Burnt Hills Ballston Lake Rotary

To help our neighbors during tough times, the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Rotary Club has placed a food donation bin at Gil’s Garage’s Burnt Hills location. Club members will pick up the items weekly and deliver them to a local food pantry. Please consider dropping off non-perishable food items for this ongoing service project. Your donations are most appreciated!

If anyone knows someone eligible, please participate.

Looking to make a difference in your community? Here’s a great opportunity!

This year's Polio Polar Plunge will look different, but we're looking forward to having fun and raising money to eradicate polio! Please contribute if you can!

This wonderful story was shared by BH-BL Rotary club member, Walter Grattidge, at last night's Rotary meeting. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Happy New Year! "I Experienced a Scottish New Year's Day Ritual" by Walter Grattidge It was the Christmas Season of 1942 and I was a student at the University of Manchester, at that time it was called Owens College. I was 18, and taking Physics and so had a deferment from the draft. I was also a member of the Student Christian... Movement, a Protestant religious organization on campus. We were on Christmas break and the national SCM had arranged a nation-wide student conference at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A fellow SCM member, a girl named Margaret, two years older than I and a medical student, decided that we would attend the conference. So, two days after Christmas, we hitch hiked our way from Manchester to St. Andrews (not that you would think of doing such a thing now a days). Over New Year's Eve, there was a conference get-together, at which we noted the passing of the year with due solemnity, and the two of us began walking back to our temporary digs. As we walked down a street, completely in the dark, since it was war-time with its mandated blackout, an older lady quietly accosted us. She was standing outside her front door which bordered on the street with no driveway. Do you have dark hair? she enquired, and after I replied in the affirmative, she said "Then take that scuttle full of coal and walk through the house and drop it at the back door." This I did and returned to the street after the lady thanked me profusely, we went on our way to our digs, thinking we had been able to keep some Celtic Monsters at bay for one more year. After consulting Wikipedia, under Scottish New Year Rituals, I discovered that I was a party to a First Footing, in which a dark-haired man is the first to walk through the house carrying one of a variety of objects, including coal, salt or whisky. Coal will denote warmth for the house throughout the coming year, and salt for good health. While the Wikipedia article fails to identify the origin of the ritual, I personally think the dark haired man is the clue. St. Andrews is situated in the east coast of England and Scotland and was probably the subject to raids by Vikings in the 300 to 800 AD period, and Viking men were known to have blond hair. Ever since then, I'm sure, single woman householders would feel more comfortable knowing there was a Celtic warrior in their neighborhood. Looking back, I'm now too far away and my hair has turned white, so I can no longer fill the role. I'll have to celebrate the coming New Year's Day watching the Ball Drop - an American ritual. 12/26/2020

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! With teamwork, grunt work, and individual generosity, BH-BL Rotary Club members collectively donated $1,500 and saved and mailed 4,400 books in 294 cartons to military hospitals and rehabilitation centers throughout the United States! Many thanks to members of the public who donated books and funds. At this time the collection program has been suspended.

#BHBLRotary and friends sorted seeds donated to Seeds for Peace, a non-profit group providing vegetable and flower seeds as well as garden tools for war and weather ravaged people in many nations. This hands-up approach enables war-weary and storm-stricken people to feed themselves, to regain human dignity and even to work peacefully beside those they once called enemies. More info on their FB page and seedsforpeace.org.

For those who know an eligible Town of Glenville high school senior.

When we all work together marvelous things can happen!

#BHBLRotary is proud to call Silas Schrader a member. Many thanks to the community for their contributions which will help so many people in need.

Thanks to #BHBLSchoolDistrict, #BHUMC and the general public for helping #BHBLRotary create hundreds of cards to be distributed to residents at Saratoga Center Rehab and Skilled Nursing Care (formerly Maplewood Manor). The outpouring of love will certainly help in these difficult times. Below are just a few. To learn more about this nationwide project suporting nursing homes in many locations, check out the website- caringbycard.com or Facebook-Nursing Home Card Project.

We hope you enjoy this video of our Community Holiday Parade! Thanks for those who made it so special!

Thanks to the BHBL BPA, BHBL school district, Friends of the Library, BHBL HS Interact Club and, of course, Santa Claus, for making the drive through Meet Santa a great success!

BHBL Rotary is proud to support The Charlton School in their very important innovative programs.

Thanks to Schrader and Company for serving as our collection point.

