Rebuilding Together Rehabilitates Homes (Aired January 11 and 12, 2020)

RadioRotary interviews Poughkeepsie South Rotary president Christina Boryk, executive
director of Rebuilding Together Dutchess County. Rebuilding Together is the nonprofit
organization (once known as “Christmas in July”) that for the past 27 years has repaired,
revitalized, and rehabilitated homes for homeowners who because of age or disability or poverty
are unable to make the necessary repairs that would make the dwelling safe and healthy. The
service is free to the homeowner. The volunteer workers install grab bars, ramps, and smoke
and carbon-dioxide alarms, and make other modifications as well as undertake minor repairs.
Larger-scale projects are handled by outside contractors. They have repaired more than 800
homes since the program started. The program is funded by state and local grants, by local
corporations such as Central Hudson, and donations.

Learn more
Rebuilding Together Dutchess County: http://www.rebuildingtogetherdutchess.org/
Rebuilding Together Dutchess on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RTDutchess/
Office for the Aging, Dutchess County: https://www.dutchessny.gov/Departments/Aging/Office-for-the-Aging.htm
National Center for Healthy Housing: https://nchh.org/build-the-movement/nshhc/
Poughkeepsie South Rotary Club: https://portal.clubrunner.ca/50045/clubinfo/poughkeepsie-south

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January 20, 2020 · Posted in Aging, Dutchess County, Housing Assistance, Service Organizations, Volunteers  

Rotarian Climbs Everest–Partway (Aired January 4 and 5, 2020)

New Paltz Rotarian Laura Rooney has had many adventures all over the world, but she still had
Mount Everest on her “bucket list” until recently when she turned 50 and thought it was time to
get on with it. Not quite true mountain climbers, some 40,000 persons each year hike far up
Everest with no desire to use the special equipment most climbers need to reach the 27,000-ft-
high peak—Everest Base Camp is high enough, at 17,500 feet, for serious hikers; it is some
3,000 feet higher than the highest peak in the lower 48 states. Ms. Rooney describes what it is
like to fly into Lukla, Nepal, arriving at the most dangerous airport in the world. Then, with
Sherpas as guides, she walked 4 or 5 miles for 8 days up the mountain for a rise in elevation of
8,000 more feet to reach Everest Base Camp, spending the nights in various villages or camps
along the way. She was part of a small group of 15 trekkers who slept on mats in small dome
tents. When they reached Everest Base Camp, they were living on a glacier. Being a Rotarian,
she got people to sponsor her hike by donating to the New Paltz Rotary’s BackPack Program,
and she wore ribbons honoring the contributors on her own backpack as she climbed. Downhill
was easier, only a 4-day hike.

Learn more
New Paltz Rotary Club: https://www.newpaltzrotary.org/
Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Lukla: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2019/07/20/lukla-the-worlds-most-dangerous-airport/-36e71e064a1a
Everest Base Camp Trek: https://ebctrekguide.com/
Living at Everest Base Camp: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/2019/05/everest-base-camp-daily-life/

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January 20, 2020 · Posted in Rotary Club Projects, Travel  

Cari Swanson, Horse Listener (Aired December 28 and 29, 2019)

RadioRotary often discovers remarkable people living in the mid-Hudson region who are not
well known to the general population. Cari Swanson of Wind Rock Farm in Amenia is an
example. When asked if she is a horse whisperer, she replies that she is a horse listener.
Whatever you call it, she is able to train horses to act in movies and on television as well as
teaching rescued horses how to live with and work for humans. Among her horse’s credits are
the white angel horse from the movie Winter’s Tale and the various horses that make a setting
in the year 1900 authentic on Cinemax’s series The Knick. Ms. Swanson’s horse rescue
operation is the focus of the interview. The seven abused horses that she trains at any given
time at the nonprofit Red Horse Rescue will eventually move to their permanent homes when
they have been restored to physical and mental health. There are many ways that horses have
helped humans over the past 6,000 years. Among them, Ms. Swanson and her horses provide
equine-assisted psychotherapy to veterans and autistic children.

Learn more
Cari Swanson enterprises: http://cariswanson.com/
Red Horse Rescue: https://www.redhorserescue.org/
Windrock Farm on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Millbrook-windrock-Farm/1751097151842692
Equine Assisted Psychotherapy–Eagala: https://www.eagala.org/index

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January 5, 2020 · Posted in Animals, Arts & Letters, Mental Health  

Sue Doyle’s Volunteer Projects (Aired December 21 and 22, 2019)

Sue Doyle of the Poughkeepsie Arlington Rotary Club was given the 2019 Tansukh Dorawala
Humanitarian Award of Rotary District 7210 for her service to the community. This RadioRotary
Program covers some of the ways that Ms. Doyle, known to regular RadioRotary listeners as
the voice of Absolute Auction & Realty, works with other volunteers in several organizations.
Fishkill Food Pantry serves about 200 families in southern Dutchess Country and Cold Spring
with 5-day emergency meals, available once every 28 days. Their healthy food is provided in
part by the Food Bank of Dutchess County but mostly by local donations directly to the pantry in
downtown Fishkill. The Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) of Beacon is a no-kill refuge for dogs
and cats that stay until a family adopts the pet for a permanent home. Not only does ARF of
Beacon provide food and medicine for locally abandoned pets, it also collects unwanted dogs
and cats who otherwise would be killed from animal shelters across the country. In addition to
her work with the Fishkill Food Pantry and ARF of Beacon, Ms. Doyle has been an asset to the
Pleasant Valley Free Library by providing company trucks needed to move books, along with
her husband Rob Doyle will be honorary chair of the MARC Foundation 2020 Annual Dinner,
and helps her Rotary club bring assistance of Caramia Bacchiochi’s Hope on a Mission, which
provides meals each week for Poughkeepsie’s homeless population.

Learn more
Fishkill Food Pantry on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FishkillFoodPantry/
Animal Rescue Foundation of Beacon: https://www.arfbeacon.org/
ARF in Beacon on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arfanimalrescue/
Poughkeepsie Arlington Rotary: http://rotary7210.org/arlington/index.html
MARC Foundation: https://marc-foundation.org/

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January 5, 2020 · Posted in Addiction Recovery, Animals, Homelessness, Humanitarian Service, Nutrition, Service Organizations, Volunteers  

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