At Your Service(formerly RadioRotary)

Vassar-Haiti Project Update (Aired on October 26 and 27, 2016) In response to the September 11, 2001, attack Andrew Meade, director of international students at Vassar College, and his wife Lila wanted to start a project that would do good in the world. Both had family ties to Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, so that is where their impulse took them. For fifteen years, the Vass...

Pleasant Valley Rotarian Kathy Kruger is not only the producer of RadioRotary, but she is also a registered nurse. In this interview, Ms. Kruger tells our regular co-hosts the facts about how Rotary, working the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF, has reduced the incidence of the paralyzing disease polio from an annual toll o...

Jonah Triebwasser and RadioRotary Producer Kathy Kruger interview Police Chief Daniel Waage of the Town of Lloyd in Ulster County about his program of community policing. Community policing is a law-enforcement philosophy that involves the systematic use of community partnerships to address proactively the conditions that give rise to crime, social disorder, or fear of police. Chief Waage has foll...

Margot Schulman, manager of The Lunch Box for Dutchess Outreach, and Rich Schiafo, deputy executive director of the Hudson Valley Regional Council, tell RadioRotary about efforts to prevent food insecurity in the Hudson Valley, starting with an event at the Walkway Over the Hudson for which a number of local agencies are providing a free meal entirely made from “recused food.” Rescued food may be...

Jonah Triebwasser interviews Cary Institute disease ecologist Shannon LaDeau on the recently recognized dangers from the Zika virus and on the mosquitoes that carry it from human to human. Zika has been known in the Old World since the 1940s but did not reach the Western Hemisphere until 2014, when travelers brought it to Brazil. It has since spread widely through South America, the Caribbean, and...

RadioRotary interviews Robert Hawk Storm Birch, known primarily by his Native American name, Hawk Storm, given to him by his grandfather when he was five. The Schaghticoke Native Americans are struggling to win Federal recognition, although they have one of the oldest reservations in the U.S., located in Kent, Connecticut, just over the border from Dover, New York. The Federal Bureau of Indian Aff...

Patterson Rotarian Bill Flash is interviewed about his club’s activities. The Patterson Club holds a number of fundraisers annually that have become much anticipated events for the residents of Putnam County and beyond. The Blues and BBQ event provides great music from local bands and nationally known musicians along with food prepared by the great cooks of Patterson Rotary–ribs, brats, burgers, a...

Many of the villages and hamlets in Dutchess County choose a day or weekend in the fall to celebrate local organizations and to entertain their residents and visitors. These include Hardscrabble Days in Red Hook and Community Day in Millbrook. For about forty years, one of these celebrations has been Pleasant Valley Weekend in the hamlet and town of Pleasant Valley. In this interview, Pleasant Val...

Pleasant Valley Rotarian Ellen Haggerty is the guest on RadioRotary, discussing Rotarian Action Groups (RAGs) and Rotary Fellowship Groups with special emphasis on the RAG Rotarians for Hearing, an action group started by Ms. Haggerty. Rotarians for Hearing has a grant from the Rotary Foundation that covers hearing tests for newborns in Guatemala. An electronic device checks the baby’s ears to see...

RadioRotary interviews Highland Rotary Club’s Steve Laubach and Don Verity concerning the 12th annual Hudson Valley Ribfest, one of the major summer events in the Hudson Valley and voted one of the “must-go-to” festivals in the United States. It is also the primary fundraiser for the Highland Rotary Club. Income from the Ribfest to supports The Rotary Foundation, ShelterBox, and several local char...

Sarah O’Connell and Dave Kruger interview Millbrook Rotarian Ellie Savoy, author of the International Best-Seller Stop Dieting, Start Living: 5 Foundations for your Health to Permanently Lose Weight Without Dieting, Starvation, or Suffering in Silence, as well as portions of other self-help books. Ms. Savoy is a Board Certified Holistic Health Coach who not only coaches individuals, but also offer...

RadioRotary interviews Kinderhook Tri-Village Rotarian, Dr. Tam Mustapha, who has held a number of positions supporting The Rotary Foundation, the charitable arm of Rotary International. The motto of The Rotary Foundation, “Doing Good in the World,” describes its main mission, which focuses on improving peace, fighting disease, providing clean water, saving mothers and children, supporting educati...

