

What better way to start the eighteenth year of the publishing of Kendal View than by covering a diverse range of subjects: from ice cream to a new sport...from doing good in Ghana to doing better at Kendal...from the life of a Queen to that of a city dweller. Here are the writers who have brought such subjects home to you, beginning with a poignant look at his marriage by FRANK NEUWIRTH, and an introduction by PAT TAYLOR to Kendal’s new outdoor sport. DORIS EDER then describes what it was like to live in three different cities (two of them in turbulent times), while URSULA HAHN focuses on watching birds hatch on her terrace. A fellow editor, LLYN CLAGUE, has interviewed Kendal’s financial wizard, CFO Jean Eccleston, then we find out how the newly-resurgent Co-Pilot Program works from our house historian, NORMAN SISSMAN, and all about an award for eating ice cream from GENE DUBOW. Africa is the next stop, with the experiences of ex-teacher BOB ROOT, and we end with the thoughts of ANNE WHITE on the importance of community.
The four covers were selected and processed by new co-photo editor Richard Schneeman. He took the front cover at the iconic Playland Park in Rye, NY, a National Historic Landmark that is the only amusement park in the U.S. designed in the Art Deco style. The dramatic inside front cover depicting Jupiter and Saturn was photographed by Arthur Brady while on a Kendal Trips Committee visit to the American Museum of Natural History. The two deer on alert on the inside back cover were caught by Ann Marie Schneeman on her daily early-morning walk around Alida. The back cover by Ed Kasinec is a view of Kendal and Rockwood from the Kykuit loggia.
All inside photographs were processed by Arthur Brady.
Eugene DuBow, Doris Eder, Muriel Fox, Hubert B. Herring, Carolyn Klinger, Edith Litt, Norman Sissman
Arthur Brady, Caroline Persell, Richard Schneeman
Peter McCuen
Marilyn and I moved into Kendal in 2005 over the objections of our two sons, who thought that neither of us, who were in excellent health, needed an “old folks’ home.” I had been searching for an institution that provided skilled nursing for its residents ever since Marilyn’s father, who had been living with her oldest sister, required nursing assistance. Marilyn and her sisters spent weeks searching for an appropriate nursing home: they thought they had found one and their father was placed in the home’s care. He was incontinent, and complained that members of the staff hit him. We didn’t believe him until the man in the next bed confirmed the facts and he was removed from that home. I vowed to Marilyn that it would never happen to us.
Thus began a search that brought us to Kendal on Hudson. I believe that the ground was not yet broken when we put our money down for an apartment. We moved in in 2005, both of us in good health and full of energy. During the next several years we enjoyed making new friends and participating in the many programs here at KoH. But as we aged, problems began to overtake us, particularly Marilyn. She spent time on several occasions in Clearwater. I was able to visit her, to have meals with her, to remain with her until she went to bed. Marilyn recovered her health each time and our life in Independent Living continued.
A number of years later, Marilyn suffered a very serious fall. After leaving the hospital, she was again a patient in Clearwater. Again, I was able to spend as much time as I wished with her. This time she suffered several strokes that affected some of her abilities. As time went on, she had another stroke that blinded her. Once again, I happily spent time with her, holding hands and reassuring her. One night, after she was put to bed, I bent over to kiss her and she whispered “I love you, Frank.” Those were the last words she spoke and she died a few hours later, on the morning of February 1, 2019.
That was the gift that Kendal gave to me. That is the gift for which I shall be forever grateful.
Frank and Marilyn are shown at one point in their sixty-five years of marriage – one that worked because of their love for each other. Marilyn’s last words to Frank confirmed this.
The ancient sport of bocce is documented in a 5,200 BCE painting found in an Egyptian tomb. By 600 BCE, the peripatetic Greeks had passed the game on to the Italian states. And by 1,319 AD, bocce had become so popular everywhere Italians had migrated that it was prohibited for a time because it interfered with more necessary pastimes like archery and training for war.
In 2022, bocce came to Kendal when Fitness Coordinator Cathy DiSomma decided to introduce an outside activity to the Fitness Center schedule. The idea of bocce was a natural for her, given the frequent bocce games that were part of every get-together of her Italian relatives during her childhood. There was one problem, though: a bocce court calls for a terrain that is relatively flat and of a certain size. But in her exploration of the Kendal campus, Cathy found the almost perfect spot: the garden area between Alida and Robert Fulton.
