The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Janie Rosman

Here at Home: Area Students Plan to Support Their Peers in Parkland

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Following a tragic Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that claimed the lives of 14 students and three teachers, Women’s March Youth EMPOWER is calling for students, teachers, parents, school administrators, and allies to take part in a 17-minute #NationalSchoolWalkout at 10 a.m. across every time zone on March 14.

Parkland students made their collective voice unequivocally clear–breathing unprecedented youthful energy into a movement. They demand government get a grip on a gun and mass shooting epidemic. Their essential message: Enough is enough and that Congress must take action on gun control and pass legislation that will keep them safe from gun violence at school, home and places of worship.

Horace Greeley High School’s Hannah Fenlon was moved by the heartfelt response of Parkland high school students to organize a national student walkout.

“When my principal Mr. Rhodes asked whether I, student body president, was interested to help organize and plan Greeley’s student walkout, I surveyed the other members of student government,” Fenlon said via email. “We collectively agreed this event would be a great chance for our school community to come together and stand up for every student’s right to feel safe in school.”

The group is working with student leaders and administrators to safely plan the event, and hope it will be a meaningful tribute in remembrance of the student and staff lives lost that day. “While we decided that our walkout shouldn’t adopt an overtly political agenda, I also hope students will leave feeling empowered and ready to use their voices to spark positive, tangible change,” Fenlon said.

Chappaqua Central School District Superintendent Dr. Christine Ackerman said the district is aware of the National Movement for students to ‘walk-out’ of school on March 14 for 17 minutes in response to the horrific shooting in Parkland, Florida.

“While the rationale for individual involvement may be different, from my vantage point the ultimate goal for an event of this nature is to bring heightened awareness to the public regarding student concerns over safety,” Ackerman said.

“This is consistent with Project SAVE law enacted by the New York State Legislature in 2000,” she said. “Our secondary principals are working with our students who wish to part-take in this movement.”

Ackerman said the district sent a notice to families — a different notice based upon the students’ ages — Friday prior to the walkout about how it will handle the day in each building.

“In Chappaqua, we are incredibly fortunate to work with a supportive and involved Town of New Castle leadership team… to collaborate on ways to ensure we are cultivating emotionally and physically safe spaces for our children,” she said. “I look forward to working together with all of our community partners as we continuously look to improve our school district environment.”

Byram Hills CSD Superintendent Jen Lamia said students have been forthcoming, expressing their thoughts, and what we care about is they do this in a safe environment. “Our job as educators has been to educate and keep students safe. As a community, having students work with the administration and share what they’re thinking speaks to us maintaining our schools as safe places.”

Lamia felt, “Students are seeking a way to respond, to be heard, and to unify. Educators must do what we can to hear what students have to say and to keep them safe.”

Although Fox Lane High school in Bedford CSD will be participating, neither district Superintendent Dr. Christopher M. Manno, nor Pleasantville UFSD Superintendent Dr. Mary Fox-Alter — whose district high school is not listed as a participating school —responded to a request for comment.

Robert E. Bell Middle School eighth-grade student Isabelle Good-Ricardo encouraged her peers to participate in the March 14 walkout. Below, Good-Ricardo’s statement shares an encouraging message about evoking positive change in a peaceful way and emphasizes today’s students are making history and are tomorrow’s voters. For Isabelle’s comments, please go to: https://www.theinsidepress.com/bell-school-student-explains-why-the-youngest-voices-protesting-gun-violence-must-also-be-heard/

For general info about the walk and participating schools, please visit https://www.actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/enough-national-school-walkout

Personal Attention, Knowledgeable Staff & Customer Loyalty at Dodd’s Wine Shop

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Experience gleaned as a teenager working in his father’s liquor store proved beneficial to when 25-year-old Dodd Farber opened Dodd’s Wine Shop in the Millwood Shopping Center in the early 1970s.

Farber, a no-nonsense man who operates the business without a computer, grew up in Long Island and earned an MBA, then left Wall Street for the Westchester suburbs.

