. Before hanging up, he called the accident tragic and said he was grieving for Mr. Duarte-Roque. “We worked together for another employer for a bit,” he said. 

The Lake Club and Double K Management Co., which manages the club, did not return calls or an email for comment.

The next day just before 11:30 a.m., a construction worker in Bridgehampton was seriously injured when he was run over by a Bobcat earthmover at the construction site at 2510 Montauk Highway, at the corner of Lumber Lane.

The Bridgehampton Fire Department treated Christopher Tripodi, 52, of Bellport for leg injuries and a Suffolk medevac airlifted him to Stony Brook University Hospital. He was in fair condition there on Tuesday afternoon.

The accident took place where a two-story commercial building is being constructed. A CVS pharmacy had been planned for the site, but the company pulled out of the project after community members raised objections. The construction project has continued, however. 

OSHA was also notified of Friday’s incident and has opened inspections of Nesconset Construction Co. Inc., which employed the injured worker, and Racanelli Construction Co., the general contractor, Mr. Fitzgerald said.

Correction: Hector O. Duarte-Roque died Thursday, Feb. 18, not Friday, Feb. 19, as previously reported in an earlier version of this story.

The Bridgehampton Killer Bees waltzed to a 67-50 win over Eldred in the state's Class D Southeast regional boys basketball final played Tuesday at Suffolk Community College-Selden.

Eldred, the Rockland County champion, had one good shooter in David Powers, who could hit off the dribble, but was otherwise unimpressive.

As for the Bees, their active defense produced a lot of turnovers in this ho-hummer, but not as many transition baskets as their coach, Carl Johnson, would have liked. Bridgehampton wasn't great from 3-point range either, though the good news was that its 10 treys (out of 37 attempts) were distributed among four players — Elijah Jackson, Matt Hostetter, Tylik Furman, and Nykell Dean.

The defending state champs extended their lead to 25-11 on an 8-0 spurt with which they began the second quarter, a skein during which Jackson knocked down two 3s and Furman, the point guard, drove authoritatively to the hoop.

It was pretty much over after that. The Bees were up by 15 at the half. Eldred cut the lead to 9 twice early in the third, but then two 3s by Hostetter kicked the margin back up to 15, and soon after he was awarded three free throws for having been fouled as he released another 3-point attempt. He made all three of them, for 47-30, which was ultimately the margin of victory.

Besides the defensive intensity and Josh Lamison's domination of the boards — especially the offensive boards — Johnson liked it that the scoring was balanced. Lamison finished with 19 points, Furman with 15, and Jackson and Hostetter with 12 each.

Answering a question from sportswriters afterward, the coach said his charges were confident they could repeat even in the absence of Charles Manning Jr., who led the Bees to last year's state title (the school's ninth) before transferring in the fall to Long Island Lutheran, the Island's top team.

Bridgehampton is to play the Westchester Class D champ, Clark Academy, in the East regional final on Friday at Pace University's Westchester campus in Pleasantville, N.Y., at 4:45 p.m.

The state Final Four tournament is to be contested over the March 11 to 12 weekend at the Glens Falls Civic Center.

There is a line in the song “Seasons of Love,” from the rock opera “Rent,” that recounts the number of minutes in a year. It describes “525,600 moments so dear,” to be measured, ideally, in everyday things like sunsets, cups of coffee, and laughter.

The cast of East Hampton High School’s production of “Rent” will spend some of those moments in the spotlight this weekend, with a lineup of four shows between tomorrow night and Sunday afternoon. The cast has been rehearsing since mid-November and along the way its performers have taken to heart one of the show’s central themes, that of living life to the fullest.

“There are going to be bumps in the road and there are going to be ups and downs, but life goes on,” Frankie Bademci, a freshman who plays the role of Angel, said this week. “You live every moment like it’s going to be your last. That’s what I’ve learned in this show.”

“Rent” premiered on Broadway in April of 1996, winning a Tony Award for best musical that year, and ran for what was at one point a record-setting 5,123 shows until it closed in September 2008. Several national and international productions and a film adaptation followed. It tells the story of a community of friends surviving in the 1990s in New York City’s Alphabet City while coping with issues such as drug addiction, poverty, and illness. Its writer, Jonathan Larson, who died the night before the show’s Off Broadway premiere, won a Pulitzer Prize for his work. While the original show featured strong language and many references to drugs, sex, and alcohol, the version that will be presented this weekend at East Hampton has been toned down for a high school audience.

