At Your Service(formerly RadioRotary)

A phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor according to legend, but the Pleasant Valley Free Library is doing the same in reality. Pleasant Valley Rotarian Dave Kruger, the current vice-president of the library board, returns to RadioRotary to provide the exciting details. Since a fire destroyed the interior of the library in 2018, operations have continued in a former...

Laura Lane, the Adult Literacy Connector for Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County, visits RadioRotary to describe the programs treating functional illiteracy in adults that are available from the volunteers of Literary Connections of the Hudson Valley. Functional illiteracy is more than just inability to read words-literacy is the ability to understand, evaluate, use, and engage with written texts in...

The 2021-22 Governor for Rotary District 7210, the eight counties of the Mid-Hudson region, Mike Polasek, started his term on July 1, but like all District Governors he had two years of training for the becoming the administrative head of the district. Unlike many other new District Governors, however, he has been part of an active team of District leaders working together to improve the District....

Rotary District Governor (DG), Toni Marmo (Highland Rotary), visited RadioRotary and described some of the highlights of his 2020-21 tenure. A District Governor is a well-trained leader, overseeing the 56 clubs in the 8-country district from July 1 to June 30, usually visiting each club in person during that year. Because of Covid-19 restrictions, DG Marmo joined many Zoom meetings, but somehow ma...

Joan Glase, Director of Public Relations and Foundation at The ARC of the Greater Hudson Valley, visits RadioRotary to describe the work ARC does for its 2,000-some clients in Dutchess, Orange, and Sullivan counties. ARC furnishes group homes for 3 to 9 individuals and provides day programs for those individuals and for many who live with their families. Direct Support Professionals not only provi...

One of the important programs of The Rotary Foundation is educating professionals in ways to improve peace between people and nations, a program called Rotary Peace Fellowships. Graduates of the program, Rotary Peace Scholars, use their education in various ways to increase peace—which is not just the absence of violence—in the world. In this program, RadioRotary interviews Peace Scholar Mare-Paul...

Lisa Loughran, whose son Roger was born with the rare joint-and-muscle disease AMC (arthrogryposis multiplex congenita), visits RadioRotary to tell about the annual event for raising awareness and funds, Roger’s Run. When Roger was born in 2010, he displayed the form of AMC in which the joints are “frozen” in a way that all the limbs are completely extended. The condition, which also causes muscle...

Rotarian Joe Berninger from the Rotary e-Club of Ohio Pathways joins RadioRotary to tell about a work that was called “the gold standard of Rotary projects” by past Rotary President Ian Riseley (2017-18)—the Guatemala Literary Project. More than 600 clubs from 80 districts have been working together since 1997 to improve education for underserved students in Guatemala. In that time, nearly 225,500...

Sarah Litvin, Director of the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, and Lucia Cherciu, Poet Laureate of Dutchess County, Zoom in to RadioRotary to tell about the re-opening of the Reher Center after Covid-19 closure, and the 9th annual Kingston Multicultural Festival. The Reher Center is housed in the former Reher Bakery, a Kingston institution run by the Reher family for 80 years, and n...

Crissy Groenewegen, project coordinator of the Northern Dutchess Community Coalition, visits RadioRotary to tell about the Coalition’s work with local institutions in the dozen zip codes of Northern Dutchess, which cover the towns of Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Hyde Park, Millbrook, Amenia, Pine Plains, Dover Plains, and Millerton. The coalition was formed in 2009 by citizens concerned with addiction pro...

MARC Foundation Board President Mike Fanelli and Co-Chair of the Foundation’s annual golf tournament Patty Hogan visit RadioRotary to discuss the origin and mission of the MARC Foundation, as well as two events—a golf tournament that is a major fundraiser for the Foundation and a free picnic to celebrate sobriety. From beginning as a place where alcoholics could sober up in 1977 to today’s communi...

Kingston Rotary’s secretary Alicia Marcinkowski and president-elect Richard Cattabiani visit RadioRotary to tell about the club’s water project in the Philippines and also their annual Cap-to-Cap Run. Kingston Rotarian Rachel Jackson has connections in the Philippine Island and helped the New-York based Rotary club set up a necessary water project in conjunction with the Mandaluyong Rotary Club of...

