RadioRotary

RadioRotary presents several interviews from the 2016 Rotary United Nations Day, this time centering on the activities of Rotary District 7210, the home of RadioRotary. Lou Turpin (Rhinebeck Rotary), the 2016-17 District Governor, starts the program off, emphasizing his view that the essence of Rotary can be summed up as “Do Good. Have Fun.” His interview is followed by chats with students from Red Hook Interact and Rhinebeck Interact clubs, along with Linda Greenblatt, a Rotarian advisor to the Red Hook Club. Interact Clubs in high schools are sponsored by, but run independently from, a local Rotary Club; their mission is the same as Mr. Turpin proposes, doing good and having fun. Another set of interviews brings Millbrook Rotarian Kim Sweck , who supervises Rotary Youth Exchange for Millbrook, and two of the students who have come from Italy and Brazil to spend a school year in the United States.

RadioRotary interview Lieutenants Brett White and Thomas Frost of the Citizens Preparedness Corp of the New York State National Guard. Their task is to present programs encouraging people to become prepared for encountering a disaster, whether it is natural (such as floods, storms, or fires), criminal (such as a terrorist attack), or technological (such as a power blackout). Although the disasters vary widely, many of the same steps can be taken to minimize their negative impacts. The main element is to have a plan, one that includes a central meeting place for family members and a survival kit that includes not only food and water stored for household use, but also a “go bag” of necessary supplies to take with you if you need to flee. This is one of those programs that could someday save your live or the lives of your loved ones.

ShelterBox is a major initiative for disaster relief that is affiliated with Rotary International. Simply put, a ShelterBox is a tent and necessary supplies for up to ten people, all packed into a waterproof one-meter plastic cube. That is a good thing, but what makes ShelterBox effective in disaster relief are trained teams that can bring the ShelterBox cubes to the site of a disaster and teach locals how to use them. Because most cities and towns around the world have Rotary clubs, the ShelterBox teams have connections even in remote sites, such as the mountains of Nepal or smaller cities in Haiti, which enables the team to get the equipment to the right place faster than practically any other relief organization. Many Rotary clubs in District 7210 provide the $1,000 per box it takes to assemble a ShelterBox.

Once again, RadioRotary takes its microphone to Rotary Day at the United Nations for a series of interviews with persons from organizations “doing good in the world.” Lakeway/Lake Travis (TX) Rotarian Barker Keith discusses the Rotary 3D Limbs project, which is using 3D printing to produce prosthetics, especially new legs, for amputees, especially in Africa. Dr. Linda J. Stillman , who teaches at several colleges, is the founder and president of the Young Global Leadership Foundation, which guides aspiring youth leaders from around the world to become global citizens and democratic leaders towards a peaceful, prosperous and positive global society in the 21st Century, primarily through provision of volunteer mentors.

Millbrook Rotary 2016-17 President Rona Boyer worked around the world before settling in Millbrook, where she started using her sales and publishing and cooking experience to shore up The Millbrook Independent during its brief run as a weekly. Today she is at the helm of two different “micropublishing” monthly magazines— Living Millbrook and Living Rhinebeck . Micropublishing is a concept promoted by Best Version Media, which handles the production of the magazines, while Ms. Boyer supplies text, photos, and advertisers. The main idea is to focus on people and happenings within a half-hour of a specific village or town. Living Millbrook , delivered free to all Millbrook residents, often has featured cover stories on Millbrook Rotarians. As leader of Millbrook Rotary, Ms. Boyer has presided over the 2017 New Year’s Eve Millbrook and directed a major initiative to provide school supplies to needy student in Millbrook and nearby Webutuck.

The annual Rotary Day at the United Nations each year brings together some 1,500 Rotarians along with various youth groups and representatives of humanitarian organizations who work with Rotarians. For this program, RadioRotary interviewed Mitch Kahn from ShelterBox; Rotarian Steve Goldsmith (Hawthorne LAX Lennox Rotary) and Prabha Sankaranarayan from Mediators Beyond Borders; and Rotarian-wannabe Anna Abraham representing The Gift of Life, Inc. ShelterBox, whose emphasis is disaster relief, is now a Rotary Project Partner. When Mediators Beyond Boarders looked at their members, who work for peace between individuals, tribes, and nations, they discovered that a quarter of its membership is Rotarians. The Gift of Life, which specialized in providing pediatric cardiac care to children in places where such help is scarce, frequently partners with Rotary clubs or districts in their work.

Ambassadorial Scholarships are the oldest program of the Rotary Foundation, having provided the opportunity for graduate study to over 42,000 students who have studied international relations in over 60 nations. Rotarian Susan Davis (Rotary District 7210 E-Club), who grew up in the swamps outside of New Orleans became one of the recipients and attended Oxford University in the UK in 1980-81, leading to a career in using nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to fight poverty in Bangladesh (with BRAC) and around the world. In this RadioRotary Interview, recorded live from West Point, where Ms. Davis appeared at the annual Rotary Foundation gala along with District 7210 Past-President Bill Bassett, she tells about her experience with Rotary and her work with microfinancing as a way to improve lives.

