We hope you will join us at these upcoming events!
Meeting: Politicians Honor Code
Please join us to hear from Politicians Honor Code. The Politicians Honor Code (Code) is a social contract that contains a set of rules and/or principles that candidates for public office, elected representatives, and others connected with politics agree to abide by in matters regarding the public and the United States of America. This is a nonpartisan, nonprofit initiative.
Non-members who wish to attend, please RSVP to rotaryofchappqua@gmail.com.
Evening Meeting with guests from The Community Center of Northern Westchester
Please join us to hear from Dawn-Marie Manwaring & Clare Murray from the Community Center of Northern Westchester.
“CCNW is a warm and caring place dedicated to helping neighbors in need. With the continuing support of 43 community partners and the generosity and volunteer power of our neighbors, we offer equitable access to food, clothing, vocational training, and an array of additional resources to those in need in Northern Westchester; supporting families with basic needs while helping them on their pathway back to self-sufficiency.”
Dinner cost is $50 all inclusive (wine/alcohol is not included).
Non-members, please RSVP to rotaryofchappaqua@gmail.com.
2023 Community Holiday Luncheon
2023 Community Holiday Luncheon.
You are hereby cordially invited to join the Rotary Club of Chappaqua for a wonderful celebration of the Holidays! On December 20th, please join us for a delicious lunch at Crabtree’s Kittle House, as well as live music, great fellowship, and special recognition of community members who have made a difference in our town and beyond this year. Make sure to reserve your seat soon, as this event often sells out.
New Castle and Pleasantville Police Chiefs address their local response to the Israel/Gaza conflict.
On Thursday November 30 please join the Rotary Club of Chappaqua in a joint meeting with the Pleasantville Rotary Club.
Our guest speakers will be Pleasantville Police Chief Grutzner and New Castle Police Chief Carroll. They will discuss how they are addressing the high risk climate arising from the conflict in Israel/Gaza.
We will be meeting at Tesoro D’Italia at 12:15PM. RSVPs are required in order for the restaurant to plan accordingly. The cost is $25 for a seated lunch.
Please PRE REGISTER using this link:
Yes, I'd like to attend on Nov 30
Or if you prefer, RSVP to rotaryofchappaqua@gmail.com
Erica Stanzione, BluePath Service Dogs
On Wednesday November 15, please join the Rotary Club of Chappaqua as we welcome our guest Erica Stanzione of BluePath Service Dogs. BluePath is a Wappingers Falls based nonprofit that provides autism service dogs, offering safety, companionship, and opportunities for independence.
We will meet at Crabtree’s Kittle House at 12:30. If you are interested in attending, please RSVP to rotaryofchappaqua@gmail.com
Pancake Breakfast & Blood Drive
Join us November 11th in downtown Chappaqua for a Pancake Breakfast, Coat Drive and Blood Drive, all rolled into one.
Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit local nonprofits Hope’s Door, Mount Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry, and A-Home. The Coat Drive is on behalf of 914 Cares. The Blood Drive will continue until 3:30PM.
Thanks to St. Mary the Virgin Church for the generous use of their space.
For more information, and to purchase tickets, please visit the event page.
MakingHeadway.org (Joint meeting with Pleasantville)
Join us at Crabtree’s Kittle House for a joint meeting with the Pleasantville Rotary Club. Our guest will be from MakingHeadway.org, a local nonprofit based in Chappaqua. Making Headway provides care and comfort for children with brain and spinal cord tumors while funding medical research geared to better treatments and a cure.
We also plan to induct two new members to our club at this meeting.
If you are interested in attending, please contact us to RSVP at rotaryofchappaqua@gmail.com
June 28 Meeting Guest: Kent Thomas, New Castle Sustainability Advisory Board
On June 28, our guest will be Kent Thomas, co-chair of the New Castle Sustainability Advisory Board.
The Sustainability Advisory Board continues to advise the Town Board about policy administration of solid waste collection and disposal (residential, commercial, and governmental), recycling, and waste reduction.
As a Board the SAB:
Assists the Town Board in evaluating proposed solid waste contracts, capital projects, operational changes, and inter-governmental agreements
Devises and carries out programs of public education; monitors the success of the Town's solid waste program
Stays informed about local, regional, and national developments that affect solid waste management in the Town or that could serve as models for the Town
Its evaluations consider short and long-term costs to the:
Environmental impact
Program convenience
Regulatory compliance
Town residents and businesses
This meeting will also be a Fellowship Social/Bring a Guest.
