Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester
YOU ARE INVITED!
Where: Life Energy Art Gallery, 11-13 Main Street, Mount Kisco
When: Saturday December 7, 6-8 p.m.
Cost: Free!
Relax and make new friends in the beautiful, healing environment of our Art Gallery. Featuring a special demonstration in using art for healing, and of course organic wine and cheese, healthy snacks. Come and hang out! Bring friends and family.
For the 13th year in a row, a delegation of seven reservists from the Israel Defense Forces called New and North Castles their “home away from home” during a 10-day visit this November. During their stay organized by Tzahal Shalom of Northern Westchester, the reservists attended many speaking engagements where they spoke about their experiences in the Israel Defense Forces. They spoke to every demographic in our communities: high school and middle school students, adults, seniors, college and university students, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
During the program, the delegation begins to understand the support they have from our communities in Northern Westchester and returns to Israel with a renewed spirit and great pride. In return, our communities build relationships with these special individuals.
Tzahal Shalom of Northern Westchester has been bringing delegations to the community since 2006. They are a registered 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, led entirely by a dedicated team of volunteers. For more information, visit tzahalshalom.org
Some 500 persons attended a New York Tribute Dinner on October 28th during which Chappaqua’s Stacey Saiontz was one of two recipients of National Leadership Awards by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Saiontz is a founding member of the Museum’s Next Generation board and was recently appointed to its Education Committee. She shares her passion with her children who were featured in the HBO documentary The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm.
“The first words that spring to mind about Stacey are high energy and committed,” said Howard D. Unger, of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, in introducing Saiontz. “Whether it is fiercely advocating for food allergy legislation or relentlessly advancing Holocaust related causes,” he added, “when Stacey is in, she is all in.” The dinner raised over $3.2 million. Saiontz called the Museum “a beacon on the global stage; it reminds us all of what we are capable of, the good and the bad, and offers a universal message of tolerance and importance of taking action. The Holocaust is not just a story of hate; it’s also a story of resilience, humanity, love and kindness,” she said.
Gary Jacob, a second honoree who has served as a regional co-chair of the event, is vice president of Glenwood Management and vice chairman of the Settlement Housing Fund. Powerful presentations at the benefit included harrowing testimony from Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor Irene Weiss.
Weiss described her family’s losses and how she was “forced to live and work next to the crematorium” and “forced out on a death march with 1000s of other prisoners.” “How does one put into words the magnitude of such a loss?” she asked.
Sara J. Bloomfield, Museum Director, said that while the world will always change, “human nature never will, and that we alone are responsible for the solutions.” She described the need “to unlock these powerful lessons of Holocaust history…so that wishful thinking might be constantly be met with determined resistance, so that today’s bystander will not become tomorrow’s victim… That’s the museum’s bold and urgent aspiration.” For more info, visit ushmm.org.
Having moved to Chappaqua just a few years earlier, I wanted to find a different way to throw a holiday party. So, I came up with the idea of throwing a Cookie Exchange. I looked at every magazine to research how to throw a Cookie Exchange party, and then devised my rules, which included, at that time, each person having to bake six dozen cookies, and sent out invites to 20 friends.
That first year, the ice gods of the Northeast decided to visit us during the party and my long, uphill driveway became a hazardous, sliding terror. My husband walked everyone down to their cars, holding the traded cookies in addition to our guests arms, to make sure there were no accidents–with cookies or appendages.
That first Cookie Exchange took place 18 years ago and it has grown into a party of between 60-70 guests. My dining room table has every leaf in it and the cookies barely fit, especially when bakers, like Cindy Greenstein, make an amazing yet giant cookie quilt. Prizes are awarded to the best tasting, most creative looking, best presentation and Michele’s choice, usually given to a newbie. Lisa Avramovitz and Georgia Frasch have won the most times, as both their decorative cookies and presentation astound everyone.
We have had our excitement over the years. There was the year that someone said their butter looked weird when they were baking and the cookies they brought were green, when no food coloring was used. Another year, one of the guests somehow took someone else’s white minivan home and, after an hour of phone calls, she embarrassingly brought back the car and took her own white minivan home. And, yet another year, my son and his teenage friends ate so many cookies as judges, that we had to banish them to our basement so that there would actually be enough cookies to be exchanged.
And what about my friends who are just horrible bakers? They attend but are encouraged not to bake because it is in the best interest of attendees not to eat anything they would attempt to make. So, they bring wine.
This year’s bakers will only make four dozen cookies. Still, there will be no slice and bake cookies, no cookies from a mix or ones that have been purchased. My son will be home from college to do the judging along with several others. And, many families in town will enjoy a cornucopia of cookies, at least for the weekend.
The Horace Greeley High School gym was packed on November 4th for the 10th Annual Horace Greeley Scholarship Fund Spelling Bee. Spirits were high as students, teachers & administrators, families, and community members came together to share in this special event which was enjoyed by participants and spectators alike. More than 60 teams competed this year, not only to be the top spellers, but as contenders for best costume as well. Ultimately, student team All the Buzz beat out the steep competition with the word EUONYMUS and claimed the 2019 championship title. Organized by Horace Greeley High School’s SHARE (Students Have a Responsibility Everywhere) community service group, more than $20,000 was raised to benefit the Horace Greeley Scholarship Fund which exists to make up “the difference” between the actual costs of college and all other financial resources available to students and their families. In the last 72 years, hundreds of Greeley students have been awarded need-based grants from the Fund helping to make college a reality for all Greeley graduates.