RadioRotary interviews Laurie Swartz and Rev. Lynda Carré about the Death Cafés they help run as part of Circle of Friends for the Dying in Ulster and Dutchess Counties. A Death Café is a gathering of a few people in a home, a church, a restaurant, or other venue where the conversation over tea or coffee and cake is all about dying. Our population is growing older every year and death will come to all of us—many who are not very old die as well—but few are prepared for it and many don’t even want to think or talk about it. The Death Café experience, often with a speaker, is offered about once a month at various locations around Ulster and Dutchess counties. A new project for the Circle of Friends for the Dying is a home in Kingston where a person who lives alone and is close to dying will be able to live with one or two others, which many would prefer to dying in a hospital or nursing home or dying alone at home.

Rotarian Joyce Heaton (Millbrook Rotary), who has chaired the annual event New Year’s Eve Millbrook for 13 years, describes the family-friendly way that the Millbrook community and visitors celebrate the last day of each year—with music, puppets, circus and magic acts, and other entertainments. Many local foundations, businesses, and individuals fund the free event, but it is run almost entirely by volunteers from Millbrook Rotary. Each year patrons can donate a small sum to obtain a lighted button that incorporates a design by a local student. The RadioRotary interview also describes some of the many other activities of Millbrook Rotary, which range from annual publication of a business directory for Millbrook and the surrounding communities through provision of local school children with school supplies their families might be able to afford to donations of free dictionaries and other books to local schools. The club also helps fund local organizations and international projects.

Heather Iannucci and her family recognized in 1993 that their collection of animals was of interest to children and many adults as well, so they formed the Two by Two Zoo to be a traveling petting experience. Soon they began to acquire other animals, often pets that their owners could no longer care for, but also animals rescued by agencies such as the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA), which also registers the traveling zoo. Today the zoo is run by Heather and her daughter Jennifer (Mr. Iannucci works at a regular job) and concentrates on providing petting experiences as schools, libraries, and similar institutions in the Hudson Valley. For the RadioRotary interview, Mrs. Iannucci was accompanied by Sydney, a young kangaroo who said little during the program.

New York State Senator Sue Serino, chair of the Aging Committee, spoke to RadioRotary about telephone and Internet scams aimed at seniors, and how to avoid them. One of the most common recently in her district has been a phone call pretending to be from the IRS. The caller says that the person receiving the call is delinquent on back taxes and must pay immediately or will be sent to jail. Such a call is always a scam—the IRS does not phone delinquent payers. Another common phone scam aimed at the elderly is for the caller to pretend to be a grandchild in trouble. One clue is that the caller asks for money to be sent as a prepaid card or wired to an address that can be a drop-off. Many more scams, and how to avoid them, are discussed.

RadioRotary interviews Holly Gaiman, Development Coordinator at InFlight, Inc., which supplies residential facilities, including group homes and apartments, for people with developmental disabilities. Its mission is to ensure the people it supports reach their highest level of independence and inclusion into the community while living in a home setting. InFlight operates throughout much of the mid-Hudson region, providing not only a home but also vocational services, art and music programs, activities of many kinds, and even the Can Do Café in Catskill, where residents meet to prepare the food. The residents served must be 22 years old or older and may be on the autism spectrum, have been born intellectually disabled, or suffer from brain damage. InFlight is supported by New York State’s Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD).

Vassar-Haiti Project Update (Aired on October 26 and 27, 2016) In response to the September 11, 2001, attack Andrew Meade, director of international students at Vassar College, and his wife Lila wanted to start a project that would do good in the world. Both had family ties to Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, so that is where their impulse took them. For fifteen years, the Vassar-Haiti project the started and still direct has improved the lives of Haitians in the remote village of Chermaitre, starting with building and staffing a school. Today Chermaitre and the surrounding area is also served by a clinic that is part of the project. Vassar junior Clairiola Etienne, who is the director of the health initiative, and Lila Meade are the guests on RadioRotary for this program. The Vassar-Haiti project is now working to provide clean water for Chermaitre thanks to a global grant of $55,000 from The Rotary Foundation, sponsored locally by the Poughkeepsie-Arlington and Pe

Pleasant Valley Rotarian Kathy Kruger is not only the producer of RadioRotary, but she is also a registered nurse. In this interview, Ms. Kruger tells our regular co-hosts the facts about how Rotary, working the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF, has reduced the incidence of the paralyzing disease polio from an annual toll of about 1,000 cases a day to fewer than 75 per year. At the time of this broadcast, as a result of a vaccination program carried out largely by Rotarian volunteers polio had been eliminated everywhere but for two nations: Pakistan and Afghanistan. But, Ms. Kruger warns, until Rotary and its partners complete the task of complete elimination—now just “this close”—the disease could be just an airplane ride away from where you are.

Jonah Triebwasser and RadioRotary Producer Kathy Kruger interview Police Chief Daniel Waage of the Town of Lloyd in Ulster County about his program of community policing. Community policing is a law-enforcement philosophy that involves the systematic use of community partnerships to address proactively the conditions that give rise to crime, social disorder, or fear of police. Chief Waage has followed this philosophy from the 2012 start of his work in Lloyd, focusing especially on helping children (and their parents) and senior citizens. The Lloyd Police, working on their own time, produce or participate in fundraising events for local needs. Chief Waage has also instituted programs such as Project CARE, which checks daily on the status of enrolled senior citizens. Educational outreach is provided through classes in such topics as active shooter response training and forums and classes dealing with narcotics abuse. Community involvement includes a Lloyd police sergeant who is a member