At Your Service(formerly RadioRotary)

Mental Health America of Dutchess County (MHA) provides many services to the residents of Dutchess County, ranging from the Mobile Crisis Center, sober supported housing, and care management. One of the most wide-reaching group of programs are for veterans. Alyssa Carrion, the Director of Veterans Programs is the guest of Radio Rotary, who describes the several programs MHA offers to vets. Vet2Vet...

Radio Rotary interviews the District 7210 Governor (DG); for Rotary year 2023-24,  Walden Rotarian Peter Sullivan. In addition to the 58 regular Rotary clubs that DG Sullivan shepherds (including the international eClub and the service-oriented Passport club), District 7210 is home to three satellite clubs, small groups sponsored by a Rotary club that plan to grow into regular clubs,  and two Rota...

RadioRotary interviews Branka Bryan, Executive Director of Grace Smith House, a shelter in Dutchess Country for women (and some men) confronted with domestic violence. Grace Smith House started in 1981 and now serves over 2,500 victims each year. In October-- Domestic Violence Awareness Month-- a project designed to dramatize the effects of domestic violence once again is in local galleries in Pou...

Mathew Swerdloff and his wife Elise Gold created the Maya Gold Foundation in honor of their daughter Maya who committed suicide at the age of 15, but the Foundation is involved with more than suicide prevention. After a trip to India, Maya became involved in efforts to stop human trafficking in Nepal. Today the Foundation has developed a close relation with groups in Nepal. The program also featur...

In an exclusive interview, direct from Scotland, Rotary International President Gordon R. McInally chats with RadioRotary about his plans for the coming year.

Millbrook Rotarian Courtney Tsahalis, Director of the Millbrook Library, visits Radio Rotary to talk about how the modern library is much more than books to lend. Although this refers to such services as Internet access, audio and video resources, books online, and even physical objects to lend, in the case of Millbrook Library there are community services beyond those. In partnership with Millbro...

Radio Rotary welcomes Lily Schaub and Jill Rodriquez, who describe the In Flight program that aids persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In Flight, Inc. empowers their clients to support a meaningful quality of life, which can range from developing basic skills to living in a group home (or independently) or to finding satisfying employment. In Flight achieves its mission throu...

Rotarian Christopher Parkinson (Bow, NH, Rotary Club, Past District Governor District 7870, 2007-08) joins Radio Rotary to describe the 7870 District’s 22-year involvement with improving conditions in Honduras, one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere. The project began when a major hurricane destroyed much of Honduras in 1999.  The mission from District 7870 that year revealed the ser...

Radio Rotary welcomes Rotarian Paul Ramunni (and one of his more than 500 accordions) to the program. A few years ago, Mr. Ramunni learned of the connection between musical instruments, especially accordions and concertinas (smaller instruments sometimes called “squeezeboxes”), to the Holocaust. Concentration camp prisoners who played instruments were often used in propaganda bands.  He began to c...

Michelle Martinetti, the founder and CEO of River Valley Arts Center in Wappingers Falls, visits Radio Rotary to tell about the multiple studio spaces for arts and community programs that constitute the Arts Center. Renters and community organizations provide classes and workshops in music, performing arts, visual arts, yoga, kintsugi, photography, culinary arts, language arts, robotics, STEM, and...

Radio Rotary welcomes Ruthanne Becker, Senior Vice President of the Mental  Health Association of Westchester, to discuss the Coordinated Behavioral Health Services (CBHS), a partnership of nine not-for-profit agencies that provide behavioral health and developmental disability services throughout seven counties in the lower Hudson Valley, helping more than 60,000 individuals annually. The mission...

Our guest was Past District Governor Tony Marmo. May 2023 was a big month for Rotary District 7210. First were a series of Membership meetings on May 15-18.  Each night there was a free dinner at a restaurant in the eight-county, free not only for a person interested in learning more about Rotary but also free for the Rotarian bringing that person to the dinner. Each dinner was held in a restauran...

Live from Locavore in Red Hook, this Radio Rotary show features the annual Apple Blossom Day, the Mother’s Day weekend street festival that starts the spring-summer season in Red Hook and Tivoli with hundreds of food and craft vendors and live music by local bands. President-Elect Adriane Monterre, chair of Apple Blossom Day 2023,describes the array of entertainers, food trucks, community organiza...

