At Your Service(formerly RadioRotary)

Linda Marston-Reid, Executive Director of Art Mid-Hudson (formerly The Dutchess Country Arts Council), and Paul Tesoro, Chairperson of the Board, discuss the many ways that Arts Mid-Hudson re-grants New York State funds and local donations to local artists in Dutchess, Ulster, and Orange counties. Grants aid visual arts, theater, arts education, music, performances of the written word, and communi...

A couple of years ago Krista Jones from Hopewell Junction, NY, experienced the death of a good friend from cancer and the realization that four other mothers she knew also had cancer. Krista had been helping her friend, who had three children, by leaving food at her door. She recognized that cancer was sapping the energy and budgets of all these mothers, which led her to found Sparrow’s Nest, dedi...

Legal Services of the Hudson Valley provides free legal help to the needy who require assistance in civil cases—mortgage problems, divorces, educational issues, domestic violence, and similar difficulties. In this interview Pro Bono Director Lillian Krusz Welby and staff attorney Jill Faber discuss all these topics and more. Legal Services of the Hudson Valley has eight offices, ranging from White...

In this on-site interview from the Annual Meeting of the New York State Bar Association, Bar Past -President A. Thomas Levin and Chair of the Law, Youth and Citizenship committee Rich Bader discuss some of the statewide programs that the Bar Association supports in New York State schools. These include Mock Trials in secondary schools in which students argue a case based on data supplied by the Ba...

In this show, co-host Sarah O’Connell interviews the co-leaders of the Center for Healthy Aging at Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck—social worker Allison Gould and geriatrician Dr. Jodi Friedman. The purpose of the Center is to help people 65 and over remain healthy and active as they age. Friedman handles the medical issues, while Gould works with social issues such as life transitions, in...

In March 2009 Reverend Betsy Fisher of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Amenia learned of a big need for food for the working poor in Amenia that was not being met by the nearest local Food Bank, so she started Food of Life. This program details how that works and the needs that it fills today. The pantry (at 40 Leedsville Road in Amenia), supplies supplemental food, primarily to the working poor, a...

Jeffery Fox, executive director of Abilities First, and Serene Morrero, director of development, describe this Dutchess-County-based program that serves all developmentally disabled children and adults. The organization has thirty different facilities in Dutchess County, which began with its original “Little Red Schoolhouse” in Poughkeepsie, and now goes from preschool to adult services. Since the...

Elian Trumpetto, Executive Director of the Council on Addiction Prevention of Dutchess County, and Mike Hill director of the Drinking Driver Program at Dutchess Community College, discuss the program “Alive at 25,” which is sponsored by the National Safety Council. Alive at 25 is a 4-hour educational program aimed at 16- to 24-year-olds to heighten their awareness of the hazards of driving drunk,...

Preventing relocation stress syndrome is a main goal of Moving Generations, a downsizing and moving supervision service for the elderly provided by Red Hook Rotarian Susan Goodman Goldstein, a social worker who grew up in a family moving business, and Dena Crane, a long-time family mediator specializing in senior decision making. Moving Generations serves the entire Hudson Valley and points beyond...

Center of Compassion volunteers Julie Gregory, Executive Coordinator, and Karen Finnerty, Community Outreach Coordinator, discuss this complex of humanitarian activities that has been located in Dover Plains for the past eleven years. Founded by Sister Maureen of the Westchester’s Sisters of the Divine Compassion, The Center of Compassion runs a food bank, a weekly community lunch, a backpack prog...

Each year on Rotary UN Day, which celebrates the role Rotary had in founding the UN and their continuing relationship, RadioRotary conducts onsite interviews with Rotarians and others attending the event. In this program, the interviews included deal with water purification and desalination, developing a new generation of leaders around the world, the Rotary youth exchange program, and dealing wit...

In a program recorded live at the regular Red Hook Rotary meeting, insurance agents and Rotarians Carl and Bill Dowden discuss the Affordable Care Act (or ACA, sometimes called “Obamacare”), Cyber-Liability Insurance, and Long-Term Care Insurance. They explain how ACA relies on individual insurance companies instead of having a government-run single-payer plan, such as Medicare. While the ACA requ...