Thanks to BHBL Rotary and the public for all the donations to our multiple recent projects. Over 100 coats were donated to the City Mission. If you have a new or gently used coat (child to adult sizes), please bring it to Schrader and Co 850 Saratoga Rd Burnt Hills 7:30-4pm. Cards for residents at Saratoga Center for Rehab and Skilled Nursing Care (formerly Maplewood Manor) may be dropped off at Gil’s Garage 817 Saratoga Rd Burnt Hills. The Books for Troops have been sent to various VA facilities for use by the patients.

#BHBLRotary is participating in the Caring By Card project where simple homemade cards are sent to residents at the Saratoga Center for Rehab and Skilled Nursing Care in Ballston Spa. Started by Rachel Bennett, originally from Glens Falls, to help her mother, the idea has spread. Visiting in nursing homes, if it happens at all, is very restricted and recreation programs have been suspended. The social isolation and loneliness residents are feeling is painful and unprecedented. A card collection box is located at Gil's Garage 817 Saratoga Rd Burnt Hills. The cards can be created by all ages. A great family project! For more information, please visit caringbycard.com.

#BHBLRotary is helping the City Mission with their 2020 coat drive. The need is greater than ever! All sizes of new or gently used coats for men, women and children are needed. Donations may be dropped off at Schrader and Company Construction Services 850 Saratoga Rd Burnt Hills 8AM-4PM Monday-Friday, through November 2. Donations may also be dropped off at the City Mission Administration Office (425 Hamilton Street Schenectady NY 12305), Monday - Friday 8am-4pm or at their Distribution Center (11 Cheltingham Ave Rotterdam NY 12306), Monday through Friday 9am-3pm. We know the temperatures will begin to drop soon, so the quicker we can have the coats, the better!

The BHBL Rotary Club will be holding its annual 5K race virtually this year in 2020. This race raises funds that go directly back into the community through sch...olarships, town beautification projects, food bank donations and other community service projects. Link to zippyreg registration page is below. This year you can complete the 5K on your own time and at your own pace over the extended time period. You also have the option to upload your run/walk times, but this is not a requirement. Once the race period is complete we will hold a pick up event for your 2020 race T-Shirt, adhering to all state covid guidelines/precautions. This info will be sent through email from [email protected] If you have any questions about the race or virtual format you can reach us at the above email. Thanks and Stay Safe and Healthy! https://zippyreg.com/register/applerun

Once again, #BHBLRotary is out beautifying the area! Watch to see our plantings next year!

Drive through dinners plus huge gift card raffle! Take out on, socially distanced, internarional dinner to raise money for grants to teachers that will enhance learning in the BH-BL Schools. Four different dinners are available American, Asian, German, and Italian. Follow the event post below for additional details and click the Tickets button for more information on the the gift card raffle.

The Pints for Polio evening at Wolf Hollow Brewery was a success even despite the drizzly rain thanks for those that were able to come out to support and for those that brought some friends too! We had $60 in cash donations, $158 from Sammy’s Country Wagon and $225 from the Brewery. (Also included, one of the workers at Sammy’s donated her evening’s pay & tips to Polio Plus!) Grand total for Polio Plus: $443.00 and thanks to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the contribution will be tripled to $1,329.00 ! ! ! https://www.endpolio.org/what-is-polio Also during the evenings gathering, PDG Larry Jones presented BHBL Rotary with the 2019-2020 Rotary Citation with Silver Distinction for helping Rotary connect the world by achieving at least 5 goals uniting people, 5 goals taking action and one addition goal. Great job BHBL Rotary!

Thanks to all the players and supporters who participated in the #bhblrotary Jennie Pennington Golf tournament. All proceeds support the Jennie Pennington scholarship given to a BHBL high school senior entering the education field.

This fall and winter, the flu virus and the virus that causes COVID-19 may both be spreading. For that reason, getting a flu shot will be more important than ever to help people stay healthy and to ease the burden on our health care system. Getting a flu shot now is more important than ever because doctors don’t know what the risk is of having both flu and COVID-19 at the same time.

Enjoy a delicious meal and raise funds for worthy causes!

What a wonderful project for all ages! Contact the activities director at a nursing home to let them know you’d like to send some cards. Take the time to make cards-write as much or as little as you’d like. Sign your name to make it personal. It’s as beneficial to the senders as the recipients!