The cast said the content remained challenging. Frankie’s character, Angel, is gay, and the role involved dressing in drag. “It might be high school, but we have a lot of mature, older people in the cast,” he said. “I think we’ve all put on our big kid caps and big kid ears and I think we’ve all adapted to it.”

Gage Reimboth-Lynch, a senior who stars as Mark, an indie filmmaker, agreed. “It has sex, AIDS, drugs, alcohol. Big topics,” he said. “But what we’ve realized more and more is that it’s less about those. It’s more about this group of friends coming together.”

The school seemed able to embrace a show like “Rent,” Laura Sisco, an alumna of East Hampton who is directing the school musical for the first time this year. “I felt like this high school was ready for something more modern and challenging.”

The students’ feedback “was that they wanted something they could relate to more. This really gives them the opportunity to shine and brought them to the next level. Choosing a simpler show may not have done that for them.”

There were some naysayers along the way who thought “Rent” was an inappropriate choice for a high school musical, but Adam Fine, the principal, said in January that he was able to allay their concerns.

“It’s not about choosing one lifestyle or another, squatting in an apartment, or drugs. It’s about a community of people who are struggling together through life,” Mr. Fine said. “We want to push the limit, raise the bar. . . . They deserve this opportunity and I’m in full support of it.”

Ms. Sisco said the high school also had the talent to support the show, which has several vocally demanding leading roles. Yean Franco plays Tom Collins, a philosophy professor at New York University who is gay and living with AIDS. Amanda Fioriello, a senior, plays Mimi, an exotic dancer who is addicted to drugs and has H.I.V. Iris Arellano, another senior, plays Joanne, who is a public advocate and is the girlfriend of Maureen, a performance artist and activist who is portrayed by Olivia Salsedo, also a senior. Tyler Thompson, a sophomore, plays the role of Benny, a former roommate of Roger and Mark who now owns the building they live in.

At times the cast had to stretch to relate to their characters, but other times it came a little more easily. “Sometimes I struggle to create my own stuff, too. I feel that when I play Roger,” said Nick Pucci, a senior, who plays a broke, depressed musician living with H.I.V.

Sutton Lynch, a sophomore, did the bulk of the set design, which yielded a gritty, industrial setting that is sure to transport the audience straight to New York City circa 1996. Backing up the cast is an all-star crew and pit band, consisting of students, teachers, and professionals alike, working just as hard behind the scenes to make everything fall into place.

Show times are tomorrow at 7 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets, which are $15 for adults and $10 for children under 12, are only available for purchase at the door. Doors open 30 minutes before show time.

Ms. Sisco said the cast has all the right momentum as opening night approaches.

“I feel like they have really embraced the show and embraced the characters,” she said. “They have taken it seriously and taken it to a level that I have never seen in a high school production before, which is really, really cool.”

Seven continents and seven oceans. The oceans are encroaching on the continents, eating away at them with increasing ferocity. They now occupy more than 70 percent of our world’s outer skin and by time the next millennium rolls around, they’ll probably cover as much as 80 percent. We have been defacing our 30 percent at an ever-increasing pace ever since the industrial revolution ramped up in the mid-1800s. Our factories and our wars are collectively changing the landscape overnight. Where will it end?

Up until the middle of the last century, we thought our seven seas were too big and too deep to be muddied by land-based activities. We’ve finally come to the conclusion that we were misguided all along, not only by politicians and businessmen, but by the scientists themselves. We know now that not only are the marine waters not immune to what we do so franticly and ineptly on land, they are probably even more vulnerable to corruption and dystrophy than the land masses they surround.

In the last 10 years we have discovered the following signs of around-the-world deterioration of marine environments, both near shore and hundreds of miles offshore: Our piggish habits have generated massive flotillas of plastic and other solid wastes in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The continued dumping of billions and billions of gallons of wastewater from cities, factories, hospitals, residential areas, and farms into the oceans has begun to cause serious chemical changes, changes that were entirely unpredictable 70 years ago.

When I studied oceanology and oceanography in 1955 at Cornell University, the pH of seawater was considered to be a constant, due to self-buffering and other factors; the oceans would be alkaline forever. The saltiness was also taken as a near constant, a little more than 30 parts per thousand, salt to water. The ocean bottom was believed to be as unsullied as the surface of the continents had been only hundreds of years ago. 