In the 1970s, he initially thought about opening a card store and contacted numerous shopping centers. However, he said, surrounded by ledgers and stacks of papers, “My father was in the liquor business, and as a teenager, I worked there and became familiar with it.”

Farber also knew how to develop and keep relationships with customers, who remain loyal to him. “Our business philosophy is to put personalization back into shopping,” he said. “We want to make this into a wine and liquor experience.”

His staff averages more than 25 years of employment with him and knows customers’ likes and dislikes and guide them around the store of more than 1,500 kinds of wines from around the world. “We pride ourselves on great service, personal attention and a selection of more than 2,000, items all at great prices.”

Its diverse clientele ranges from people who enjoy a daily glass of wine to collectors who seek the rarest vintages. “We are here to advise our customers regardless of their preference,” he said.

Joe Cutaia has been working at Dodd’s more than 20 years. “It’s not about the bottles,” he explained. “It’s about our relationship with the customer. People come in and shake your hand, and you know them personally. We don’t want people to be anonymous.”

Ready to help you: The Staff at Dodd’s
PHOTO BY JANIE ROSMAN

“Customers like to see faces that they know,” Farber said. “They become comfortable working with our staff and their recommendations. It’s a friendly business, and everybody knows everybody’s name, like in “Cheers.”

During our visit to the store, a man walked toward the back of the store and asked for employee Bobby Chipman. “Yes, I have it ready for you,” Chipman said, walking to greet him.

“We have a personal contact with our customers,” Cutaia emphasized. “We don’t just look at this as a retail store because we’re entrenched in the community. People who used to live here and who pass through the area come by to say hello.”

To Enhance your Celebration…

With Passover beginning at sundown March 30 and Easter arriving April 1, Farber offered these wine suggestions to pair with any meal and delight your company. (Prices here are per bottle.)

Easter Wines:

Reserve des Rochers Pouilly Fuisse 2015: Its delicious tart pear and honey essence flavors blend well with the round, broad style French Chardonnay, amazing price for White Burgundy. Rated 90 points by Wine Spectator. $14.99

Bastide Miraflors Rouge 2015: The Bastide Miraflors is a combination of Syrah and Grenache grapes. Its flavors of blackberry and black raspberries deliver a fruity wine with a rich and silky texture. Rated 94 points by The Wine Advocate. $12.99

Passover Wines:

Golan Heights Winery Gilgal Cabernet Sauvignon 2012: This wine is grown in the cool climate region of the upper Galilee in Israel. With the combination of rocky soils and aging in French oak barrels, this cabernet shows its grace along with blackberry and dried fruit flavors tied together with the soft toast from the barrel. $17.99

Golan Heights Winery Gilgal Chardonnay 2015: This bright and crisp chardonnay flashes its delicious pear and apple spice flavors with just enough oak nuance to add a touch of body. It’s also grown in the Upper Galilee region of Israel. $17.99

Recognizing Dementia: When it’s Time to Seek Care

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Executive Director Maria Scaros (right) with resident, Virginia, during a Drama Arts Therapy session at The Greens in Greenwich, CT.

Personality changes, difficulty coordinating personal activities and juggling multiple tasks at the same time, getting lost in familiar places–the changes may be gradual when a person develops dementia. As medical professionals learn more about how dementia travels in the brain, they are better able to ascertain how that path affects someone with the disease.

Dr. James Noble
PHOTO COURTESY OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Dr. James Noble, a neurologist at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center’s Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain, said that dementia “is an acquired neurological problem that causes interference with how people live their day-to-day lives.”

Within the umbrella term of dementia, he explained, “Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia (other forms are Lewy Body and frontotemporal dementia). In most cases of Alzheimer’s disease, people present with primarily memory loss that may be alongside other cognitive problems.”