Rotary Day at the United Nations celebrates the important role Rotary had in founding the UN and the continuing relationship. Each year on Rotary UN Day, RadioRotary hosts attend and record interviews with attendees. This year the interviews included Freddie Lee Kaplan discussing the Gift of Life, which is the second largest Rotary Foundation program (after PolioPlus). Gift of Life works to fix co...

Norah Merritt (Executive Director of Educational Programs), Barbara Cesario (Coordinator of Related Services), and Leah Pollack (Administrator of the PEACCE program) about the scope of BOCES and its special services. BOCES supplies “solutions, services, and savings” for K-12 students and beyond through three main centers in Poughkeepsie as well as itinerant teachers who work as visitors in all of...

This is the last edition in a series of seven inspiring broadcasts taped at Rotary International’s 2013 Lisbon Convention, where in June thousands of Rotarians from around the world convened to discuss their humanitarian work. In each of the seven broadcasts, Jonah Triebwasser, co-host of RadioRotary, interviewed humanitarian leaders whose organizations save lives through various forms of medical...

While hunting, Ronald Jeffrey Callahan fell from a tree-stand and became a quadriplegic with paralysis from the neck down. Widely known in the Hudson Valley as an avid outdoorsman before and after his injury, today Mr. Callahan is an advocate for personal safety in the outdoors, teaching the next generation of hunters about the fundamentals that will keep them safe. In addition, he is a motivation...

Additional brief updates about the work of many humanitarian organizations with Rotary connections around the world, including Crutches 4 Africa, Hydrotherapy, Project Peanut Butter addressing malnutrition, and more. This program also includes an interview with several Rotary district governors.

Millbrook Rotarian Ellie Savoy, who has studied nutrition for decades, discusses the importance of eating healthy today as a way to avoid ill health tomorrow. Using many powerful comparisons, such as making eating healthy “an investment” in the future, Ms. Savoy explains the chemicalized production of much food today and describes ways to eat and enjoy healthy foods in today’s food environment. Sh...

Founded in 1947 by the Ross family when Dr. Barney Ross bought a farm called Green Chimneys, the Green Chimneys School today has become widely recognized as a superior residential and day center providing high-level treatment for children ages 5–18 with special needs. The school’s goal is to keep children out of psychiatric hospitals and to help them lead healthy, productive lives. Using 400 anima...

More brief updates about the work of many humanitarian organizations around the world and their efforts addressing population and development, child slavery, literacy, Alliance of Smiles (medical missions that save lives through cleft lip and palate surgery), and Wheelchairs for Africa (a Rotary and Lions partnership).

Under the leadership of Vonnie Hubbard, President of Abraham’s Table, an “army” of volunteers provided 23,000 nutritious lunches and 8,000 breakfasts for the children of Newburgh, NY, during the summer of 2013 after school closedt This totals about 1,000 lunches a day distributed throughout the city at public sites such as recreational facilities and pools. Volunteers come from service organizatio...

John Moon, NEADS’ Director of Programs and Communications , describes the organization’s efforts to improve the lives of the hearing impaired and the disabled with service dogs. Started in 1974, NEADS provides specialized training depending on a recipient’s circumstances, such as for hurricane alerts in some parts of the U.S. Service dogs are trained to assist wounded veterans, those with spinal c...

More brief updates about the work of many humanitarian organizations around the world, including their efforts related to International Youth Exchange for developing global friendships, Incubators for Africa, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), ShelterBox, the Hiroshima Peace Project, and Human Rights.

The nonprofit XP Society provides families with support and information needed to help their children suffering from Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP) or other life-threatening sun-sensitivity disorders. XP easily causes skin and eye cancers so families must be very careful about lighting. Caren Mahar, Executive Director and Co-founder with husband Dan of the Society, describes the special accommodations...

More brief updates about the work of many humanitarian organizations around the world and their efforts related to defeating Malaria, providing clean water, sharing value of Youth Exchange, encouraging support for blood banks, describing how Solar Ovens improve lives, and emphasizing the importance of Rotary Peace Fellows.