At Your Service(formerly RadioRotary)

Total Transportation for Local Charities (Aired on June 9 and 10, 2018) RadioRotary interviews two employees of Total Transportation Corp., a business that goes out of its way to help local community organizations such as Rotary clubs. Vincent Marzello is the Regional Director of Operations, working out of Wappinger Falls, while MaryAnne Coe is the Location Manager in that office. Marzello and Coe...

Rotarians Gary Silver and Gary Siegel report to RadioRotary on an important program that they have been developing and monitoring, including their 16 trips to Haiti. Working with the Rotary Club deCap-Haïtien, the Liberty Club has distributed over a thousand two-bucket water filtration systems to families in Cap-Haïtien, a historic city of about 200,000 whose water supply is not potable (suitable...

New Paltz Rotarian Toni Hokanson visits RadioRotary to promote the annual “Touch-a-Truck” fair at Ulster County Fairgrounds. While the basic attraction for kids are the trucks, with a chance to climb all over them and sound their horns, the inexpensive family outing includes much more in the way of free entertainment, ranging from the Hurd’s Family Cow Train (cars shaped like cars, pulled by a tra...

New Animal Shelter and Wildlife Rehab (Aired on May 19 and 20, 2018) Josephine Santoro and Carl Syslo visit RadioRotary to tell about the new Safe Haven Animal Shelter $ Wildlife Center, located in Stormville in southern Dutchess County (Town of Beekman). The first phase of their operation will be to provide a no-kill shelter for injured or orphaned dogs, which can be adopted after any necessary r...

Greater Newburgh Rotarian Doug Sturomski, the unofficial Peace Ambassador for Rotary District 7210, returns to RadioRotary to report on two projects related to his peace mission. In this interview, he announces that he recently has dedicated or planted 10 Peace Poles at local schools. The Peace Poles for Rotary District 7210 are 8-feet high, resemble the Washington Monument, and have the message “...

RadioRotary visits Red Hook Rotary’s meeting to learn about some of the many activities of the Red Hook Club. Rotarian Dave Wright is in charge of the 2018 Apple Blossom Day, the street festival that traditionally kicks off the spring-summer season in Red Hook and Tivoli. In addition to dance and music performances on the stage, there are hundreds of food and craft vendors. Club president Tim Lync...

Pearl River Rotarians Dorothy Filoramo and Ryan O’Gorman join the RadioRotary team to tell about how a visit by Ryan to El Salvador led to a project to build a well and filtration system for three small villages in that country. Ryan observed that villagers needed to bring water in plastic bags to the site where they were working. Further checking revealed that the local well was not only running...

Dinner Theater in Dutchess Country (Aired on April 21 and 22, 2018) Felicia DiNonno, founder of the Clove Creek Dinner Theater in Fishkill, NY, and Rotarian Andrew Ciccone (Newburgh) visit RadioRotary to tell about the many fundraising opportunities available using the facilities of the dinner theater. Of course, Clove Creek Dinner Theater features new comedy theater every month interspersed with...

Andrew O’Grady, CEO of the Mid-Hudson Recovery Centers (MARC) and Executive Director of Mental Health America of Dutchess County (MHA) visits RadioRotary to tell about changes at MARC as it finds new ways to improve its mission of residential treatment for alcoholics and other addicts. MARC is now allied with MHA, extending the reach of both organizations. If a person in Dutchess or surrounding co...

RadioRotary interviews Red Hook Rotarian Susan Simon and Beth Jones, both of Third Eye Associates, Ltd, a fee-only registered investment advisory firm that provides financial life planning, financial transition planning, and wealth management services, with offices in Red Hook, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Their model is based on an hour-long initial interview in which Third Eye Associates...

Eliza Bozenski, Chief Development Officer of the Anderson Center for Autism, and the host of comes to the RadioRotary microphone to discuss the autism spectrum and how the Anderson Foundation’s several ways of outreach are making a difference for families that must cope with autism. Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disability that ranges from what is commonly called Asperger Syndrome, w...

Cara Mia Bacchiochi of Hope on a Mission HOAM returns to RadioRotary to describe her continuing effort to help Poughkeepsie women who are homeless, most of them addicted to drugs or alcohol. At the same street corner (Main and Clinton) every Saturday night, sometimes in rain or snow, Bacchiochi and volunteers distribute food, clothing, and personal care items to homeless women. Bacchiochi was hers...