The next step was to get someone who knew the rules of the game. Cathy heard that a Fitnesss regular, Pete McCuen, not only played bocce off-campus, but had expressed a fervent desire to be able to play nearer to home.
Before Pete could tell Cathy the reasons the idea wouldn’t work, he had agreed to set the parameters. Cathy meanwhile acquired the very simple equipment required: a smaller ball called a pallino, used to set the goal, and up to eight larger balls to be thrown to see which one gets closest to it. Teams can range from two to eight participants or the game can be played among individuals.
Since May, groups of residents have been gathering every Wednesday, weather permitting, from 1:30 to 2:30 to either participate or watch a match of two pick-up teams chosen on the spot. The game will be played until mid-October. So on any Wednesday, bring a copy of the simple rules (available from Cathy) to Kendal’s own court to join other residents in a game of bocce.
Bocce being played by residents on a recent Wednesday afternoon Photograph by Joe BrunoI was born in the wrong place at the wrong time: in Teplitz, about 50 miles from Prague, in May 1936. That was the time when Adolf Hitler, who had become German Chancellor three years earlier and annexed Austria, decided to invade Czechoslovakia, the new Central European democracy carved out of the corpse of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
In March 1939, my father sent my mother and me to England; the flight there is my earliest memory. My father waited six months to follow. Deplaning at Dover on September 3, he was threatened with being sent back because Britain had already declared war on Germany. Fortunately, British business acquaintances vouched for him. Later he became principal salesman for Chance Brothers’ glass works in Birmingham, producing first searchlights, then domestic glassware.
I would not see Prague again for more than 50 years, until 2011, after the Velvet Revolution –so called because Czechoslavakia evolved from communism into a weird kind of capitalism without a shot being fired. (My compatriots, like me, are peaceable bourgeois.)
My personal reason for visiting Prague again was that, in April 2004, I had received a call out of the blue from a stranger called David Lewin. Mr. Lewin lived in London and had founded a company called Search & Unite. He put me in touch with two cousins I had never met – one an Englishman, the other an Australian woman – both related to me on my father’s side. He told me that the three of us had inherited property form my now deceased father, but that it had taken him a year to trace me to New York City.
It took seven more years before the documentation was in order for me to visit Prague and thank the Czech lawyer who had worked on my behalf and that of my cousins to recover the property from the municipality of Prague, then to sell it, and pay us the proceeds. I never actually saw the property, although I tried to.
In Prague in 2011, I had the following adventure. My husband and I stayed for 10 days with Jana, a lively young Czech woman, and her family. On Saturday afternoon, on the eve of our departure, we boarded a bus to visit an art gallery. On the bus, without my knowing it, pickpockets opened the flap of my shoulder bag and extracted my red leather wallet containing all the money we owed our Czech landlady, British Airways flight tickets, and our passports. We did not discover this loss until Sunday at noon. We immediately rushed downtown to try to get passport photos taken in the hope of exchanging our airline tickets for a Lufthansa flight on Monday. A waiter in a restaurant offered to take our photo with my camera, but we found there was no film in it.
Miraculously, as we approached Jana’s apartment, she was holding up my red wallet and waving our passports in the air! Someone had found my wallet with its precious contents intact – except for the money. Jana drove us to the newly-renamed Vaclav Havel Airport to catch our flight with just three minues to spare.
Time and place concurring, London became for me indissolubly associated with war. I lived in the heart of the metropolis and so experienced the Blitz. At age three, I was evacuated to a farm in Berkshire. Then for 10 years (1942-l952), I boarded at a school l8 miles south of London. An ancient yew on the school grounds figures in the Domesday Book, William the Conqueror’s inventory of his British possessions. I recall two little owls sitting with their heads together in that tree.
My father and mother divorced atfer leaving Prague. My father obtained custody of me, principally to spite my mother. He was better off financially and hired a governess to look after me. Ena, this multitalented young Englishwoman, saved my life, for my father was a borderline psychotic and very difficult to live with. Maternal visits were few and always triggered paternal temper tantrums. After my parents’ divorce, my mother married an Englishman and, many years later, an Italian stage designer.
My mother was bombed out three times. I remember visiting one of her homes when I was seven. In the kitchen, where walls had been reduced to chunks of rubble, a half-sliced salami rested beside a knife on an untouched bread board – a Dutch still life.
