At Your Service(formerly RadioRotary)

Susanne O’Neill, Program and Events Manager for Walkway over the Hudson, talks about the history and coming events at the longest, highest pedestrian bridge in the world, Poughkeepsie and Highland’s Walkway over the Hudson. This former railway connection between Dutchess and Ulster counties ceased operation after a fire in 1974, but in 2009, in connection with the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson...

RadioRotary hosts a discussion of Rotary in the Hudson Valley featuring District Governor (DG) 2014-15 Penny Byron (Patterson Rotary), Past District Governor (PDG) 2009-10 David Green (New Windsor-Cornwall Rotary), and District Governor Elect (DGE) 2015-16 Nick Constantino (Walkill East Rotary). DGE Constantino had just returned from training for his post in San Diego along with 531 other District...

Dr. Teresa Foster, a family practitioner and osteopath with offices in Woodstock and Boiceville visits the RadioRotary studio to help clarify issues in health and wellness. A family practitioner sees patients of all ages and types—and Dr. Foster even makes house calls. The recent uptick in measles has caused people to take a closer look at immunization. Dr. Foster emphasizes that measles is incred...

The Mid-Hudson Children’s Museum, near the edge of the Hudson in Poughkeepsie, is one of the great destinations for parents and children in the Hudson Valley. Lara Litchfield-Kimber, Executive Director of the museum, and Sara Capozzoli, Director of Public, Media and Corporate Relations, visit RadioRotary to tell about the many hands-on exhibits and programs designed for children from age 0 to 6. S...

Rotarians Barbara Blas and Barbara Cohen of the Kingston Sunrise Rotary Club visit RadioRotary to tell about the developing Reher Center for Immigration and Culture in the Roundout section of Kingston, NY. The project began when the Jewish Federation of Ulster County came into possession of the large building that previously housed the Reher Bakery, famous for its rolls, the only intact historical...

Co-host Jonah Triebwasser and producer Kathy Kruger interview Michele Polluck-Rich, Executive Director at Grace Smith House, the principal organization in Dutchess County for aid to victims of domestic abuse. Victims of either sex can be helped; the hotline is (845) 471-3033. About 90% of the abused are women, who can be removed from their domestic situation to one of two secretly located residenc...

RadioRotary Co-host Jonah Triebwasser interviewed Marietta Allen about her current Outreach program at St. Mary’s Parish in Newburgh. Newburgh suffers from high poverty and crime rates. Each of the four Roman Catholic churches has a program to help alleviate the city’s problems. Among the components of the St. Mary’s Outreach are the provision of emergency food and toiletries for immediate needs;...

Deanna Mancuso tells the story of how her grandfather’s gift to her of an abused horse when she was 12, gradually led her create the Lucky Orphans Horse Rescue farm, which now hosts 43 formerly abused, neglected, or abandoned horses. Today these horses are not only living out the remainder of their lives (which can be as long as about 50 years), but also they are providing significant equine-assis...

RadioRotary interviews Tessa Edick, author of Hudson Valley Food and Farming: Why Didn’t Anyone Ever Tell Me That?, an introduction to the Local foods in the RadioRotary listening area, filled with photographs of local farms. Ms. Edick started the FarmOn! Foundation to promote dining on local foods at home and in restaurants. Among the local products discussed are the dairy products produced by th...

The RadioRotary co-hosts interview author and motivational speaker Jesse Saperstein about his new book: Getting a Life with Asperger’s: Lessons Learned on the Bumpy road to Adulthood, a guide to leaving “the road to loserville” written by someone who has experienced the problems of a person with Asperger’s as he made important life transitions. Mr. Saperstein was diagnosed with Asperger’s at age 1...

Brewster Rotarian and 2015-16 Rotary District Literacy Chair Jenny Hinsman learned about buildOn from the best-selling book Walk in Their Shoes: Can One Person Change the World? (Jim Ziolkowski with James S. Hirsh) and has started her club working with Ziolkowski’s buildOn organization on its mission of breaking the cycles of poverty, illiteracy, and low expectations through service and education....

Co-host Jonah Triebwasser and producer Kathy Kruger interview Mike Green and Matt Cruz about Hyde Park Rotary’s Little Free Library in the Stop & Shop Plaza in the Hyde Park Mall, the Rotary Club operates in conjunction with the Hyde Park Free Library. The movement to install Little Free Libraries has been spreading from town to town, and Rotarians are often behind the installation. In a Little Fr...