That was before every populated area across the globe became sewered. That was before all of the factories and power plants with access to waterways that led to the seas used them conveniently for dumping and cooling. That was before the advent of the most powerful insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. A few, like those of Rachel Carson and Jacques Cousteau, in particular, tried to warn us, but we were largely deaf to their warnings and had to see for ourselves before we bought into their predictions.

Since then we have learned the hard way. Every day, oil spills, septic waste, excess carbon dioxide, mining of the ocean bottom, and lately the voluminous intrusion of plastics such as microbeads continue to degrade our marine waters. The oceans are no longer invulnerable. Because of gravity, a principle worked out hundreds of years ago by Newton and others, everything runs downhill: rivers, soil, pollutants, and other waste stuff. Then, too, the atmosphere is not like it used to be. It has increased nitrogen-based pollutants, much more carbon dioxide, ash particles, and thousands of other substances that find their way into the seas and gradually subvert their makeup.

We have finally learned the unvarnished truth. But is it too late? And have we stopped junking up the ocean? Hardly at all. We are still installing oil rigs, pipes to siphon off natural gas, and lately, giant wind turbines. About these latter additions, a very wise man and inventor of electric lights, Thomas Edison, more than 100 years ago, said, harness the sun (and we are finally), without mentioning the wind. Without the sun, there would be no wind. 

Our civilization came into being by way of agriculture and fishing. The land provided things to eat and use for making clothes and other needs, such as medicines. The oceans provided fresh fish and shellfish to give us protein and needed trace elements like iodine.

While natural farming, as opposed to farming with genetically modified seed stocks and antibiotic feeds for livestock and poultry, is experiencing a renaissance in some quarters, commercial fishing is barely hanging on. I, for one, much prefer a black sea bass plucked by a local fisherman’s net to catfish grown on muddy fish farms in Mississippi. Yes, we still haven’t learned and are as needy as ever with respect to material commodities.

Are we going to stop degrading the oceans by continuing to fill them with chemicals and massive structures, using them as testing grounds for weapons of mass destruction, and the like? I doubt it. The very least we can do is have a moratorium on using the oceans for other than fishing and transportation, while we try to figure out how to stop what is already well in progress. 

Or would you rather live on Mars?

Larry Penny can be reached via email at [email protected].

The coroner for the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s office has determined that Lilia Esperanza Aucapina, who disappeared in October and whose body was found six weeks later, committed suicide, Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said Tuesday.

The coroner’s report was presented to him on Friday by Chief Robert Pearce of the Southampton Town Police Department, in a briefing that focused on the police investigation of the woman’s death. Mr. Pearce was joined in the briefing, said to have lasted a few hours, by the detectives who led the investigation. The coroner’s report was just one aspect of the presentation.

“I do believe the police took the matter extremely seriously from the start,” Mr. Schneiderman said. “Though it began as a missing person investigation, it was treated as a possible homicide, and all necessary precautions and steps were taken to secure evidence.” He said that town police were in contact with the county’s homicide and detective squads throughout the investigation. “The amount of man hours devoted to this were significant. It is a very sad, very tragic incident. I will make everything available to the family.”

The supervisor is meeting with the family, along with Foster Maer of JusticeLatino, a civil rights group based in Manhattan, on March 18.

Ms. Aucapina was last seen alive on the morning of Oct. 10, during a confrontation between a male companion, Angel Tejada, and her husband, Carlos Aucapina, in the parking lot of the Meeting House Lane Medical Practice on Montauk Highway in Wainscott. Also involved in the confrontation between the two was her brother, Carlos Parra.

Ms. Aucapina, who had applied for and received an order of protection against her husband shortly before her disappearance, failed to show up about two hours later to pick up her daughter in Sag Harbor. She was reported missing at about 9:30 that night.

Intensive searches were conducted in the woods surrounding Topping’s Path in Sagaponack, where she and her estranged husband lived, to no avail. A hunter found her body on Nov. 21 in a densely wooded area, after the leaves were off the trees.

“There is no question that this woman, Lilia Aucapina, took her life under very sad circumstances,” Mr. Schneiderman said.

It was important, he said, “to prevent similar situations. I think this exposed within the community a certain distrust that we need to explore and address. I want everyone to know that no life is less valuable than another, we need to make sure that our public has full confidence in our law enforcement.”

Mr. Maer has criticized what he called a lack of communication between the police and the Aucapina family. Mr. Schneiderman said steps would be taken to improve connections between police and families caught in similar situations.

As the Hamptons Marathon prepares to exit Springs for Southampton Village next fall, taking with it tens in thousands of dollars of charitable contributions, Project Most, a key beneficiary since the marathon’s inception nine years ago, is looking for creative solutions to close a hefty gap in funding. 