How vividly I recall the air raids. Even now, the sound of a plane can spark memories of bombs and people falling. Ack-ack (antiaircraft) were located 350 yards from where we lived in Hyde Park; when they went off, our whole building shook; the racket was indescribable. Though most people hurried underground to shelter in Tube stations, we would gather in pajamas and robes on our building’s ground floor and drink cocoa. My father firewatched with pianist Artur Rubinstein: one night, they extinguished 200 incendiary bombs on our roof.
My first passions were all nurtured in Britain. As a six-year-old, I declared I would be a writer. When I was 11, the New Look came in and women and girls reveled in bouffant skirts with hourglass waists. In my twenties, I worked for Her Majesty the Queen’s opticians on Wigmore Street and the publisher, Routledge.
I left England only because my mother had emigrated to the United States after a spell in the Caribbean with her second husband.
She urged me to join her in New York City. Since my father had become stateless, it took me five years and an investigation by Scotland Yard to follow her here. At the end of October 1956, I arrived in New York after a stormy 10-day passage in a ship from Southampton; five years later I was naturalized.
My initial impressions of New York City were of flimsiness and flim-flam; only when I visited Wall Street did I find buildings rivaling London’s solidity. My mother and I lived on the Upper East Side in a tiny apartment on Lexington Avenue. Opening the front door, you were already in the kitchen. There was a mirror-lined bar in the living room, but the bedroom was so minuscule that one had to stand on the bed to make it.
Aged 20 now, I hadn’t lived with my mother since infancy. She paid the rent while I put myself through college at Columbia, then Barnard (which she referred to as “Barnyard”). I did so by working full-time at a textile firm for a year, then babysitting four or five nights a week for three more years. In this manner, I paid my way, earning a baccalaureate, a master’s in English from Hunter College, and a doctorate in English & Comparative Literature from CUNY.
On an 18-hour flight back from Europe in 1961, I met my future husband, Donald Eder, a denizen of the Upper West Side. My mother’s final marriage, to stage designer Cesare Mario Cristini, took place that same year; she married in April, Don and I in November. Would that Mummy had lived happily ever after, but Mario died soon after, and she fell into disconsolate widowhood – as I did briefly when Don died.
Now I find myself buoyed up by vivid memories of our own long and happy marriage;
During April, I kept noticing a bird on the balcony railing and wondered whether it was looking for a nesting site. Little did I know!
On May 6, I moved my house plants to the balcony to prepare for my annual house cleaning, and what did I discover? Five little white eggs in a small, deep nest carved into green moss, which was wedged between larger and smaller baskets on the top of a stacked storage unit. I was profoundly shocked and quickly moved the storage unit away from outside the living room window to a corner of the balcony. Never in my life had I seen a bird’s nest with eggs in it – and so close to human habitation.
Now that the nest was farther away, I couldn’t look into it from the living room, so I placed a stepladder near the window and kept my opera glasses at the ready. From that day on, I spent hours on my perch watching the comings and goings of the mother. She turned out to be a wren, recognizable by its tail, which stood straight up when she sat on the eggs.
Immediately, I became very possessive and couldn’t stay away, considering myself to be the caretaker. Whenever I saw the mother leave, I dashed outside and peered into the nest. A few days later, I saw what looked like several pink balls. The following day, I discovered tiny feet and wings, but I couldn’t tell how many chicks had hatched, as they were lying on top of each other, but it turned out to be four. On May 13, I panicked because I didn’t see the mother all day. Had she sensed a “foreign body” near the nest and abandoned it? I became frantic and called the nearest Audubon Society office – no answer. I collected a dead fly and wasp from a window sill on the Alida bridge, cut up the carcasses, and immediately four beaks opened wide, but two chicks pushed the others away and took the pieces eagerly from my tweezers. It got cold that night, and I took some wool yarn and covered the nest. The next morning, the yarn had been moved aside. To my great relief, this meant the mother had returned after all. Over the next few days, I fed the chicks bits of mashed trout in the hope they could digest it. Another resident advised me to make a sugar solution and use a dropper: the chicks eagerly lapped up the drops.