For this program, Community Educator Dora Celestino, for CAPE (the Council on Addiction Prevention & Education in Dutchess County) returns to Radio Rotary along with Preventiin Coordinator MaryAlice Kovatch, for the Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Council of Orange County, join Radio Rotary to talk about a new program, Team Teen, also known as Teen Intervene. The purpose of the program is to delay...

Radio Rotary interviews Brett Bernardini, a former Rotarian and now the Executive Director of the The Stissing Center, a place for arts located in a restored 1915 building, the largest structure in Pine Plains, New York.  Although Pine Plains is set amid the farm country of Dutchess County, the Stissing Center and some high-class restaurants and other businesses are making it one of the cultural a...

Radio Rotary is visited by El Dorado Hills, CA, Rotarian Bill Tobin, Rotary Relations Manager for ShelterBox USA, ShelterBox started with Rotarians from the Helston-Lizard club in the United Kingdom. In 2000, these Rotarians observed the many disasters reported in the news and developed the idea of providing a basic tool kit to help family’s recover. The idea, promoted by Rotarians around the worl...

Fishkill Rotarian Vicki Kessler joins co-hosts Jonah Triebwasser and Sara Claitor- O’Conner to present the Rotary Day of Service, an idea developed by Robert Friend of the Madison (CT) Rotary Club, who previously had created the Million Mask Project for Rotary Clubs to donate face masks during the covid epidemic. On one day each year (May 20 in 2023) all the Rotary clubs that are participating wil...

Wappingers Falls Rotarians Steve Crew and Sue Bennett visit Radio Rotary to promote the annual festival, A Cup of The Valley, co-sponsored by the Rotary Club of Poughkeepsie South, Harney & Sons Fine Teas, and Greenwood Lake Roasters Craft Coffee. Attendees can sample fine teas and coffees along with pastries and other local delicacies and also purchase these products to bring home. There is a...

Radio Rotary hosts Mike Carber of the MARC Foundation Board of Directors to learn about programs funded by the Foundation and its coming fundraising events. The MARC Foundation, which grew out of the MARC Agency (now a part of Mental Health of America of Dutchess Country), funds programs and organizations that support addiction prevention and recovery, including addiction to alcohol or other drugs...

From Greystone Programs Tracilyn Vaticano, Assistant Executive Director and Samara Enders, Director of Philanthropy, report to Radio Rotary about the charity’s annual Leap for Autism and other aspects of Greystone’s work with autistic individuals. Since 1979 Greystone Programs has provided essential community-based and residential services and life-enriching opportunities to more than 600 children...

RadioRotary interviews Laura Lane, Poughkeepsie program coordinator for Literacy Connections of the Hudson Valley. Literacy Connections uses a state-approved tutoring program with trained volunteers to help adults gain reading skills and to tutor immigrants who have poor or no English. The services of Literary Connections are free; the organization is supported by donations from individuals, found...

Rotarian Jim Elliott (Downers Grove, Illinois) took the lesson he had learned in a college course in scuba {Self-Controlled Underwater Breathing Apparatus) to found what has become a worldwide. volunteer-driven organization focused on building confidence and independence in disabled children, adults and veterans. The program, Diveheart, provides this help by teaching disabled persons scuba diving...

Andrew O’Grady, CEO of Mental Health America of Dutchess County (MHA) visits Radio Rotary to introduce “Mental Health First Aid,” an eight-hour course that  that teaches ways to identify, understand, and respond to signs of a mental health or substance use problem. Similar to physical First Aid and CPR, Mental Health First Aid helps a trainee assist someone in a mental health or substance use...

Radio Rotary welcomes Rotarians Boe Loendorf (Cairo Durham Rotary) and Elena Mosley (Hudson Rotary), part of the eight-member Committee for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Rotary District 7210. The members of this committee are fanning out through District 7210, helping Rotary Clubs increase their commitment to DEI. Rotary was once an international club whose members were primarily wealt...

Hyde Park Rotarians Richard Mattocks, 2022-23 club president, and John Vanderlee are interviewed on Radio Rotary about their club’s activities, focusing mainly on a comedy night at Coppola’s Hyde Park restaurant to support Rotary’s Polio Plus program, which is making great strides toward eradicating polio completely throughout the world. The comedy night program will feature two well-known stand-u...