June 21 Meeting Members Only (Offsite)
On June 21 the Rotary Club of Chappaqua will hold a Members-Only offsite meeting. Check your email for details!
June 14 Meeting Guest: Sandi Rosenthal and Hilary Robinson, JCCA
On June 14, our guests will be Sandi Rosenthal and Hilary Robinson of JCCA (Jewish Child CareAssociation).
The JCCA helps abused, neglected and traumatized children heal physically and emotionally through compassionate, quality care. Their 37 programs include foster care, residential treatment facilities, mental health services, case management, education programs and special services for children who have been the victims of sexual abuse. JCCA serves New York’s neediest and most vulnerable children and families to ensure that their safety, permanency and well-being leads to a life of stability and promise.
June 7 Meeting Guest: Back In The Bronx
The Bronx: The Way It Was! is coming to a venue near you.
Steve Samtur, editor and publisher of Back In THE BRONX magazine for 24 years and author of three books on The Bronx, is coming to a venue near YOU with his 90-minute PowerPoint presentation, consisting of over 450 vintage photos, vintage videos, and dozens of Bronx celebrity interviews (Regis Philbin, Chazz Palminteri, Robert Klein, Rita Moreno, and many more)!.
New Castle Memorial Day Parade
The Rotary Club of Chappaqua will proudly participate in the 2023 New Castle Memorial Day Parade. Join us!
10:30 AM
MONUMENT CEREMONY
VICTORY CORNERS
KING STREET & BEDFORD ROAD
11:00 AM
PARADE STEPS OFF
RIDGEWOOD TERRACE
11:30 AM
MEMORIAL PLAZA CEREMONY
CHAPPAQUA TRAIN STATION
May 24 Meeting Guest: Vincent Canziani, Wagon Road Camp
Our last speaker and meeting for the month of May will be Vincent Canziani, the Extraordinary Director of Wagon Road Camp. Children’s Aid Society Wagon Road Camp formerly known as Elizabeth Milbank Home (orphanage) and prior, Chappaqua Mountain institute, is on 52 pristine acres on Quaker Road. Children’s Aid Society, created in 1853, is the oldest not for profit charity created in NY, New York to house convalescent children.
How did we get here…
‘In 1884, 34-year-old Elizabeth Milbank Anderson inherited a massive fortune. Her dad–Jeremiah Milbank–co-founded the Borden Condensed Milk Company and built his wealth further as a railroad investor. Elizabeth was well-educated, born and raised in New York City, and married to a successful portrait artist.
Elizabeth lost her only son to diphtheria in 1886 and subsequently dedicated her life–and fortune–to ensure no one else would have to suffer this tragedy. But parents were losing their children every day in New York City. In the 1890s, the tuberculosis epidemic was rising. Children were dying of whooping cough, dysentery, measles, and diphtheria. Even with the unsophisticated science of the day, it was clear that lack of hygiene and lack of access to care were common denominators in these tragic illnesses.
In 1891, Elizabeth made a gift to a laboratory and treatment center investigating tuberculosis in Sarnac Lake, NY. Elizabeth then targeted hygiene in her home city. She built a model public bath on East 38th Street, where over 3,000 poor New Yorkers could bathe each day. When it opened its doors in 1904, it was of less than five places that NYC’s poor could bathe. There was a separate section for laundry and the building was divided by gender. Thousands of lives were improved by the very existence of this public facility, and many public baths built after 1904 were modeled after this one.
From there, Elizabeth worked with Anne Harriman Vanderbilt to found The Home Hospital for the Tubercular to provide care to children and families in 1909. Elizabeth then personally funded the building and operations for the Home for Convalescent Children in Chappaqua. Almost 8,000 children were treated at that facility over the next decade.
In 1913, Elizabeth established the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, targeting health and hygiene in the schools. The organization provided 25,000 school lunches, installed water fountains, added windows for better ventilations, and even brought medical inspectors into certain schools.
The following year, Elizabeth targeted the mental health of World War I veterans by making the largest annual gift to mental Health America’s predecessor organization. She also made sizable donations to the Henry Street Settlement and several organizations targeting orphans and displaced children.
Elizabeth was also a major proponent of education, particularly empowering women in New York City. She was an early donor to the Spence School and to the Greenwich Academy in Connecticut. She was a trustee of Barnard College which, at the time she donated, operated out of a single brownstone on Madison Avenue. Elizabeth anonymously purchased three full city blocks and built one large building, ensuring that the women’s college would always have a campus.