These little pink beings grew larger by the day, and fuzz began to appear quickly on their tiny wings. I felt the fourth chick was either pushed against the nest wall or wasn’t even visible. The chicks seemed to sleep all the time, but as soon as the mother, and possibly the father (they have the same color and markings), appeared with an insect or little worm, heads stretched upward into the air and beaks opened wide; the moment they were alone again they went back to sleep.
On one of the warm days, the “Top Gun” of the four nesters was sprawled on the moss outside the nest, sunning itself; the body underneath the wings was still pink and featherless. I never heard a peep from them, but that little nest must have become more uncomfortable by the day. On May 21, Number One first perched on the basket handle, then switched to the balcony railing, while the other three hopped out of the nest and rested on the basket rim. Suddenly, Top Gun took off for the fir tree, soon followed by Numbers Two and Three. The littlest hesitated, then flew to and held onto the rough balcony wall, rested on the remnant of a wine rack, and after a few peeps flew away. My self-imposed role had come to an end.
Two million, six hundred thousand dollars is the amount that Kendal on Hudson reduced its debt service by restructuring our banking relationship, securing an upgrade to our bond rating, and issuing new bonds. Taken together, these actions put our annual finances on a more solid footing, provide for short-term borrowing on an as-needed basis, and for longterm borrowing on the bond market with reduced annual debt service: $2,600,000 lower.
A project led by CFO Jean Eccleston culminated in May 2022 with two major developments: (1) creating a new banking partnership; and (2) issuing 30-year bonds at lower interest rates.
The background: Our most recent bonds, from 2013 and 2014 (used primarily to finance Project Renew), required annual principal and interest payments of about $5.9 million per year. Until 2021 we couldn’t take advantage of the low-interest environment of most of the last decade due to IRS regulations and prepayment penalties. Moreover, the bank we were using would not give us a line of credit during Covid, when we had almost no new move-ins, yet ongoing expenses. Thus, during 2021, Jean and her team worked with bond underwriters HJ Sims and financial advisers Hamlin Capital Advisors to develop a strategy combining private bank financing with public debt, i.e., bonds.
The project, as approved by the Finance Committee and the KoH Board, entailed two major steps: (1) create a partnership with a bank to refund the 2014 bonds, to establish a line of credit, and to improve routine cash management; and (2) upgrade our bond rating and lower long-term borrowing costs. Requests for Proposals (RFPs) were sent out to about 20 banks, and we got a “phenomenal” (Jean’s word) response. CEO Pamela Klapproth and Jean set up a “Bank Day,” explaining our situation and plan to interested banks, resulting in four strong proposals. The winner was Bank United. Per the agreement concluded in May 2022, it is now a key partner with us in a 20-year partnership (“unheard-of” in the senior living industry), including a renewable three-year line of credit.
Regarding the second step, the bond-rating agency Fitch, back in July 2021, had given KoH a rating of “BBB with positive outlook,” and we wanted to improve that. In April 2022 a top Fitch officer visited Kendal (for the first time) with a team. They were evidently most impressed (touring the campus, meeting staff and residents). Fitch raised our rating to “BBB+ with positive outlook,” whereupon Pamela and Jean made a presentation to institutional bond buyers to tell the KoH story. The upgrade in the bond rating is estimated to save Kendal approximately $660,000 in principal and interest over the life of the bonds.
The net result is that we reduced that $5.9 million annual principal and interest cost to $3.3 million, saving approximately $2.6 million per year. This now serves as the foundation for funding the Master Plan currently under consideration, which could not have been done under the old financing. The increased “debt capacity” Jean characterizes as achieving “the modernization of our finances” and “setting KoH up for the future.”
Three cheers! The CoPilot Program has been reactivated. A brief history of it may satisfy the curiosity of new residents and even entice some to join it.
The program was initiated by a resident, the late Katherine Sinclair. She had been to a hospital emergency room and found the experience anxietyprovoking because she was alone and a bit confused. So, she began to think of ways in which some assistance might be provided to others in a similar situation. Her thoughts became the CoPilot Program.