The nonprofit organization, which runs after-school and summertime programs in Springs and East Hampton, received $33,000 from the Hamptons Marathon last year and has gotten more than $200,000 over the past nine years. “It’s a significant loss,” said Susan Gentile Hackett, Project Most’s director of development. “It’s a big percentage of our annual fund-raising that we’ve got to figure out how we’re going to make up.” 

The Hamptons Marathon, which will take place on Oct. 1, officially announced in January that it will move to Southampton Village. Diane Weinberger, one of the marathon’s founders, explained on Tuesday that the village is requiring the race to have a beneficiary with a local ZIP code, meaning Project Most is not eligible. The Hamptons Marathon will instead benefit South­ampton Youth Services.

“Project Most has been a great partner with us for the past nine years. That was the biggest disappointment in leaving East Hampton Town,” Ms. Weinberger said.

Project Most, which serves 400 kids in East Hampton and Springs this year, is now working for the first time with Good Circle, a local company that connects businesses with nonprofit organizations for crowd-funding campaigns. This particular effort has Hampton Racquet matching donations from the community at large to Project Most’s iGrow Summer Learning Program. The iGrow program needs close to $40,000 to operate this summer.

“Hampton Racquet kind of came to our rescue to help us get the funding for our summer learning program,” Ms. Hackett said. “We put some of the marathon money toward it last year, but we can’t do that again this year.”

Ms. Weinberger said the Hamptons Marathon may be able to incorporate a fund-raiser for Project Most into one of its summertime training runs, but that it probably wouldn’t be able to come anywhere near the level of support the marathon had given Project Most in past years.

Ms. Weinberger and Ms. Hackett both said they hope East Hampton Town can step up to fill in where the marathon left off. The town provides $35,000 annually to Project Most. Larry Cantwell, the town supervisor, was out of town this week and unable to respond to an inquiry about the potential for increased Project Most funding. The Springs School District contributed $5,000 this budget year to Project Most and the East Hampton School District contributed more than $50,000 to support programming at the John M. Marshall Elementary School. 

Project Most is also supported by another local organization, Paddlers for Humanity. Fred Doss, one of its founders, who is also the co-founder of Good Circle, said in an email Tuesday that Paddlers for Humanity is funding Project Most’s arts and culture program this year with $22,000. “We certainly remain open to other and future funding” for Project Most, Mr. Doss said.

Ms. Hackett also said Project Most is looking into planning a big “turkey trot” community race this fall as a fund-raiser and is putting extra effort into an art and tree auction that it held last year for the first time. The organization has also sought and received some support from the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation. Parent fees account for $200,000 in annual revenue.

For the last four years Project Most has received a $375,000 grant from New York State. Next year is the fifth and final year for that grant, but the organization plans to reapply for future state funding. 

“We have reserve funds, but the problem is that the marathon supported the general operating fund as well,” she said, noting the organization has a budget of just under $1 million. “We might be really scrambling a year from now.”

The East Hampton Town Police Department has named its merit award winners for 2015. 

During a departmental meeting on Tuesday, the award for meritorious service went to Robert Gurney, a police lieutenant, and Stephen Blanchard, a public safety dispatcher. Those two, Chief Michael Sarlo said yesterday, “have shown tremendous commitment and have taken many extra steps in advancing their own knowledge and expertise in technology.” This, he said, helps the department with various forms of technology, including computer programing, the installation of surveillance cameras, the installation of video cameras in squad cars, and training officers in the use of the technology.

Excellent police service awards, honoring crime solvers “involved in closing out multiple burglary cases, recovering quantities of stolen property, taking handguns off the streets, and culminating narcotics investigations,” went to several detectives, as well as to patrol officers whose work helped close a case. Named were Brett Herlihy, Michael Coleman, and Luke McNamara, officers, and Ryan Hogan, Daniel Toia, and John Anderson Jr., detectives. Officer McNamara was recently named top cop of the year as well. 

Officer McNamara was honored with a third award, sharing the top patrol officer in the fight against drunken driving with Vincent Rantinella. “The D.W.I. awards are given annually to officers who attain a certain number of D.W.I. arrests for the year, and mirror what groups like MADD and Stop D.W.I. do in making sure that attention to the problem of D.W.I., and officers who focus on helping take intoxicated drivers off the roadways, are recognized,” Chief Sarlo said.