Philanthropists at this time commonly invested in glamorous things–monuments, museums, etc.–but Elizabeth had a different idea. Her donations were targeted, infrastructural, and often anonymous or dissociated from her name. The Milbank family name can be found throughout the city, but never attached to “Elizabeth Anderson.” Out of respect for her Baptist parents, she used only her last name in all her philanthropic endeavors. ‘
The Children Aid Society was created in 1853 by Charles Loring Brace to help convalescent and abandoned children, with funds from Elizabeth Anderson Millbank, purchased the property, formerly known as the Chappaqua Mountain Institute, a Quaker College Prep School. In 1908. Girls slept on the second floor. (Also part of the Underground Railroad). A fire destroyed the 2 school buildings, one on in 1885 and again in 1960. The property is currently primarily used as Wagon Road Camp. Wagon Road Camp provides a fun, engaging summer day camp for typical children, an overnight respite program for developmentally delayed youth, and adventure team building for school groups.
May 17 Meeting Guest: Pat Nickerson, A-Home
Pat Nickerson is the Clinical Outreach Program Supervisor for A-Home, here in the Chappaqua hamlet.
A-Home manages affordable housing properties located in Pleasantville, Katonah, Thornwood, Chappaqua, Bedford Hills, Pound Ridge, Croton Falls, South Salem and Mt. Kisco, in Westchester County, NY. A-Home’s mission is to strengthen northern Westchester neighborhoods by providing people safe and affordable places to live – the foundation of a stable life.
May 13: Family Drive In Movie Night
Do you miss going to the drive in movies? We do too! Come out and bring the whole family to our First Annual Rotary Drive In Movie Night this May 13 where we will be showing “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”.
The fun will start at 5:30, with live music, food, beer, and lots of friends and neighbors to socialize with. The movie will start at sundown, approximately 8:30PM and you can tune into the audio on your car radio just like old times!
Tickets will go on sale soon, but act fast because with only 125 spaces, we DO anticipate this event to sell out! If you are not able to get a ticket for a parking spot at the drive in, you can also purchase tickets at the gate to walk in with blankets and chairs.
PS: contact us if you’d like to send a special message to MOM for Mother’s Day which is the next day, May 14!
May 3: Charter Night Awards Dinner
Charter Night is the biggest night of the year for Rotarians! It is on this night that we come together to honor three very special people: one Community Member whose service to our town has gone above and beyond, one Rotarian who has given of themselves to the benefit of others, and one local High School Student who has been chosen to receive a Scholarship.
Please join us for a wonderful evening of recognition of “Service Above Self”, celebrated with a delicious dinner by our good friends at Crabtree’s Kittle House.
April 26 Meeting Guest: Barbara Turk, Hope’s Door
Barbara Turk is the Director of Development and Community Relations for Hope’s Door, a local nonprofit dedicated to ending domestic violence and empowering victims to achieve safety, independence, and healing from the trauma of abuse.
Prior to Hope’s Door, Turk served as Vice President of Marketing and Community Development for 17 years at the Family YMCA at Tarrytown. Turk also worked for 10 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, as a senior manager in the Legal Consulting practice, providing management and process re-engineering consulting services to law firms and corporate legal departments of Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola, Kimberly Clark, and Farmers Insurance. She earned her BA in Communications from the University of Michigan.
April 12 Meeting Guest: Victoria Alzapiedi, Conservation Board
Victoria Alzapiedi is a Member of the Town of New Castle Conservation Board and the New Castle Climate Smart Communities Task Force. She is also the co-founder of New Castle Healthy Yards and the New Castle Pollinator Pathways Coalition. Victoria is the Executive Director of Friends of Buttonhook Forest Inc - a nonprofit organization focused on preserving this 21.3 acre wildlife habitat watershed forest - and the sacred Native American stone complex found there - from destruction and desecration. Victoria also started the Facebook group “The Nature of Westchester” seven years ago - an active community of nature lovers that now has more than 4100 members.
A leadership coach and organizational development consultant at Breakthrough Insight Consulting LLC, Victoria is also the Founder and Principal at "My Native Garden Oasis" providing guidance to clients on creating bird and pollinator habitat in their yards.
Victoria has an expertise in native plants and extensive experience as an educator and advocate focusing on local and regional environmental issues. She is deeply committed to empowering residents to nurture and support our ecosystem
Victoria was a public interest attorney for many years and, as a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, she brings a public policy perspective to all of her work on the environment.