Jonah Triebwasser and RadioRotary Producer Kathy Kruger interview Gabriella Fryer, Executive Director of Stringendo, a nonprofit music education and performance program for youth in the Hudson Valley. Stringendo allows elementary and high-school students to play in six different orchestras, depending on skill level, and four different fiddler groups. The all-violin ensembles are knows as the Straw...

RadioRotary interviews Southern Ulster Rotarian B.N. Mikkelsen about available trips by rail or sea to exotic places around the world. Mikkwelsen, a native of Denmark, operated a travel agency for more than a decade before turning to his present occupation of representing companies that take travelers to interesting destinations. Among his favorite trips are rail tours on the Trans-Siberian Railwa...

Michael Weitzman in this RadioRotary interview reveals that he has long suffered from a common form of mental illness—bipolar disorder (once known as manic-depressive state), although he was not diagnosed with the disease until age 40. Today he emphasizes the basic triangle for handling a mental illness—a psychiatrist to diagnose, medicine to alleviate, and therapy to help with coping. The depress...

RadioRotary interviews Richard Tracino, President and Chief Executive for Hudson Valley Hospice (HVH) and Hudson Valley Hospice Foundation, and Kim Warner, Director of Psychosocial Services for HVH. Hospice serves people of all ages who have terminal illnesses, although hospice focuses on the entire family, not just the dying individual, helping them deal with medical, emotional, spiritual, and fa...

Casey MacDonald, who survived her own bout with cancer nearly 20 years ago only to confront cancers that attacked her husband, father, and best friend, has devoted her life to helping others navigate their way through the medical, financial, and lifestyle challenges of the disease. She founded The Hudson Valley Cancer Resource Center, which—with the help of many volunteers—serves nine counties in...

RadioRotary co-hosts Jonah Triebwasser and Sarah O’Connell interview Rotarians Pat Green and Gail Dejmal of the Monroe-Woodbury club about their participation in Project Amigo and about the humanitarian activities of their Rotary club. Project Amigo consists of a number of ways that Rotarians and others can improve the lives of the rural poor in Colima State, Mexico, many of them migrant workers....

RadioRotary co-host Jonah Triebwasser, in Sydney, interviews Rotarians from the United States who are also visiting the Convention and others who work with Rotary. Kurt Johnsen from the New Windsor-Cornwall Rotary in Orange County, New York, describes the Rotary Foundation and its progress in the fight to eradicate polio. His wife, Ana Johansen, talks about E-Club 7210, which—although based in Dis...

Elizabeth Spira, the Chief Executive Officer of the Community Action Partnership of Dutchess County describes how this legacy program of the War on Poverty has for 50 years provided financial, energy, pharmaceutical, and food assistance to those in need. Similar agencies exist in every country in New York State. Some of the programs that the Dutchess agency maintains include “Dress for Success,” a...

RadioRotary interviews Dr. Dan Freedman, Dean of the School of Science and Engineering at SUNY-New Paltz, who leads both the Digital Design and Fabrication curriculum at the school and the Hudson Valley Advanced Manufacturing Center, specialists in the art of printing solid objects, known as 3-D printing. The first 3-D printers became available in 1986. They create objects, usually by laying down...

n January of 2011 retired Saugerties (NY) English teacher Nancy Lanni visited Haiti, with a construction team helping repair the damage. While there, she was invited to teach as a substitute, where she observed first-hand the emotional as well as physical damage to the young children on the remote island of La Gonáve, a primitive land where people still live in stone huts and use donkeys for trans...

Volunteer Neil Isabelle discusses the Catskill Mountain Railroad, two different scenic trips on vintage rail cars through the picturesque Esopus Creek valley in Ulster Country, NY, and through the historic city of Kingston, NY. Special rides in the fall showcase the autumn foliage and in winter there is the Polar Express. Summer rides are also available in July and August that are timed for the fu...

Newburgh Rotarian Doug Martin Sturomski, the recently appointed Peace Chair of Rotary District 7210, is interviewed about his efforts to help reach the peace goal of Rotary International and the Rotary Foundation through Peace Bells and Peace Poles. His Peace Bell Foundation, started in 2009, emphasizes the connection between ringing bells and freedom and peace, while he has become one of the most...

Jeffrey Urbin, Education Specialist at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, tells the RadioRotary audience about the history and recent renovations of the Library, which was the first presidential library in the United States, having been designed by Roosevelt himself in 1941. The new Library features new technology to make history come alive better for today’s visitors. Anot...