Maria Mursch, LMSW, a Care Consultant and Director of Family Education for the Alzheimer’s Association, Hudson Valley Chapter, clarified, “When we talk about the disease, we’re talking about memory loss and about regions of the brain that control functions, judgment, personality/behavior and insight. That’s why we see a multitude of symptoms.”

Noble cited a middle ground called mild cognitive impairment that doesn’t interfere with day-to-day life. “About 50 percent of those with Alzheimer’s are unaware they have a problem, which poses a challenge for diagnoses and delays someone going to the doctor,” he said, unless a caregiver accompanies a patient during a doctor visit.

Often families face a choice between placing their loved one(s) into a home and keeping them in their own home(s) with an aide or additional caregivers. One facility that focuses solely on caring for those with dementia is The Greens At Greenwich, the first assisted living facility in Connecticut designed for people diagnosed with dementia or memory, according to The Greens Executive Director Maria Scaros.

“All our staff is trained in dementia care and engages with residents daily,” said Scaros. Each of its 31 apartments is decorated with residents’ own furniture to give a semblance of familiarity. Outside each door is a glass-enclosed box filled with pictures, tokens and other objects that can spur recognition. “Although age is the biggest single risk factor for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia,” Noble explained, “dementia is not part of the normal aging process.” Genetic dementia, while uncommon, presents “in families that have onset under the age of 60, affecting half the family within a generation.”

While families may have expectations and fantasies about the loved one returning to his or her former self, “they are not expected to deal with dementia alone,” Scaros maintained. The facility embraces the entire family, removing the burden of care so they can maintain their roles as spouse, daughter, son and grandchild. “We get to know their family member in the here and now and relate to them as they are in the moment.”

Mursch agreed it’s important to meet the person where he or she is mentally and emotionally. Many patients with Alzheimer’s are first misdiagnosed with depression (the blues), Noble said. “Instead, typical mood changes in Alzheimer’s can be described as ‘get up and go got up and went.’ Addressing this loss of interest in activities can be very challenging. Families may not realize that to engage a loved one in an activity, they need to be proactive.”

A familiar setting will become unfamiliar at some point, Mursch said. “When that starts to happen, we’re looking at someone who progressed in the disease,” she said. “It is important to keep the person comfortable and socializing and active, and there are ways to accommodate the person at home.”

Alzheimer’s Association (https://www.alz.org/) offers support programs and activities and a 24-hour number (1-800-272-3900) that’s answered by the local chapter during work hours and by its national headquarters after hours. Mursch added, “There may be a point when it becomes unsafe to live at home because of the physical environment (i.e. a staircase) or when the caregiver can no longer take care of the person or the situation cannot be resolved by increasing home care.”

Scaros noted The Greens’ biggest competition is home care, which may be the best solution for some. “We need to recognize, however, that when someone says, ‘I want to go home,’ it means, ‘I want to feel safe, secure, loved and engaged.’” Home becomes a feeling rather than a place.

Social activities and cognitive stimulation like hobbies can keep the brain alert. Scaros was trained as a drama therapist and ensures that creative arts therapies are an integral part of The Green’s programs. Lynn Hagerbrant feels the facility goes well beyond the standard of care in sharing, caring and loving for her own parent living there. “They have heart and soul, a caring heartbeat that starts with Maria and flows through all her staff.”

Science continues to research cures for dementia. “New treatments may not be not that far away, and trials to date have helped foresee what next steps to take,” Noble said. For information, visit www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/taub.

Beloved Literary Duo: The Van Fleets Life as a Two-Author Family

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Matt and Mara Van Fleet and a couple best buds. Photo by Grace Bennett

Tucked behind a main street in Chappaqua is a curved road where nature and homes appear whimsical as in stories. The house behind a tree with gnarled branches is where children’s authors Mara and Matt Van Fleet inspire educational curiosity.

Sourced with talent incorporated from their background, Matt and Mara bring color, texture, science and art into their novelty and interactive books. Their focus is getting kids to read at an early age and having adults read books to toddlers when they’re beginning to read.