RadioRotary interviews Carmel Rotarian Marjorie Keith and recent Mahopac High School student Robert Solerno about the role of the 4-H Club of Putnam Country. Keith is the Executive Director of Putnam County’s branch of the Cornell Cooperative Extension, which sponsors 4-H clubs, while Solerno is not only an enthusiastic member of 4-H, but also a former member of the Mahopac High School Interact Cl...

We explore the Rotary aim of “Doing Good, Having Fun.”

The Community at Brookmeade, located on 75 country acres just outside the Village of Rhinebeck, is a senior-living retirement community serving the Hudson Valley and surrounding areas. It consists of three connected facilities: Arbor Ridge offers independent living; The Terraces offers assisted living; and The Baptist Home provides long term care, sub-acute rehabilitation, palliative care and Out-...

RadioRotary interviews Shayna Micucci and Kasandra Quednau, founders of the Rt. 212 Coalition, which aids persons and families facing addiction problems. Micucci is a trained addiction specialist and Quednau has personal experience with addiction in the past. The Coalition’s name comes from New York State Route 212, which runs through Ulster Country from Saugerties to Woodstock and beyond. Its mis...

RadioRotary interviews Kathy Smith, who is on the board of the Friends of the Walkway Over the Hudson about the some of the many activities that not only involve using the great bridge but also raise money for its upkeep and improvement. Walkway Over the Hudson is a free New York State Historic Park that opening in October 2009 and today has half a million users each year. It was a railroad bridge...

Goshen Rotarians Nan Gill-Wilson and David P. Wilson are professionals in several branches of show business. The have brought their own talents and performing knowledge to the aid of their Rotary Club in a number of ways. Goshen Rotary manages to have at least one major event every month of the year. One of these fundraisers is “Goshen’s Got Talent,” a show based on local amateur performers—althou...

In a live show at Millbrook Rotary RadioRotary interviews George Ouimet, this year’s president of the Millbrook High Interact Club, and Luisa Pereira, this year’s incoming Youth Exchange (YEX) student to Millbrook Rotary. Ouimet describes recent projects of Interact, including two canned food drives, two recent blood drives, the Purple Pinkie Project, and the Scott Meyer Memorial 5K Run. George jo...

RadioRotary is visited by Newburgh Rotarians Allie Sacks, Bob McCury, and Debbie Johnson on the occasion of the ninth annual “Taste of Greater Newburgh” festival of food, drink, music, automobiles, and art. Local restaurants and other food and drink suppliers form the foundation of this annual fundraiser, but a local band supplies music and in 2016 the festival featured both an automobile show and...

RadioRotary interviews Kingston Rotarians Donna Miller and Georgiana Pangborn about the 100th anniversary of their club, the oldest Rotary club in the Hudson Valley. Rotary was only eleven years old itself when the Kingston Club was chartered by the Association of Rotary Clubs (which became Rotary International six years later). By then Rotary was active in Great Britain, Canada, and had its first...

Once again RadioRotary travels to the Red Hook Rotary Club for a live broadcast from the Bread and Bottle Bakery and Wine Bar. Red Hook Rotary for the past fifteen years has been the sponsor of the great spring festival, Apple Blossom Day, which has taken place in the village for over thirty years. Co-hosts Jonah Triebwasser and Sara O’Connell interview Red Hook Rotary president (and hot-dog cook)...

Millbrook Rotary hosted a broadcast of RadioRotary with guests Steve Pressman, Executive Director of the Mid-Hudson Addiction Recovery Centers, Inc. (MARC) and Laurie Quinn (Philmont Rotary Club), a director of the MARC Foundation. A main problem facing MARC and the entire nation is the heroin and opiate epidemic. Currently in the United States 129 persons each day die from a heroin or opiate over...

Crystal Snow-Hebel is one of the co-founders of Faith House (Linda Arzu is the other), a proposed maternity home for 18- to 24-year old girls and their newborn children. This would be a refuge for girls who otherwise would be homeless, in abusive relationships, or living in poverty. The idea is to provide for spiritual and emotional needs in a real family environment. Many volunteers are already w...

RadioRotary interviews Patterson Rotarian Mike Ingber about his club’s exciting fundraiser, Men Who Cook. Ingber is not only one of the organizers for the 20th installment of the popular event, but also one of the cooks, specializing in smoked salmon or ribs. This edition of Men Who Cook honors the Honorable James Reitz, judge of the family court in Carmel, NY, and of a drug court that helps addic...