“We are particularly proud of our awardees this year. Given all of the publicity surrounding the quality-of-life issues in Montauk in the summer, they show how much other police work and what outstanding efforts are being made throughout the year by the entire department,” the chief concluded.

Officers named for recognition awards were Mr. McNamara, Joseph Izzo, Katie Izzo, Frank Sokolowski, Lisa Weitz, Arthur Scalzo, Mr. Herlihy, Nathan Osborn, and Raymond Rau, along with Sgt. Barry Johnson.

Officer McNamara joined officers Rantinella and Michael Rodriguez in receiving the Chief’s Recognition Award.

The director of the East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery has provided more details about the pilot program set to begin this spring in which residents will grow oysters in a 70-by-30-foot area in Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton. 

At their meeting on Monday, Barley Dunne told the East Hampton Town Trustees, who have already approved the “community oyster garden” in the waters under their jurisdiction, that the project, modeled on Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Southold Projects in Aquaculture Training (SPAT) on the North Fork, would initially include 15 individuals or families. Only residents of the town are eligible, he said, and 12 or 13 applicants have already signed up. 

The program, known as East Hampton Shellfish Education Enhancement Directive (EHSEED), will launch with a meet-and-greet at Bay Kitchen Bar, a restaurant on Three Mile Harbor, in May. On May 21, participants will attend a lecture on shellfish biology and brood stock conditioning at the hatchery, in Montauk. That event will include a slide show and walk-through of the facility, Mr. Dunne said. A second lecture at the hatchery, on how larvae and algae are cultured, is scheduled for June 25. 

The oyster gardeners will meet on July 23 at the nursery site, where they will be given 1,000 seed oysters and the gear to grow them. Biweekly sessions in which participants will pull up their oyster bags and gear to manage the oysters’ growth and prevent fouling will follow, Mr. Dunne said. Another lecture, on proper handling of shellfish, will happen in September. 

In mid-October, oyster gardeners, who will pay $250 to participate in the program, will give half of their oysters back to the hatchery, to be used to enhance its own seed production, and sink their gear to the bottom for the winter. In May 2017, it will be pulled back up and the growing procedure will resume. 

The idea, Mr. Dunne told the trustees, “is to get people out there that are interested in growing shellfish. There seems to be a lot of them.” Participants, he said, will learn the importance of shellfish to waterways while simultaneously improving the ecosystem. A single adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, while the gear provides habitat for crabs, nursery fish, and other marine life. “Hopefully,” he said, “if the project goes well, ideally it will expand into other harbors and larger areas.” 

“Start small and grow big,” said Tyler Armstrong, a trustee. “I’d like to see this get as big as possible.”

Mr. Dunne also proposed an oyster shell recycling program. Under the program, containers would be provided to restaurants in which their oyster shells would be put aside for regular pickup. The goal, he said, would be to return the shells to waterways after a six-month period spent outdoors to eliminate bacteria. He told the trustees that he planned to speak with Steven Lynch, the town’s highway superintendent, about a storage site at the town’s transfer station. 

The purpose of the program, he said, was severalfold: Deploying shells on bottomlands, he said, promotes new growth and provides safe habitat for shellfish seed. “It’s been proven that clams do much better on the bottom where there’s some substrate,” he said. “When we seed, they fall in between the shells, and they survive better.” Returning shells to the water also returns calcium carbonate, which forms mollusk shells and hard corals. 

Deborah Klughers, a former trustee, had been instrumental in establishing a scallop shell recycling program. That program, under which shells were brought to locations at Lazy Point in Amagansett and Boat Yard Road in East Hampton, drew complaints from the owners of the nearby East Hampton Marina about the strong odor at the latter location, from which they were removed. Mr. Lynch “was not happy about the scallop recycling,” said Diane McNally, a trustee 

A discussion about incentives for restaurants’ participation followed, with Mr. Dunne telling the trustees that oyster shell recycling programs have been successfully implemented, with restaurant owners’ willing participation, in places including Nantucket.

The East Hampton school cafeterias resemble test kitchens these days, as   parents, teachers, nutrition experts, and administrators have met monthly since September to review new elementary and middle school menus and adjust the food lineup based on student reaction and their own observations.

Cafeteria crews recently began blending smoothies, including one made with spinach, strawberries, bananas, and apple juice, which have been a hit at all three schools. Soups have reappeared on the menu at the John M. Marshall Elementary School and some foods were tweaked after they were reintroduced. A guest chef from Whitsons, the district’s food service contractor, has made a few appearances to liven up lunchtime.