Rachel Sawner and Tracy Keck of the First Presbyterian Crunch in Pleasant Valley visit RadioRotary to tell the story of the church’s  Box of Hope, available 24/7 for anyone who needs it. The solar-powered wooden Box with a tin roof, which Rachel built, contains donated personal care and hygiene products, first-aid kits, bottled water, and even pet food, all free for the taking by anyone. Dona...

Executive Director Ericka Von Salews of the Vassar-Warner Home, the only nonprofit senior living residence in Dutchess County, visits RadioRotary co-hosts Jonah Triebwasser and Sarah O’Connell-Claitor for a program describing the services and remarkable story of this historic institution. The beautiful building dates from 1835 when it was built as s boys’ academy, but in 1871 it became a home for...

Carmel Rotary Club President-Elect Kathleen Valletta and Carmel Rotary Jessica Vanacoro visit RadioRotary to tell about their club’s fundraiser for local charities. The Basketball Challenge. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the location, so that the contest will be outdoors (in the Carmel Shoprite parking lot), in other respects the event will continue as it has for the past fourteen yea...

Radio Rotary Co-Host Jonah Triebwasser and Producer Kathy Kruger chat with Angela Henry, the new Executive Director of the Poughkeepsie Public Schools Foundation (PPSF). PPSF was founded in 2008 to put musical instruments in the hands of students who could not afford to rent them. Over the years the Foundation has raised and distributed over $40,000 for projects as diverse as museum field trips, t...

Krista Jones , the founder of Sparrow’s Nest, the charity that provides food to the families of persons who have cancer, returns to RadioRotary to tell how the program has fared through the covid pandemic and also to promote the virtual Superhero Challenge. The Superhero Challenge is a healthy way to raise money for the charity by committing to run or walk a specific amount and also committing to...

RadioRotary brings to the air two members of the Greater Newburgh Rotary Club, President Elect, Arlette Murrain , and President Andrew Ciccone; they tell listeners about their club’s exciting awards program on March 31, 2021,which will celebrate International Women’s Day and International Women’s History Month. Members of the Newburgh and Orange County communities will be honored for community ser...

Executive Director Lynne Meloccaro of the Dutchess County SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) visits RadioRotary via Zoom to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the organization, thought to be the 2nd-oldest SPCA organization in the United States, formed in 1871, just 5 years after the first in the US, the New York SPCA. Like all SPCA organizations, it is a nonprofit that arra...

Cara Mia Bacchiochi, recently featured on NBC’s Today Show , returns to RadioRotary to describe new efforts in her continuing ministry to Poughkeepsie women (and men) who are homeless and addicted to drugs or alcohol. For 5½ years she has been at the corner of Main and South Clinton every Saturday morning and evening, sometimes in rain or snow, with the street ministry Hope on a Mission (HOAM). &n...

Satara Brown, founder of Rebuilding Our Children and Community, Inc.  returns to RadioRotary to tell about her work with the juvenile division of the City of Poughkeepsie police department, especially the pilot Juvenile Intervention Program.  Ms. Brown has been heavily involved in helping young persons mature and find better lives for a long time, including (but hardly limited to) foundi...

On February 6, 2021, the Rotary Passport Club of District 7210 had its first meeting. RadioRotary got on the case immediately, interviewing Passport Club President Samantha Alvareng, who is the guest on this show. Passport clubs are a new way for busy people to become Rotarian, since they typically meet only four times a year, although the District 7210 club is also having a Zoom meeting once a mo...

Rotarian Marissa Williams of the Stow-Munroe Falls (Ohio) Rotary Club, who visited RadioRotary via Zoom for this show, has a longer association with Rotary than her year and a half in her Rotary Club. It started when she was a freshman at Millbrook High School when she joined that school’s Interact Club (sponsored by Millbrook Rotary). During her four years of high school she continued to be activ...

Dr. Anil K. Vaidian, Dutchess Country Commissioner of Behavioral and Community Health visits RadioRotary to present the latest information about COVID-19 and the vaccines that prevent it. COVID-19 is the disease caused by a brand-new virus, SARS-CoV-2, so our immune systems are not prepared to deal with it. It is very infectious, so once it began to spread from human to human, a worldwide pandemic...

Millbrook, NY, is home base for the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, although the scientists connected with the Institute may work anywhere that their studies take them. The Millbrook main building, situated on 2,000 acres of study sites and trails, was among the most ecosystem friendly when it was constructed in 1978, but now is out of date and in need of repair and renewal. On this program,...