How does it work? Volunteers are available 24 hours every day to accompany residents who go to the Emergency Room at Phelps; they act as companions. Each resident makes him- or herself available for a 12-hour period, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. or from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. A dedicated phone is picked up at the beginning of each shift, and if the need arises, the volunteer is called by the Front Desk and goes to the ER, either in the ambulance, or separately, to join the patient. The co-pilot then stays with the patient until a family member arrives, the patient is admitted as an in-patient, or the patient is discharged. If discharged, the co-pilot accompanies the patient back to Kendal. While in the ER, a co-pilot may simply talk to and comfort the patient, may help communicate with the medical staff, and may make needed phone calls or run simple errands such as returning to Kendal to get forgotten eyeglasses, a left-behind cell phone, or other possessions. No medical knowledge is needed, since co-pilots are not involved with any prescribed tests or treatment. Usually, a co-pilot is on call only once or twice a month and getting an actual call is rarer than that. Currently, there are 40 volunteers in the Co-Pilot Program; 21 on days and 19 on nights. There is always room for more volunteers.
The program began in 2008. Originally, Katherine, the late Peter Davies, and I were its leaders. Some years later, I began the job as chair on my own. I kept a log of each visit, so can report that the first 12 years of the program recorded 257 calls for co-pilots. As would be
Left to Right: Thanks to the efforts of Night Coordinator Jane Hart, General Coordinator Gretchen Engler, and Day Coordinator Lllian Hess, the Co-Pilot Program is off and runningexpected, the most frequent reason for ER visits was falls. The program has been universally welcomed and applauded by the residents who have been recipients of its services. In addition, Leading Age, a retirement facility umbrella group, awarded us a prize in 2012 for being the most innovative resident-run service.
One advantage we have is the closeness of Phelps Hospital. Because of its proximity and non-thoroughfare roads, it is quick and easy to reach.
The Program was suspended in February 2020 because of the Covid pandemic. Now it has reopened under the leadership of three residents: Gretchen Engler, Jane Hart, and Lillian Hess. They have worked hard and successfully to start it up again. Their main supports have been Ellen Ottstadt and Kim Carpentier. I am very pleased that I have been asked to be an advisor to the Program. I wish the three new leaders and all the volunteers continuing success.
The storied devotion of residents to their ice cream has paid off: Kendal has been given a Golden Scoop Award designating us as a favorite customer by Hershey Premium Ice cream Products.
There’s no connection to the Hershey’s that makes chocolate bars. Started in 1894, our Hershey has corporate headquarters in Harrisburg, PA. It offers 48 different kinds of ice cream, as well as some varieties made with yogurt.
Kendal dining staffers Luis Javier and Jorge Paez do the ordering under the guidance of Fred Coppola, Director of Dining. The ice cream comes in three-gallon containers and we go through about 20 containers a week. That’s about 60 gallons of the stuff every week! Twelve different flavors are kept on hand and rotated daily. There is a reserve so we always have twenty gallons ready for action. Not to worry.
Fred Copolla (left) and Luis Javier proudly show the Golden Scoop Award
After my official retirement in 2003 as a School Superintendent, I served for several years in the Westbury, Long Island, schools as an Assistant for Instruction, working closely with Brumsic Brandon, the Science Director. One day, Brumsic told me he had met Don Felder, a marketer of cell phones in Ghana, who was also connected to FAWE (Forum for African Women Educationalists), an organization that supported the education of young women in African nations. Don thought that educators like Brumsic and me would be interested in the FAWE school in Obodan, a tiny village north of Accra, the capital of Ghana. Thus it was that my friend and I went to Ghana during our upcoming February vacation – and for a week during the next three spring breaks.
Brumsic (far left) and Bob flank a Chief of the village of Obodan in Ghana
When we arrived that first time, we responded to a request from the elders of Obodan to build a swing set for young children. Construction was completed in a couple of days and we moved on to connecting with the teachers and students of the Girls Senior High School. At that time, nearly fifteen years ago, the entire school was composed of six classrooms, a cafeteria, dorms for young women who came from more distant villages, and a library that was nothing more than a repurposed ship container. The founders’ central purpose was to rescue girls from menial work in the pineapple fields (and exploitation by foremen). Education was geared to the primary occupations available to young women: nursing and teaching,
The barebones classrooms had no running water, microscopes, or anything that resembled a foundation for science instruction. One day, Brumsic and I made a special trip to the Girls’ School in Aburi, and found facilities and programs that far exceeded the minimal program in Obodan. On our fourth visit to Ghana, we were able to bring replaced computers from the Westbury Schools, along with flash drives of simulated science experiments that I had gathered from the Internet. However, during each of our four February visits, the “consultation” we provided seldom went beyond encouragement for good work.