Have fun safely while supporting two local businesses!

Members of the BHBL Rotary Club donated funds to purchase a pop up tent for #518mamasforblm (Black Lives Matter) to use in their voter registration drives and educational programs at local farmer’s markets and other community events. The recently formed not-for-profit has as its mission:As an organization of mothers and supporters we asked " What can we do now" for Black Lives Matter... We hope to heal our communities and broken families by fighting systemic racism, social ...injustice, and educational inequality with care and affection to create black equity so that all can flourish. They will work to eradicate systemic racism through voter registration, intentional acts of kindness, educational programs and coordinating community resources to assist people to better their lives. Pictured left to right are:Rotary members Steve Geene, Gregg Schorr and #518 Momas For BLM founders Kealand and Hallie McKinnon.

You can still support the Charlton Historical Society!

Are you missing human interaction? Do you want to meet new people who do good in the community? Not interested in putting on pants to do all this? Join BH-BL Rotary at 6 pm Mondays on our weekly Zoom meeting. Check out our FB page or website, bhblrotary.org and send us a message for instructions on how to join the meeting.

Town in Bloom, a joint service project between the public and BH-BL Rotary, is funded by donations solicited by postcards sent to residents living in the 12027 zip code. Artwork on the card is by member Val Mosier.

Town in Bloom, a Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Rotary Club service project, collaborates with local citizens to create colorful spots around town. The project has been going on for many years and is much appreciated by all. 2020 is no exception, with planting and weeding done while mindful of safety.

Our speakers at Monday's meeting were from 518 Mamas for BLM, Hallie McKinnon and Kealand McKinnon. Their group is a safe place to advocate for change and fosters working together to build on our commonalities. Thank you for the honest and informative presentation! Check out their FB page for information on their Golden Rule. The focus is not eh BLM movement, harassment is not allowed, privacy is respected and all protesting will be non-violent.

Charlton Historical Society's Museum is Open The Charlton Historical Society 2009 Maple Ave. 2020 Summer Hours, Saturday and Sunday, 2 to 4 PM... July 11h to August 30th During this summer of everything cancelled, please come check out our museum. You will enjoy Frank Lafforthun's diorama of Charlton's Historic Hamlet, to see what a bustling business district the Hamlet was 150 years ago. We also have Frank's handmade miniatures, art work, and lighted model of the Tavern. Bill Wehrle has added a display of his hand-made Hudson River Day Line model. Also new is a display by Alice Crotty on the history of Charlton’s schools and a display by Wayne Davis on Parker Vanamee, who will be honored next year for Founders’ Weekend. Please stop by and bring your family and friends, especially if you have out-of-town visitors and you are looking for something to do. Charlton T-shirts and sweatshirts are available for purchase.

Junior Achievement delivers their programs despite challenging times. BHBL Rotary has long supported JA in the BHBL school district.

Mary Anderson talks about Town and Bloom - hope you enjoy the "blooper" at the beginning

#BHBLRotary welcomes new President Gregg Schorr! Upcoming speakers at our Zoom meetings include: Walter Thorne - Black Lives Matter Hallie McKinnon - Black Lives Matter Anthony Gaddy - Co-Founder & President/CEO Upstate New York Black Chamber of Commerce... and Maria Trabka of Saratoga PLAN Dates are being firmed up and will be posted on FB once solidified. Anyone interested in joining one of our Zoom meetings can email the club through our website www.bhblrotary.org.

BH-BL Rotary is continuing to meet via Zoom. If you are interested in joining us please message us or send email through our website www.bhblrotary.org.

Linda LeTendre was named BH-BL Rotarian of the Year. Linda has been a club member for almost 30 years has served as President, held various positions and lives the qualities of Rotary in the club as well as in the local and wider communities. When there is a club sponsored project Linda is there to help. Linda comes up with inspired ways to help others, has an innate sense of the needs of others and always shows kindness to all. While doing all these things she gives all the... credit to the club. She is the embodiment of compassion and generosity. Linda believes in the Peace Fair and mans the table every year. The Rotary commitment to literacy is evidenced by the Little Free Library she set up in her yard. Her commitment to feeding the hungry leads her to bring leftover food from club meetings to the needy and she is willing to be arrested while standing up for causes she believes in. Linda personifies the Rotary ideal and we are proud to call her a member. See more

It was a great morning to get outside and clean up the roadside!

