Pleasant Valley Food Pantry (Aired on January 8, 2023)

           

Radio Rotary interviews Steve Gessner, Chairman of the Pleasant Valley Ecumenical Food Pantry. This is a local community food pantry sponsored by the four local churches in the hamlet of Pleasant Valley, NY. We serve the hungry and needy families in the district surrounding my local community. The Pleasant Valley Food Pantry is an agency the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley, purchasing most of the food it distributes from the Food Bank at a discount. It distributes free food and items of person hygiene to about four hundred persons during a ninety-minute window each Wednesday. Families can choose the foods or supplied they want from a menu, although all get a package of fresh produce and bread along with their order. While 80% of the food distributed is from the Food Bank, the remainder is donated by individuals and groups such as the Pleasant Valley Rotary Club, which runs a food drive to fill a bus or truck with donations several times each year. The food pantry is an entirely volunteer effort with fifty or more local residents volunteering each week.

Learn More:
Pleasant Valley Ecumenical Food Pantry: https://www.nyconnects.ny.gov/services/pleasant-valley-ecumenical-food-pantry-sofa34725
Food Bank of the Hudson Valley: https://foodbankofhudsonvalley.org/
Pleasant Valley Rotary Club: https://rotarydistrict7210.org/clubinfo/pleasant-valley

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January 26, 2023 · Posted in Nutrition, Rotary Club Projects  

Sparrow’s Nest: Caring for Families (Aired on November 20, 2021)

         

 

The Sparrow’s Nest charity that provides meals to the families of persons experiencing cancer is planning a big expansion, Krista Jones returns to RadioRotary with news of a $50,000 grant from Astra-Zenica and a vision of the charity’s future. When a good friend developed stage-4 colon cancer, Ms. Jones recognized that cancer affects the whole family and began to provide daily meals
for her friend’s family. Today, with mostly volunteer help, her Sparrow’s Nest charity provides two free meals a day for some 300 cancer-affected families in the mid-Hudson with children under 18. Ms. Jones still manages to do all the cooking herself, but Sparrow’s Nest has moved from Ms. Jones’ kitchen to a professional kitchen and office in a commercial space. The hope is to obtain a
new site where vegetables and perhaps chickens can be raised to provide even healthier local food to its clients. Donations, including those through several annual events such as a 5-k walk, are needed to make the dream of a small farm for the charity come true.

Learn More:
Sparrow’s Nest: http://sparrowsnestcharity.org/
Sparrow’s Nest Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/oursparrowsnest/
Nutrition and Cancer Treatment: https://www.cancer.org/treatment/survivorship-during-and-after-treatment/staying-active/nutrition.html

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December 26, 2022 · Posted in Health, Nutrition, Service Organizations, Volunteers  

Food of Life/ Comida de Vida (Aired on Sept. 11, 2022)

The Radio Rotary team visited Millbrook Rotary at the Millbrook Café to broadcast a show about the Food of Life/Comida de Vida food pantry run by Amenia’s St. Thomas Episcopal Church. Interviewees included AJ Stack, who is not only Rector of the Church but also the current president of Millbrook Rotary; Jim Wright, co-warden and facility manager of the church who was among the founders of Food of Life in 2009; co-warden Samantha Lucas; and newly hired manager of the pantry, Danny Hutnick. Radio Rotary co-host Sarah O’Connell-Claitor, a member of Millbrook Rotary and a parishioner of St. Thomas, was able to add her own observations. The Food of Life pantry started in the church, grew and moved to the parish house, grew more and moved to the parking lot, where today there is a new building that houses the operation. Next door is The Giving Garden, started in 2014, which supplies most of the fresh vegetables dispensed by the pantry, which currently helps feed 300 families each week.

Learn More:
Food of Life/ Comida de Vida: https://stthomasamenia.com/comida-de-vida-food-of-life-pantry/
St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Amenia Union: https://stthomasamenia.com/
Millbrook Rotary: https://millbrookrotary.org/
Millbrook Café: https://themillbrookcafe.com/

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September 26, 2022 · Posted in Nutrition, Service Organizations  

Rotary 2022 Convention in Houston – part 2 (Aired on July 17, 2022)

Once again Radio Rotary reports from the annual Rotary Convention, this year in Houston, TX, where Dave and Kathy Kruger interviewed representatives of organizations that work with Rotary to make a difference in the world. Stephen Popper, president and CEO of Meals of Hope, tells about how that organization partners with Rotary clubs to pack five different nutritious meals for food pantries to disperse. Razia Jan relates the story of how she, as an Afghan native living in Massachusetts, came to found two free schools to educated girls and women in
Afghanistan, still thriving despite the Taliban government. Gemma Sisia used her Rotary connections to found the School of St. Jude, which educates nearly 2,000 impoverished Africans annually as well as supplying volunteer teachers for Tanzanian government school. President and CEO of Mediators Beyond Borders, Prabha Sankaranarayan leads Mediators Beyond Borders International, an official Service Partner of Rotary International that has been working for peace since 1910. The fifteen international Service Partner—organizations such as ShelterBox and Habitat for Humanity—work closely with Rotary but also maintain separate chartable operations.

Learn More:
Houston Rotary Convention: https://convention.rotary.org/en/houston
Meals of Hope: https://mealsofhope.org/
Razia’s Ray of Hope: https://raziasrayofhope.org/
School of St. Jude: https://www.schoolofstjude.org/
Mediators Beyond Boarders International: https://mediatorsbeyondborders.org/
Service Partners of Rotary International: https://my.rotary.org/en/learning-reference/about-rotary/partners

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