A biology student at Syracuse University, Matt authored children’s books for more than 20 years. “I did a cartoon panel cartooning, and after graduation I worked at a hospital lab in the city, taking art classes at night,” he said. Nine months later he quit and became secretary to the art director at Grosset & Dunlap publishers.

“We used typewriters so I’d type letters and eventually learned book design,” Matt said, and while he didn’t set out to become a children’s author, fate said otherwise. His 1992 book One Yellow Lion introduced kids to counting with a clever accordion fold format that ended with “You know us all, from one to ten–/ Can you count us up again?’’

While freelancing at Dial books (part of Penguin Books USA), now wife Mara showed a book prototype to the publisher at a staff meeting. “They signed it up on the spot,” she smiled. The former art director and book product developer at Reader’s Digest Children’s Books in Chappaqua now publishes with Simon & Schuster and grins.

“I love doing it.”

Answering the question, “What’s it like being part of a two-author family?” Matt jokingly pointed to the sunroom. “She works here, and I work there (on the other side of the house).”

Their older son Alex recently graduated college, “and his desk was across from my desk,” Matt said. “In the biggest room of the house,” Mara joked. Alex shared a creative room with his dad that once had a fully stocked aquarium that formerly housed a millipede, a Praying mantis, an African water frog, a bullfrog they raised from a tadpole and two or three kinds of chameleons –a throwback to Matt’s days as a biology student.

Younger son Ryan, a senior at Horace Greeley High School, shares a working space with his mom. Creative in his own way, he plans to study vocal performance and music education at college. Matt’s first book features Alex as a youngster on the back cover, and when Ryan was born he drew them both on the back cover of his books. “Now they’re always youngsters,” he joked.

As children their audience’s age, Matt and Mara read Maurice Sendak: Mara chose Where the Wild Things Are, and Matt read from his Nutshell Library and Martha Sanders’ book Alexander and the Magic Mouse.

Mara prefers oil pastels for their rich appearance noticeable in her favorite book Three Little Mermaids. Her grandmother was a fashion illustrator for The New York Times in the 1920s, and her mom, also a talented illustrator, used to draw her mermaids, she said. “My grandmother was a very talented artist, and her portfolio’s pretty cool. She inspired me.”

Mara Van Fleet signing books at the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival
Until her most recent book Mama’s Pajamas, Mara’s books were created for girls and included fur, sequins, fabrics and other materials for kids to identify the sensation of touch.

Alphabet, a book which identifies several unusual animals for each letter of the alphabet, reflects Matt’s science background; in Dance, each animal was clothed or had a prop. His books may be too young for older kids, who are interested in moving parts and how they were assembled. “I have one that’s taken apart so they can see how the gears move and how it works,” he said.

“The process of creating our books is more difficult than creating a picture book, because of the interactive elements involved” he reflected. “For a counting book, the audience is always there, and in the picture book market, as kids get older, it becomes more difficult to write a book that will become popular. Each book has a theme,” he said: days of the week or opposites or colors; One Yellow Lion was followed by a book about shapes and then a 3D-shapes books. “This one’s a little different,” he said, pointing to Dance, composed by songwriter and friend Dave Bickler. Its main character, a little chick, learns to dance with help from animal friends, who move when kids pull cardboard tabs along the book’s edge.

Picking up DOG, he identified neighborhood and friends’ pets in the concept book of opposites. A mini-studio in their kitchen was where the canines struck adorable doggie poses.

“This was our pug Boris, this is Ryan’s pre-school teacher’s dog, this dog used to live over here, this dog still lives in Chappaqua, and this dog lives here.”

Their books, protected by acetate, can withstand kids tugging, pulling and touching. Some titles, like Mara’s mix-and-match The Very Mixed Up Princess – through which children can create more than 300 different sentences and lends itself to helping them learn sentence structure–are found in the Chappaqua Library.

