At Your Service(formerly RadioRotary)

Christina Novak, Communications and Development Coordinator of the Dutchess Country SPCA, visits the RadioRotary studio to describe the work of her organization, which is much more diverse than most persons realize. While the letters SPCA stand for Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to animals, most people think of the Dutchess County SPCA largely in terms of pet adoptions (and they do handle t...

Rhinebeck Rotarian David Ives is the Executive Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute, but that is just the tip of the iceberg for Ives’ many activities promoting worldwide peace and health. When he was 16, Ives took a trip to Latin America, where he was devastated by the poverty he encountered, and Ives determined to devote his life to helping others. After a stint in the Peace Corps in Nica...

In recent years, the proliferation of prescription opiate painkillers, such as Percocet, Oxycontin, Vicodin, and others, has spurred an increase in opiate addiction. When addicts can no longer obtain their pills, they often turn to heroin, a cheaper street opiate—in fact, it is so cheap that many who could still purchase prescription pills also switch to heroin. Among the many problems caused by u...

RadioRotary interviews Marisol Rodriguez, Executive Director of Literacy Connections of the Hudson Valley, a nonprofit using local volunteers to help people to read, write, and reach their potential. One in five Americans are functionally illiterate, which means that their reading and writing skills are at a sixth-grade level or lower. Literacy Connections trained volunteers work one-on-one with t...

RadioRotary interviews Rhinebeck Interact’s Grace Steele and Morgan Rakow, two of the 23 participants in the 2015 edition of that Interact Club’s “Nicaragua Project.” Interact is the high-school service organization sponsored by Rotary. Each year members of the Rhinebeck Interact Club, some adults (mostly Rhinebeck Rotarians), and some college students travel to the León department of Nicaragua wh...

Newburgh Rotarian Doug Sturomski is the unofficial Peace Ambassador for Rotary District 7210, which encompasses the eight counties in the Mid-Hudson Region. One of his several projects related to peace is building and placing Peace Poles in parks, high schools, colleges, and various public places around the region. The Peace Poles that Mr. Sturomski builds are 8-feet high, resembling the Washingto...

Highland Rotary Club’s Charter Member Steve Laubach and Don Verity, the Highland Rotarian who manages PAMAL Radio, the network for RadioRotary, describe the 11th annual Hudson Valley Ribfest, one of the major summer events in the Hudson Valley and primary fundraiser for their Rotary Club. They use their part of the income from the Ribfest to support The Rotary Foundation, ShelterBox, and several l...

When Red Hook High School Student Abby Romm was 15, she decided that she wanted to spend a year abroad. She had learned of the Rotary Youth Exchange program and applied, listing Spain as her first choice, since she had already studied Spanish; but she was happy to learn she would be going to Italy, a country she had visited 8 years earlier and loved. Somewhere in the process, she told her parents,...

Although deaths from drunk driving have been reduced nationally in recent years, there are still 1,200 to 1,500 persons killed or injured by drunk drivers in the Hudson Valley each year. In 1981 Wappingers Falls Rotarian Nick Johnson and his wife Josephine, a severely damaged victim of a drunk driver, decided to do what they could to reduce the drunk-driving toll, starting Dutchess Country RID (Re...

Radio Rotary Interviews Certified Holistic Health Coach and Millbrook Rotarian Ellie Savoy, author of Stop Dieting Start Living: 5 Foundations for Your Health, to Permanently Lose Weight Without Dieting, Starvation or Suffering in Silence. Ms. Savoy argues that dieting does not work because it has a beginning and an end. Instead, we should stop living on autopilot and become aware of our own body....

Just-graduated high-school student Mannion O’Conner and Carmel Rotarian Marjorie Nichols Keith, Executive Director of the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Putnam County (CCE-Putnam), tell about the activities of 4-H in the county, with a special focus on the 44th annual Putnam Country 4-H Fair. The Fair, run by 4-H clubs with the help of many volunteers, including the Rotary Clubs of Carmel, Brews...

Mediation is a process in which parties with differences meet with a neutral professional to resolve differences. In this program, Attorney Betsy Shequine explains why mediation is a cheaper, faster, and more successful way to end a marriage than litigation for divorce. Trained mediators, such as Ms. Shequine, teach the participants how to speak to each other as they resolve the complications of d...