Please join us June 27th when we perform our Road Clean-up along Charlton Road from Charlton Hamlet to the Ballston Town Hall. We will meet at the Charlton Historical Society on Maple Ave just up from the corner of Charlton Rd at 7:45 am and start the clean up at 8:00. This is volunteer only and no one should feel obligated to participate especially during a time of staying safe and social distancing. However we do believe that we can complete this safely and distant fro...m each other as we walk and clean up trash along the road. It will also be great to see each other as well. Please bring work gloves/rubber gloves. We will provide the trash bags. When we meet up at 7:45 we will break up into groups and assign sections of the road to clean up. Trash bags can be left on the road as the Highway Dept or one of us with a truck can pick up to take to the dumpster.

Find out what the Burnt Hills Ballston Lake Rotary Club has been up to - hint: staying connected and helping others. #RotaryDistrict7190

Many thanks to our fellow BHBL Rotarians for our drive by farewell parade! It was great to see people in person, even from a distance. Zoom meetings just aren’t the same. We will miss our BHBL Rotary family as we explore new opportunities in Stuart FL. Beth and Tom Brownell

We can each do a part to help.

The Town of Ballston would like to formally recognize our volunteers who did a fantastic job with our bridges at Jenkins Park. Student volunteers: Luke Henders...on, Reece Henderson, Joey Bordeau, Owen Bechtel, Miles Bechtel, Cole Bechtel, Austin Van Buren, Carter Moore, Emma Mitchell, Mason Butcher, Zack Scribner. Adult volunteers: Mike Henderson, Ryan Bechtel, Project Leader Bill Bechtel.

And now for something a little different! Sounds like a fun time!

#GlenvilleRotary continues this event! Please join us Monday at Veteran’s Park.

#BHBLRotary will miss participating in this fabulous parade this year. Lets have fun decorating our homes for the June 14 drive by event!

A beautiful way to honor the fallen.

Being quarantined didn’t stop #BHBLRotary from planting around town as they do every year for Town in Bloom. Flowering plants went in at the Community Library, the signs at the north and south entrances to town on Rte 50, the barrels along Kingsley Rd and at the Town of Ballston Town Hall. Thanks to the town for watering the plants when Mother Nature does not provide rain!

The United Nations designates May 16 as a day devoted to Living Together in Peace. The Day invites countries to further promote reconciliation to help to ensure peace and sustainable development, including by working with communities, faith leaders and other relevant actors, through reconciliatory measures and acts of service and by encouraging forgiveness and compassion among individuals. As Rotarians we work together to make the world a better place.

All we can say is, "You should have been there!" If the 5th line of the 4-Way Test is "FUN" we surely had it last Monday when the membership committee unleashed their Membership/Team building game. Remember when Mary asked all of us to tell her a "fun fact" about ourselves? Well she collected them and put them to good use last Monday. ... For those of you who couldn't be present, be sure to download this issue of the Rotateller to learn more about your fellow members, and for those who just couldn't remember which fun fact matched which club member - it's a great review. Everyone was so engaged! Being on ZOOM so we could all see each other's faces made it even more fun than it would have been all spread out in the Town Hall. Well done and thank you Mary for a really special meeting program.

Keep an eye to the sky!

BHBL Rotary had the pleasure of having Kim Perone join our zoom club meeting, speaking about mindfulness. Kim is a Success, Bereavement and Resilience Coach for The Center for Clarity, Compassion and Contentment (Center4C). Over the past 15 years, she has been a student of life, loss, and spirituality in the wake of tragic deaths in her family. As loss continued to affect the trajectory of her life and career, she became an expert in resilience, change, adaptation, and rei...nvention, all of which led to her own inspired path. In 2014, she became a success coach after a 20 year career in communication. Through facilitation, guidance, resources, and perspective, her clients pave their own inspired path toward goals and aspirations. At our meeting Kim spoke specifically about mindfulness. She stated that mindfulness is being aware of the present moment and observing it non-judgmentally. The key aspects of mindfulness are having a beginner’s mind with purposeful curiosity, patience and letting go, trust and acceptance, being non-judgmental and having compassion. The benefits of mindfulness include increased self-awareness, reduced stress and depression, better physical health and more happiness. *A quote about stress that really hit home was that stress comes from non-now moments, meaning that we stress about things in the past and we stress about things in the future, about the imagined outcomes or our future state of being.. (Yesterday is but a memory; tomorrow is but a dreamlook therefore to this day She also talked about being mindful of our reactions. It is sometimes better to under react. There is a difference between responding and reacting to a situation. If you are interested in further information about her coaching please visit the Center4C website for more details. https://www.center4c.com/ See more

Burnt Hills, Ballston Lake and Charlton residents can use the CAPTAIN/Community Human Services food pantry. Please support them if you can.