Even though Matt’s initial two-book-per-year pace has decreased to one book annually, he admitted, “The first book is always exciting.” Both are working on new projects, and while privy to this information, The Inside Press will keep it under wraps for now. For more information, visit www.vanfleetbooks.com.

Matt and Mara Van Fleet will be attending and signing books at the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival on October 14.

When Mom is in Prison: Chappaqua Librarians Participate in Summer Program Reading to their Kids

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(L-R): Chappaqua Librarians Robbin Friedman and Miriam Lang Budin holding books read to kids with moms in prison.

Learning to read is a joy for children and their parents as a little one’s first sentences and their comprehension increase with their vocabularies. Sharing these moments can be challenging from afar, more so when the parent is incarcerated.

Miriam Lang Budin, head of children’s services at Chappaqua Library and children’s librarian Robbin Friedman, found a way to use books and reading to ease the pain of children who visit their mothers who are behind bars.

“About four years ago, I was invited to see preview screening of the film Mothers of Bedford (2011),” Budin told members of the Rotary Club of Chappaqua during its March luncheon.

The documentary by filmmaker Jenifer McShane details five incarcerated women at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. During the course of several years, McShane spoke with them, their children and families, the children’s caregivers, and prison employees and volunteers to understand parenting from a distance.

“It was an extraordinary movie about the women who are incarcerated in this maximum-security prison,” Budin shared. “Some of the women are pregnant when they arrive so they give birth at the prison. If they’re privileged enough, then they can keep their babies until the babies are two years old.”

Moved by the film, she “wondered how the library could help them in their heartbreaking situation and knew books were the perfect answer.” Research led her to Hour Children®, which runs family programs at the Bedford Hills facility and at the Taconic Correctional Facility.

This will be the fourth summer she and Friedman will read to children visiting their mothers, one component of the facility’s Summer Program. Local families open their homes to inmates’ children for one week each during six week-program, allowing them to spend time more time with their mothers as contact is otherwise by telephone or mail.

Rebecca Sussman, Teen Program Coordinator, Hour Children’s Center, explained the story time program, one of many for families. “From Sunday through Thursday–six times during July and August–children stay with host families in the area and visit their moms during the day,” Sussman explained. “Some of them (children) are siblings, some of them know each other during the years, and some come (to the readings) with their mothers,’ Friedman said. “We never know how many people will show up when we’re there; sometimes up to 36 people (mothers and children) attend.”

All programs take place in the visiting room, behind which is a children’s area that looks like a nursery, and where Friedman and Budin read to the children.

“The visiting room is open to any child of any age; (however), kids from ages 5 to 17 are eligible to be hosted by families during the summer. Their presence evokes a positive reaction in parents who are reluctant to participate. “That’s the goal: to get everyone involved,” Friedman emphasized. “Reading is a good way to get everyone engaged.”

How do they hold everyone’s attention given the vast age range? “We bring picture books or early readers and poetry,” Budin said, “as there’s not enough time to read chapter books or novels, and one child can read a poem or an older child can read to a younger child.”

One favorite is Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer. The author’s poem can be read forward and backward, and the latter will have a different meaning. Another is We Are in a Book! from Mo Willems’ series.

“The book has lively dialogue and engages the reader,” Budin explained. Elephant Gerald and Piggie realize they are characters in a book that’s being read, and once they’re more at ease with this, they become upset that the book will end.

“Hello. Will you please read us again?” the characters ask whoever’s reading the book.

Budin and Friedman agree their efforts are well-received. “We get thank-you letters and lots of positive feedback from the families,” Budin said, adding, “sometimes we see families again the next year.”

Both are glad they found a way to work with the population and find it “fulfilling to serve people who would not otherwise have had the same opportunity,” Budin said. Each child who participates in the reading program goes home with a new, age-appropriate book to reread with another adult or by him/herself.

Those who are interested in offering books can visit http://hourchildren.org/. Families interested in hosting children for one week during the summer can contact Deb Rigano, Summer Program Coordinator, at drigano@hourchildren.org.