Veterans Moving Forward

Our speaker Thursday was Joe Miranda, who served many years as an employee of Saratoga County, and as an elected official in the Town of Milton and Village of Ballston Spa. But he was talking to us about his son Joey, who served in the Marine Corps and then suffered a traumatic brain injury in a construction accident. Joe had praise for the organization Veterans Moving Forward, which provided Joey with a service dog. You can see the result in this video.

Club members also discussed the upcoming installation of three benches on the Zim Smith Trail. The first part of that project, pouring the concrete, will be done tomorrow.

Also, thanks to Al Schmidt, Doug Martin, Craig Warner and Mike Williams, who worked with a Chazen Companies crew last weekend on the Rebuilding Together Saratoga County project.

Catching up

Thursday's meeting featured our own Bob Holbrook speaking about variable annuities, and a discussion of upcoming events including today's Rebuilding Saratoga project.
The previous week we skipped over, because the speaker was our scholarship recipient, but we jumped the gun on that. We weren't supposed to tell him until the school district awards ceremony in early May, so more will be posted here about all that after the district event.

Taking care of business

At our business meeting today, Pete Champagne from the Ballston Spa Rotary Club gave tips for our upcoming project to install three benches on the Zim Smith Trail. Pete's club has been installing benches in the village of Ballston Spa.


We also discussed our May 14 pancake breakfast coming up at the Malta Ridge Fire House, with Leatherstocking Honor Flight as our partner again.


And our Scholarship Committee will soon be announcing a $1,000 award for a senior from Malta.

RYLA dinner, and Malta Veterans

Here are Arlene Schmidt and Ben Balet at the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards dinner Saturday at Skidmore College. Five members of our club attended, but Arlene is the key player who helps run the monthly RYLA meetings at Skidmore for high school-age students. One of those students this year was Ben, a Malta resident and a junior at Ballston Spa High School, who attended with his family (below): father John, sister Liza, and mother Sandi.

The students organized this well-run event, from the good food to games to excellent music by a string quartet of Shaker High School students, whose selections included Mozart's "A Little Night Music."

Meanwhile, our speakers at Thursday's meeting were Renee Farley and Sandra King, from the Malta Veteran Appreciation Program. They have been reaching out to help veterans in need, so check out their Web site for more information.