As to our travels during these weeks, my lasting impression was of joy, warmth, and acceptance from Ghanaians, young and old. The youngest children just wanted to hang out and asked endless questions. The teenage boys appreciated the soccer balls, gifts I brought with me, but were more interested in boots (soccer shoes). Once home, I was able to find a source of used soccer shoes on Long Island; I packed the boots up and sent them.
We typically spent most of the mornings in the village and at the school, and the remainder of the day exploring. Ghana is an extraordinary country with a rich, but tragic, history. Since 1957, when it became the first African nation to gain independence from colonial rule, Ghana has been blessed with a democracy that has ensured peaceful transitions of government not common on the continent. The over-300-mile southern coastline on the Atlantic (actually the Gulf of Guinea) is magnificent. Yet this beauty is tarnished with numerous castles built initially by the Portuguese as outposts for regular trade with the Asante and other tribes along what was then known as the Gold Coast. However, in the late fifteenth century, trade in humans to both Europe and America became significantly more profitable. Many of the castles and their dungeons, now restored, attest to the brutality of the slave era. I still can “see” the Cape Coast castle’s “Door of No Return,” a direct passageway from the dungeons to the holds of waiting ships.
Beyond these visits to the slave castles, there were trips during which we met Ghanaians and saw as much of their beautiful country as time permitted. We twice visited Anyako, for which Don’s church back in New Jersey had supported the building of a library. On each visit, students provided a concert of African music and dance. We also visited Lake Volta, formed from damming the Volta River, which is an important source of hydroelectric power for eastern Ghana.
During each of our four trips, we went to Aburi to see and to purchase the outstanding work of the wood carvers. A visit to Kakum National Park, a preserve in Cape Coast, was like visiting one of our own National Parks. The farthest we traveled was to Komasi, a major city 125 miles north of Accra, over very marginal roads. And to broaden our experience we once battled through a snarled, and rather corrupted, border crossing into Togo, Ghana’s neighbor to the east.
Brumsic is now retired and living across the river in Rockland County. Whenever we connect, we “revisit” these times and celebrate the great opportunity of the trips, memories of good friends, and a beautiful country.
Our son David joined the 2009 trip and created an eight-minute photo/video record of students and the school that Don used for fund raising with his church and other groups. It is digitized to play on an iPad or computer and is available on request from rwroot1@gmail.com.
Local kids using the swing set built during the first of four trips to Ghana
Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. Sitting back-to-back, each village has its own elected Mayor and Board of Trustees, responsible for setting policies and budgets and overseeing the work of their administration. What connects the two villages officially is geography, a shared ZIP code (10591), and a united school district.
Also essential to the two villages’ identity as one community are the many organizations, mainly run by volunteers, that serve both villages. For the last ten years, a Community Coalition has brought these groups together once a month to coordinate and share updates on activities and events.
Recently, the Coalition created a 10591 Volunteer Directory with information about 28 organizations that welcome volunteers and/or donations. This is an invaluable resource for Kendal residents with an interest in learning more about the community we live in and the many different ways to make a difference if you care to do so.
Here at Kendal, we’re at the northern edge of the Village of Sleepy Hollow, a name known round the world as the site of Washington Irving’s famous Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The new directory acknowledges this connection, as it begins: “We may be famous for being ‘headless,’ but our community runs on its heart. Neighbors helping neighbors.”
Here’s a sample listing from the Directory:
Latino U College Access (LUCA): “We are a nonprofit that empowers low-income, first-generation Latino students on their way to and through college. We seek volunteers to support students with the admissions and financial aid processes plus career mentorship. Our mission is possible because of our generous donors.” For more information, email info@latinou.org
The 10591 Volunteer Directory is online at https://community10591.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2022/05/Volunteer-Directory-051022.pdf, with printed copies available in the Kendal Library. Each organization lists an email or a website for more information
A number of Kendal residents participate in organizations and committees in the village. Aubrey Hawes, a local super-volunteer, especially enjoys his work with ITAV (It Takes a Village), an organization that offers services for people over 55, allowing them to continue living independently as they age. He finds it most rewarding to visit members in their homes — “doing simple household tasks or reading to someone with failing eyesight, sharing smiles and laughs and a cup of coffee.”