Pleasant Valley Rotarian Rose Bonheur visits RadioRotary to tell about her seven (so far) medical missions to Puerto Rico, aided by her husband Roberto (also a Pleasant Valley Rotarian) and a host of volunteers. Dr. Bonheur is a Doctor of Nursing Practice and also a Nurse Practitioner, so in 2010, when a terrible earthquake struck Haiti where Rose was born, her husband suggested that they bring me...

Highland Rotarian Christine Giangrasso visits RadioRotary to talk primarily about the Hudson Valley Honor Flights, especially the one she participated in recently. Honor Flights are fully paid for visits to Washington, D.C. for veterans of World War II or the Korean or Vietnam conflicts. Volunteers (who pay their own way) pair with a veteran as they visit the war memorials in Washington and other...

In this program, devoted to the close relationship between a Rotary Club and an important local resource, RadioRotary interviews New City Rotarians Madelon Burger, Robert Pitkofsky, and Jill Warner (executive director and CEO of Jawonio) along with Jerry Staller, director of educational and clinical services at Jawonio, which supplies lifespan services for persons with special needs primarily to R...

RadioRotary interviews Dr. Bobbie Davey of MOST (Millbrook Orthopedic & Sports Physical Therapy), which not only has facilities in Millbrook, NY, but also in nearby Rhinebeck and Hopewell. Dr. Davey deals mainly with pain management from accidents, operations, and chronic conditions such as arthritis. Pain is nature’s way of telling you that something is not right with your body. Pain is now recog...

Jonah Triebwasser, Sarah O’Connell, and Kathy Kruger interview several of the Rotarians bringing their projects furthering the goals of the Rotary Foundation to the Convention. The two Rotary Action Groups (RAGs) are each devoted to worldwide fights against chronic illnesses that not only are rampant in the United States but also are on the increase around the world. Hepatitis C, unrecognized unti...

Regular RadioRotary Co-host Sarah O’Connell turns guest for a show devoted to her own Rotary Club and its activities. The Rotary Club of Millbrook has been doing good in the world for more than 45 years now. The main way it funds its projects is by providing a service to Millbrook and the surrounding region with a Business Directory. The Directory contains much useful community information, but it...

Once again RadioRotary brings listeners interviews with Rotarians attending the Convention who describe the Rotary programs that have brought them to Atlanta. Regular listeners to RadioRotary know about ShelterBox, but in this program they learn new ways the ShelterBox teams are helping disaster victim around the world. Also, listeners are probably familiar with Rotary’s role in polio eradication,...

Rich Schiafo of the Hudson Valley Regional Council returns to RadioRotary to tell the listeners about the national problem of food waste. Of the many astonishing statistics Mr. Schiafo discusses, perhaps the most alarming is that 40% of all the food produced in the United States goes to waste, much of it landing in landfills where it contributes to the production of methane, a global-warming gas....

Rotarian Mike Polasek (LaGrange) reports to the RadioRotary team about a major effort on the part of local Rotary Clubs (LaGrange, Millbrook, Fishkill) to obtain a grant from The Rotary Foundation to fund awareness and prevention programs in the Mid-Hudson Valley, although Mr. Polasek emphasizes that opioid addiction is a worldwide program that affects all ages and all classes. Opioid abuse often...

The ninth compilation of interviews with humanitarians conducted by RadioRotary at the 2017 Rotary Convention in Atlanta focuses largely on Rotarian Action Groups (RAGs) and their humanitarian aims, but it also includes a special interview with golf-great Jack Nicklaus. Rotarian Action Groups discussed include efforts to protect endangered species, prevention of all types of addiction from tobacco...

Pleasant Valley Rotarian Ellen Haggerty returns to the RadioRotary microphone to tell about her latest efforts to improve hearing and communication around the world. Ms. Haggerty, who lost her own hearing at age 4, but has compensated with hearing aids and excellent lip reading, is the chair of the Rotarians for Hearing Rotary Action Group (RAG). In past projects she has helped provide solar heari...

Rhinebeck Rotarians Mike Frazier and Mike Mazzarella tell RadioRotary producer Kathy Kruger about the program Rhinebeck Rotary has instituted to help senior citizens age in place. Many older Americans prefer to stay in their existing homes instead of moving into assisted-living communities or nursing homes. Sometimes the physical infirmities of aging mean that homes need to be modified for safer l...

Continuing its broadcasts from the Rotary International Convention in Atlanta, RadioRotary Co-Hosts Jonah Triebwasser and Sarah O’Connell interview representatives of several of the many exhibits featured at the Convention. “The One” Rotary Action Group presents an award of $100,000 to the International Humanitarian of the year along with $50,000 each to two runners-up, enabling these humanitarian...