Thanks to all who contributed!

At the April 27 BHBL Rotary meeting Dr Geci-Black, a functional medicine physician, discussed his two-week experience volunteering to help with the Covid-19 pandemic at the North-Central Bronx Hospital at the epicenter of the New York City outbreak. Dr Geci-Black noted that there were adequate supplies of personal protective equipment available, including paper scrubs, goggles, face shields, and N95 masks. The first week there were about 14 patients in his intensive-care ...unit. Most were intubated on ventilators and were the sickest people he has ever seen. Most were older, but one patient was 33 years old. He witnessed multiple resuscitations and people in their 30s dying. Family members were limited to phone and tablet communication with none at the bedside. The ventilator patients were sedated to near unconsciousness. Of the original 14 patients, two are still there and about three quarters have died. Many of the sick came in with oxygen saturation at 80% or less, leading to standard-protocol intubation and ventilation. He learned a lot while there, including concluding that the standard way of handling ventilation may not be appropriate for Covid-19 patients. Some patients were put on hydroxychloroquine and died at twice the rate of those receiving a placebo. His takeaway from the first week: if you get Covid-19 stay away from ventilators! 80 to 90 percent die. Things had quieted down some his second week with 9 patients, three not on ventilators and two being weaned off. To Dr. Geci-Black, Covid-19 seems even more contagious than measles. He expects a second wave in the fall. He concluded that without the imposition of social distancing the entire health-care system would have collapsed. See more

The parade may be cancelled but the community still has the ’can-do’ spirit!

Good works can be found everywhere. Spread it around!

Please support the Galway Food Pantry, particularly items that cannot be purchased with food stamps.

At #BHBLRotary virtual meeting on 4/20 Helen and Lon Penna presented information on The Mooncatcher Project which seeks to keep girls in school in the world’s poorest communities. Education is the most effective means of improving the lives of girls in the world’s poorest communities. In underdeveloped countries, girls often leave school when they begin their menstrual cycle. They are ill prepared and poorly supplied for this normal life experience. The MoonCatcher Project ...makes and provides reusable, washable menstrual pad kits that can be worn without underwear. The small bright fabric carrying bag contains a waterproof bag and soap, a calendar, a care tag/a picture diagram, three fleece pads and an adjustable outer wear pad. To get the kit, girls complete a health curriculum. These kits are assembled locally as well as in the countries where they are needed. The kits cost $5 to be made and are free to the girls. The MoonCatcher Project is a 501C3 nonprofit organization. Donations can be made of money, of time in a Moonbee Sewing Bee or production at home. Check out the website TheMoonCatcher Project, Removing Barriers for Girls www.mooncatcher.org.

Anchor Diamond Park is a fabulous resource for the community. Great place to go for some fresh air and explore. #BHBLRotary is proud to be a partner in this project.

As members of the Saratoga Hospital emergency department and intensive care unit nursing staffs look on, Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Rotary member Jonathan Costolo of Malta, far right, hands a basket filled with more than a dozen tubes of Mary Kay hand lotion to Ann Marie Cross the hospital’s Director of Emergency Services, and Diane Bartos, its Director of ICU, outside the hopstial in Saratoga Springs on Thursday. The hand lotion was donated to the staff members’ due to their constant use of antibacterial hand sanitizer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Story appeared in the Daily Gazette. ERICA MILLER/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Please help us! In recognition of the difficult working conditions caring for COVID 19 patients at Saratoga Hospital, our #BHBLRotary members, through member Linda LeTendre, are donating high quality healing hand cream to the ER and ICU departments. Staff in these departments have to wash their hands so frequently that they are experiencing dry, cracked and painful hands. Linda is arranging the purchase and donation of the lotion. We invite the public to join us in this effo...rt. #district7190 Donations can be made easily through PayPal or Venmo. Venmo- search for @Linda-LeTendre PayPal- PayPal.me/LindaLeTendre

Charlton Heights Elementary School staff remind us to wash our hands!