Gone are the days when previously frozen, processed foods or nearly unidentifiable meats dominated the lunch menus. Kids in East Hampton schools now can choose grilled chicken ranch wraps, meatball Parmesan heroes, turkey tacos with brown rice and black beans, salads, guacamole and salsa, and roasted vegetables. There are more whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables as opposed to white breads and pastas and canned produce.

It’s all part of the East Hampton School District’s effort to revamp its food program, a charge in line with national food standards for schools, which is being led by a school lunch committee.

“We’ve been trying more wholesome foods. Chili, soups, potpies, turkey dinners,” Melissa Curran, an employee of Whitsons who manages its East Hampton service, said. “We’re going back to more of the wholesome foods rather than freezer-to-oven-to-plate meals. You have a home-cooked meal, which the kids really like.”

In particular, Beth Doyle, the elementary school principal, said she had made it her goal this year to push for improvements after hearing concerns about cafeteria food since her first day on the job in 2013.

“As the principal of the school, I feel that it’s my responsibility to make sure that our kids are eating well, enjoying what they are eating, and eating food that can sustain them throughout the school day. . . . We all have the mind-set of how can we have things that we know kids will eat, but that are also good for them,” Ms. Doyle said.

Ms. Doyle said the changes worked well so far, although their full impact will be more closely examined as the results of a district-wide, Internet food survey come in. So far, responses from 148 parents and 408 students in grades 4 through 12 have come in.

Questions about chocolate milk have been heard, which may cause the district to remove it from the cafeterias. During a Jan. 14 meeting, the school lunch committee discussed doing so as a way to reduce the sugar students consume. However, Ms. Doyle said the survey responses she had seen so far favor keeping chocolate milk.

School officials said the smoothies had created a lot of excitement. A guest chef was brought in to test smoothies before they were added as a regular offering. The students loved them. Ms. Curran said, “They came back for seconds and thirds.” 

Indeed, on a recent Friday afternoon, several fifth-graders raved about them. They didn’t even mind the fact that they contained spinach. “They’re good,” Joana Gutierrez said. She liked the banana component the best. Another student, Richard Perez, said, “There’s not that much sugar. It’s great for kids, and it’s healthy.” 

Smoothies are on the menu at John Marshall twice a week as the fruit offering, or available a la carte for 75 cents. They are also available every day in larger portions at the middle school for $1.75, and at the high school for $3.50. The high school smoothies sometimes include mango, pineapple, or yogurt. Cafeteria revenue is reported to be up this year, though the exact figure was not available by press time.

Charles Soriano, the middle school principal, said he was pleased that the district was “starting to act in ways that square with what we’re teaching kids. “We preach wellness and food awareness at the middle school, but we’re not always able to walk the talk with our cafeteria food choices. That’s changing.”

Hugh King, East Hampton Town’s town crier; Dell Cullum, an Amagansett native, photographer, and naturalist, and Katherine C.H.E., a musician, will take part in a celebration of the Amagansett Free Library’s centennial on Saturday. The community has been invited to “put on their party hats.”

The celebration will get going at 11:30 a.m. when Mr. King delivers a lecture about Amagansett in 1916. Proclamations will be read by East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. at 1 p.m., while children have been invited to make the library’s craft program a party, with hats, cake, and cider. 

After a brief history of the library at 2 p.m., Mr. Cullum will discuss the hamlet’s natural history. At 4, Ms. C.H.E. will perform songs from 1916. 

In addition, just in time for the celebration, the centennial quilt started last year, for which residents and visiting authors sewed squares, has been completed and will be on display. Volunteers of all ages helped complete the project during stitching sessions on Feb. 7 and 14.

The library’s centennial is also being marked by an AmagansettLand podcast. Episodes, which can be heard at soundcloud.com/kara-westerman-amagansettland-podcast, include recordings of talks by authors at the library and an account by Joanne Pilgrim, an East Hampton Star associate editor, of her trip to Lesbos in Greece to help refugees arriving from war-torn Middle Eastern countries.

The celebration will continue next month, as well. The Amagansett Chamber of Commerce has chosen the library to be the grand marshal of the eighth annual Am O’Gansett Parade, which is set to step off on March 12 at 12:01 p.m. and said to be the shortest parade in the world.

Cynthia Young, the library’s director, said last week that the celebration is also likely to continue into the year. A family day in the summer, which would include food and games popular a century ago, is under consideration.