RadioRotary

The name “Dutchess Outreach” does not tell much about the organization’s mission, which is to meet the basic needs of low-income people when no other resources are readily available. To this end Dutchess Outreach runs the major food pantry in Dutchess County; a traveling “green market” for fresh fruits and vegetables; the Lunch Box, which provides healthy hot lunches and dinners; and a winter coat drive. RadioRotary gets the details from Joe Conti, President of the Board of Directors, and Brian Riddell, Executive Director of Dutchess Outreach. Also on the show, Ken Moody, Chairman of the Dutchess Interfaith Crop Walk. tells how that annual event supports the local food pantries and soup kitchens.

Vietnam vets and Spring Valley Rotarians Howard Goldin and Ed Frank return to RadioRotary with news of the latest developments for Schools to End Poverty (S.T.E.P), the organization they founded after their 2005 visit to Vietnam, where they lunched with the former opposition and developed a plan for helping Vietnamese children by building a school. Elsewhere in Vietnam, they have built two more schools, and they have embarked on programs in Jamaica, Honduras, and Ghana as well. Today the schools they built in Vietnam have more than 500 students in grades K-6 and, with the help of Rotary District 7210, they are working toward expanding the original school to take in another 500. The expansion of the original school is estimated to cost $82,000, a sum that 7210 District Governor Nick Constantino has vowed to raise.

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 this for all kinds of pets, including birds, rabbits, rats, and Guinea pigs, as well as dogs and cats), but there are many other services. A low-cost clinic, open to the public, provides routine veterinarian care for all sorts of pets. There is outreach to schools, humane law enforcement, a pet cemetery and crematorium, and a lost and found service. There is even a Pet Pantry, a food bank for pet food. Learn about this and more, as well as how to become one of the more than 200 volunteers that make the Dutchess SPCA work.

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 Nicaragua, he mixed an academic career with work for nonprofits, including Rotary International. A polio victim himself, he has volunteered to administer vaccine in Africa. He has worked with Rotary to organized peace forums in ten countries around the world. From his Nicaragua connection, he helped start the major commitment that Rhinebeck’s Interact Club has made to schools, pure water, and other improvements in rural León Province. A truly remarkable Rotarian.

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 using either kind of opiate is overdose, which frequently leads to death. Susan Salomone’s son Justin, who struggled with opiate addiction for ten years, was among those who died from an overdose, leading Mrs. Salomone to start “Drug Crisis in Our Backyard,” a community action organization that provides resources for dealing with addiction. In this RadioRotary interview, Mrs. Salomone tells Justin’s story and presents the facts about opiate addiction.

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 the functionally illiterate to teach them the specific skills they need for a given goal, such as passing a driver’s test. They also can teach English as a Second Language (ESL). Before a learner enters the program—which is free—they are evaluated by certified testers to determine the specific source of their difficulties. In a separate program called “Book Buddies,” volunteers read to children in schools. Volunteers for either program can be anyone who is able to read and write comfortably.

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 where they work for a week on building and improving schools in impoverished rural villages. Under the supervision of a local foreman, the students bend rebar, mix cement, lay bricks, paint, and perform other basic construction tasks. Local workers continue the process. This is the second school that Rhinebeck Interact students have help build. Listen to these two enthusiastic girls tell about their work and their other Nicaraguan adventures.

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 Washington Monument, and have the message “May Peace prevail upon the Earth” in 80 languages. Another project is the Peace Bell, related to the Peace Bell permanently placed in Hiroshima, Japan. Rotary, which has Peace as one of its six areas of service, has over 500 different ways to symbolize Peace, and among the examples are over 200,000 Peace Poles worldwide.

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 local charitable causes, including defibrillators for various locations around Highland (one of which saved a customer having a heart attack at the diner where the Rotary meets). Each year the Ribfest brings the best in barbecue to the Ulster County Fairground in New Paltz, along with children’s activities and specialty booths of all kinds.

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, who hesitated at first but then approved and now agree with Abby that it was one of the best things she could do. Her father, Bard College Professor Dr. James Romm, briefly joins the RadioRotary interview with Ms. Ram and reports that now Abby is a citizen of the world as a result of the Youth Exchange experience. Listen to the show for her account of her exciting exchange year.

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 (Remove Intoxicated Drivers), a chapter of RID-USA. On this program Mr. Johnson and RID volunteer Rich Silva describe tools used to keep intoxicated drivers from repeating their crime and ways that parents can reduce the risk that their children will be perpetrators or victims. They also describe the annual events that Dutchess RID sponsors as memorials to victims, as well as a fundraiser featuring antique automobiles.

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. Her best-selling book tells how she did that for herself and how the reader can do the same. The key is to invest in yourself by eating real food.

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, Brewster, Patterson, and Lake Mahopac, is on July 24-26 this year (2015). CCE-Putnam is the sponsor of all the 4-H groups in the county. Manion has been involved with 4-H for years, although she is into community service (the Teen Action Group TAG) and puppeteering, not animal husbandry. The Fair will have 4-H-raised animals, however, as well as lots of food, with 4-H lemonade one of the specialties.

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 division of finances, care of children, and financial support after divorce. Mediators who handle divorce are usually lawyers themselves, while other trained mediators who deal with issues such as property disputes may be psychologists or social workers. A phone call to 845-471-6167 costs nothing and provides a way for the process to be explained. For later sessions, including the initial consultation meeting, the parties are charged on a per-session basis.

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 trafficking, the use of force or fraud to cause humans to provide labor or sex against their will. In this radio interview, Ms. Yanks tells the powerful story of how the Blue Butterfly Foundation was founded and named. She urges listeners to become aware that their pursuit of evermore inexpensive items and food is contributing to this international tragedy.