Shelley Robinson, now retired from years of active service in the Sleepy Hollow Ambulance Corps, advises this is NOT for people pushing 70 or 80 and beyond. She now volunteers
instead at The Cherry Door, a thrift shop in Tarrytown, preparing donated items — some one-of-a-kind — for resale and reuse by grateful families. “All the proceeds go to Phelps Hospital to help make healthcare more affordable for all,” she tells me. “But really, it’s the people and the sense of camaraderie that keep me coming back.”
For her husband, Nick, the greatest satisfaction comes from applying his legal expertise on environmental issues to benefit the Village. When General Motors closed its assembly plant in 1996, he persuaded the State DEC to require that all contaminated material be removed on railroad cars instead of trucks, to avoid the danger of spills and a steady stream of heavy truck traffic on village roads.
For myself, I love to use the planning skills I honed in Minnesota to help create green spaces, plazas, public art, and streets that are safe for everyone, all ages and abilities. And partnering with Kendal’s Harriet Barnett, I’m passionate about building better connections amongst the diverse groups that live and work in Sleepy Hollow. The village now offers notices in English and in Spanish, and a full-time Village Liaison works with recent immigrants, planning programs in Spanish and connecting them to necessary resources.
Meanwhile, several Kendal residents participate in village committee meetings, including the monthly all-volunteer Environmental Advisory Committee and the Community Coalition. Also popular with Kendal residents is the weekly Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow Farmer’s Market (TaSH) in Patriots Park, with Kendal transportation offered once or twice a month to shop for fresh-picked produce at outdoor markets in Tarrytown and Pleasantville.
These events and more are all listed on an online Calendar of Events, available at https://community10591.org/. Here you can find the perfect match for your particular interests and talents, whether you want to volunteer or just enjoy the meeting or event.
Already on the calendar for the Halloween season, the annual Sleepy Hollow Cultural Festival is one event you definitely won’t want to miss. It’s on Saturday, September 17th, in Kingsland Point Park beside the river. With Kendal on Hudson a major sponsor, and many Kendal talents on display, there’ll be shuttle service offered to and from the venue. Come on out and enjoy the celebration, remembering that it all depends on the work of volunteers!
Kendal View is published by the Residents Association of Kendal on Hudson, a nonprofit organization in compliance with IRS regulations under 501 (c) 3. Printing is handled by Heritage Newsletters, Inc. located in Somers, New York.
Dentistry, as with other health services, is rapidly changing. Technology is constantly improving, allowing us to deliver quality care in less time and with less stress. Most importantly though, dentistry is still an art as well as a science. As a health service, the patient care is provided not only by the doctor, but by the entire office staff. Dentistry as a health service means properly placed restorations and courteously answered phones. Rapidly changing technology will not change this philosophy of service.
Kevin Jong, DMD & Peter Zegarelli, DDS
87 North Broadway • Tarrytown, NY 10591 • 914-631-1800
Website: www.drzegarelli.com • Email: info@drzegarelli.com
The Zegarelli dental office has been located in Tarrytown since 1982. We have been serving KoH residents since the Kendal opening day in 2005.
North Broadway
Vitality at Phelps Hospital offers free educational and fun health-related programs and events, as well as support groups, to help you stay active and engaged as you age. Stay connected to your health and wellness, while having fun with your peers - offered right in your backyard at Phelps! Programs include the Breakfast Club, fall prevention programs, osteoporosis education, holistic pain support, memory care & more.
For more information about Vitality programs and events, please call Ellen at (914) 366-3937 or email vitality@northwell.edu .
701 N. Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591 (914) 366-3000 | www.phelps.northwell.edu
A few doors from C Town. Free parking in the back away from traffic. Knowledgeable and friendly staff will answer questions and help you select from the largest and most unique display in the Rivertowns.
pricing and discounts.
look forward to having you join our many Kendal customers.
John Sarofeen, Proprietor Tel. 914-332-0294 92 N. Broadway, Tarrytown, NY
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Phelps Hospital earns national recognition for stroke treatment.
The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recognize Phelps Hospital for its continued success in using the Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke, Target: StrokeSM, and Advanced Therapy programs.
Phelps Hospital has been awarded “GOLD PLUS” for the 11th year in a row, and Honor Roll Elite for providing the latest evidence- based treatment for best patient care and outcomes in our community.
phelps.northwell.edu (914) 366-3000