Even before devastating earthquakes hit Nepal and surrounding territory in April and May of 2015, the plight of numerous children in that Himalayan nation was desperate. Many young children were being sold by their parents to work in Indian factories; young girls were often forced into prostitution. The Blue Butterfly Foundation, created by Lauren Yanks, has helped save over 2,000 children from tr...

The ongoing Vassar project for improving education, health, women’s economy, water purity, and forests in Chermaitre, Haiti, is described by the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Vassar-Haiti Project, Lila Meade, and Vassar student Sarah Oliver. Andrew and Lila Meade founded the project in 2001, partly in a response to the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. Its original goal was simply a lunch project...

Licensed Nutritionist Rufia Payman from Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck describes the ravages of type 2 diabetes and steps to take to prevent the disease. Her primary approach is to put her patients on the Mediterranean diet (mainly fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, olive oil, and nuts) and regular exercise. Ms. Payman runs a free 16-week diabetes protection at Northern Dutches...

Rhinebeck Rotarian Lou Trapani, Artistic and Managing Director of The Center for the Performing Arts at Rhinebeck, returns to RadioRotary to discuss some of the upcoming performances at this hub for theater and related events, including the summer arts day camp, which brings many courses in theater-arts. Among other upcoming productions discussed on the show will be The Me That Nobody Knows; Seuss...

RadioRotary co-host Jonah Triebwasser and producer Kathy Kruger interview the man who conceived and launched RadioRotary: Poughkeepsie-Arlington Rotarian Roger Risko. Mr. Risko, who is about to retire after many years of teaching at Dutchess County’s BOCES (Bureau of Co-operative Services), not only started RadioRotary but also has been instrumental in forming and helping grow several Rotaract and...

Gloria De Pietro is the author of Abandoned: The Story of Boys Forgotten, the tales of four boys who received art therapy from her while they lived in a residential treatment center. Ms. Di Pietro first encountered art when she suffered a near fatal illness as a child; the nurses at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City had set up an art corner for their young patients. She determined th...

Authors Bryan Bunch (Millbrook Rotary), and Tim Tocher discuss the seventh annual Millbrook Literary Festival with co-hosts Jonah Triebwasser and Sara O’Connell. The Festival features several talks by journalists and authors as well as panel discussions on historical fiction, mysteries, cookbooks, journalism, history, and getting published. Books for younger readers featured include picture books...

Rich Silva, Founder and President of Pain Point IT Solutions Inc., describes some of the complications concerning health information privacy and accountability rules. Before 1996, most hospital and other medical records were kept on paper and were easily available to persons other than a patient’s doctor and the patient. As part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (H...

Co-Hosts Jonah Triebwasser and Sarah O’Connell travel to the regular meeting of the Red Hook Rotary as it plans for the annual Red Hook Apple Blossom Festival, a village-wide celebration of the coming of summer that features food booths, sales in local stores, entertainment, political candidates, baby animals, face painting, balloons, and more. Red Hook Rotarians Susan Simon and Linda Greenblatt d...

The Rural and Migrant Ministry, a group that started with one person in a van about 50 years ago, is now a major force for empowerment for migrant farm workers in much of upstate New York. In this interview, Ruth Faircloth, the Director of the Overnight Leadership Camp and the Women’s Conference, describes how the Ministry works for justice for workers in New York State by lobbying Albany on migra...

RadioRotary is visited by Gabriella Scull, the community manager for Relay for Life, an affiliate of the American Cancer Society. Each year there are 5,200 Relay-for-Life events in the United State, including many in the Hudson Valley as well as events in 20 different nations. The event is an organized fundraising walk around a track. It last all night and the participants camp out, although indiv...

Melissa McCoy, Chief Advancement Officer for Abilities First describes this seven-county program that serves developmentally disabled children and adults in the Hudson Valley. Staring with pre-school, Abilities First supplies educational programs that replace the regular special-education classes in twenty different facilities (one facility, in Red Hook, is in the same building as the regular scho...

Pleasant Valley Library Director Daniela Pulice and Barbara Shapley, president of the Friends of the Pleasant Valley Library, discuss their local library, the Mid-Hudson Library System, of which it is a part, and the status of community libraries today. The Pleasant Valley Free Library is situated in a Dutchess County town of about 10,000 and is one of 21 libraries in the Mid-Hudson System. The Fr...