Immigration Talk, then Road Cleanup

 

Some of our cleanup crew (minus Brian Farrell, who took the photo) on Dunning Street after last Thursday's meeting. They are, left to right, Chris Havens, Donna Kripfgans-Rawlin, Miles Cornthwaite, Murray Eitzmann and Steve Haydon.

At the meeting, Phil Kellerman spoke about immigration. He has been an advocate for migrant farmworkers and other immigrants for over 35 years. He established the Harvest of Hope Foundation which raised and distributed more than $1.1 million in emergency and educational financial aid to migrant farmworkers. Prior to retirement his last employment was with the Oley Foundation under Albany Medical Center, helping children and adults in need of tube feeding supplies due to serious intestinal problems, oral cancer, stroke or ALS.  He continues to collect tube feeding supplies to send to California to be shipped to the Philippines. In addition, Kellerman helped to establish the Foundation for Language Education and Development (LEAD) which provides financial aid to immigrant students to attend college.

Kellerman. a member of the Southern Rensselaer County Rotary Club, 

said he became involved in the case of Delphine Sosu, an immigrant from Ghana who aspires to become a professional soccer player. Her education was disrupted when the College of Saint Rose in Albany closed, but she now attends Newman University in Kansas.

He said immigrants pay many fees to the government and other expenses, which can make it hard to live here. Among the most urgent fixes to current law he recommended is regularizing the legal status of "dreamers", longstanding US residents who were brought here illegally as children. 

Business from Glenville to Uganda, Glens Falls and Saratoga County

 

Ugandan crafts on display at this year's Glenville Oktoberfest. We participated in "Rotary Row" under the sponsorship of the Malta Sunrise Rotary club and sold $800 worth of crafts, which will be sent to AOET Uganda to assist them in educating children who are living in poverty.

At Thursday's business meeting we voted to give $200 (in addition to any individual contributions) to Wait House in Glens Falls.

Upcoming fund-raisers are an Oct. 27 pancake breakfast at the Malta Ridge Fire House; and a pre-Christmas sale of pies from Smith's Orchard & Bake Shop, which are baked at a farm on Jockey Street in western Saratoga County.

Wait House Director

Our speaker at Thursday's meeting was Jason McLaughlin, executive director of Wait House in Glens Falls, which focuses on young people at risk of homelessness in Warren, Washington and Saratoga counties -- including Malta.

Its services include Safe Harbour, protecting young people who may be sexually trafficked or exploited. There is also a Street Outreach program to youths who are homeless or at risk of becoming so, permanent housing assistance, crisis services, transitional living for homeless young women who are pregnant or parents, Child Home Health Care Management and Family Opportunity Center services.

The young people are typically dealing with "childhood trauma of some sort," McLaughlin said, and at Wait House "They finally feel safe. ... We are in a battle. Every day. Every day."

Sex traffickers, he said, "manipulate young people into thinking they're not being trafficked." Sometimes well-intentioned laws such as "Raise the Age" for criminal prosecution can have bad unintended consequences, he said. 

Wait House has various sources of revenue, including donations from the public, which can help make up for recent funding cuts.

DA Talks About High-Profile Case

 

Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen, a lifelong Malta resident, spoke to us at Thursday's meeting about a recent case without ever naming the criminal or victim. But everyone knew what she was talking about.

The case involved the kidnapping of a 9-year-old girl, a Saratoga County resident, from Moreau Lake State Park. The community immediately rallied in support of the girl and her family, and the search-and-rescue operation, "with a level of action, attention, intensity that I hadn't seen." It was quickly determined that it was likely a kidnapping, rather than a case of a child getting lost or playing hide and seek, and this prompted large-scale activation of resources. 

After "a massive coordinated effort," the girl was rescued two days later by state police and other law enforcement personnel. A man arrested at the scene pleaded guilty to two felonies, including first-degree kidnapping, and received a sentence of 47 years to life in prison. Heggen's office had two staff members --

an assistant district attorney and an investigator -- embedded with the law enforcement team which broke the case. 

But the arrest was early in the process for ADA Jennifer Buckley. She led the prosecution, ensuring that "the evidence was overwhelming and insurmountable", which resulted in the relatively quick guilty plea.

In other business, we assisted a successful Red Cross blood drive Monday at the Malta Community Center. A couple of our members who were helping out, Miles Cornthwaite and Donna Kripfgans-Rawlin, also gave blood.

The last donor of the day was Jenny Killian from Ballston Spa.

  

AFL-CIO Official Says Labor Is Rising

 

Kevin Eitzmann, director of field operations for the New York State AFL-CIO, was our speaker today. 

Early in his working life, Eitzmann was an "outside tech" worker in Verizon's Mechanicville garage. He was impressed by the insight and concern for safety of a unionized worker. He became vice president of the union local there, and after a layoff in 2008 started work doing social media for the AFL-CIO. 

Union membership is up in New York state, he said, and labor is moving "from a top-down approach to bottom-up." Issues he's been involved with include establishing and maintaining health benefits for people affected by the 9/11 attacks, supporting nurses in their struggle for good conditions and limited hours, and steering purchasers (including New York state) toward American-made steel. 

Eitzmann is a Malta resident, whose father Murray is one of our members.

In other business, we mourn the passing last week of our friend and fellow club member Nancy Sausville (left). Calling hours and services for Nancy will be Saturday morning (see here for obituary and service details).

We inducted our newest member this morning, Donna Kripfgans-Rawlin.

And last Saturday, we participated in Malta Community Day at Shenantaha Park, running a cornhole booth and raising $128. 

Below, left to right, Bob Bonney, Chris Havens, Dave Kruczlnicki and Dwight Havens fold up the canopy at the end of the event.

Our next event will be Monday Sept. 16 from 1 to 6 p.m., assisting a Red Cross blood drive at the Malta Community Center (a cause close to the heart of Nancy Sausville).

  

QMC on Way Out

 

Linda Gorham was our speaker Thursday, as often before, talking about Qholaqhoe Mountain Connections (QMC) in the southern African country of Lesotho. The photo above is of students at Qholoqhoe High School receiving supplies from its Emergency Food Fund, which QMC helps support.

QMC's main focus in recent years has been providing scholarships for students in this remote rural and mountainous place to attend three high schools, and for some to attend college out of the area. Two of the latter will graduate from Lesotho Agricultural College in September, while others attend the National University of Lesotho.

 But QMC will be winding down its operations over the next few years. Linda said she was "sad but grateful."

Malta Sunrise Rotary has an additional, unrelated African connection in members' ongoing support for AOET Uganda, which has strong support in the Saratoga region.

 

DEI Chair Makes Pitch

 

 

Pam Baxter, at end of table, chats before her presentation at Thursday's meeting. (Meanwhile Steve Ames, on right, looks skeptically at photographer.) Pam heads the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee for the new Central New York Rotary District, of which we are part.

DEI is "about relationships," she said, noting the high prevalence of Americans laboring under some form of disability. "As human beings," she said, "don't we all just want to be appreciated, and recognized?" We may need to watch out for "ableism," and "unlearn behaviors that hinder your own growth as a person."