You spend your life running: After your kids, to the bus, to the bank, to catch the train, to a meeting, on the treadmill. While you're usually ready to collapse by the weekend, on Saturday, September 20, 2008, get up and go for a good cause. The Mental Health Association of Westchester County Inc. is hosting MHA On the Move: Run, Walk and Dance! to raise awareness and funds to provide much needed services. "Mental illness and emotional disturbance touches all of us and the stigma associated with seeking help can be devastating" says MHA's CEO Dr. Amy Kohn. "MHA On the Move: Run, Walk, Dance! is an amazing community event that brings people together to raise awareness and to break down barriers that prevent people from seeking the help and treatment they need."

The action begins at 9am in FDR State Park, Yorktown Heights with a 5K run/walk and a 1-mile kids' race; these are followed by food and fun for the family. You can burn off what you ate after the race during the dance portion of the event. "Dance!" kicks off at 7pm at the Marros in Rye, NY, where Jane Pauley will be honored among other local supporters. Tipper Gore is the honorary co-chair for the event.

For information about the Gala Dance Celebration, contact Frank Accosta at (212) 838-2660 x21; mhadance@loreleievents.com.

Register online for the Run/Walk or contact Connie Moustakas at (914) 592-5900 x 209 or onthemove@mhawestchester.org.
Prizes for individuals and teams, including a grand prize of one roundtrip airline ticket on JetBlue, are being offered.

To learn more about MHA and the services it provides, including suicide prevention and violence hotlines, visitwww.mhawestchester.org.

Posted by plumberry2 at 02:06 AM | Permalink

Life is like a carnival: You never know what you're gonna get. Sometimes it's a field teaming with ferris wheels, scramblers, tilt-a-whirls, cotton candy and fried dough. Other days it's a parking lot with a face painter, ring toss and (if you're lucky) a bouncy castle. This Sunday, the annual "actually really good" JCC Children's Carnival in Pleasantville is back in town, which means you can count on fun rides, giant slides and climbing walls, plus a wide array of carnival games, air-brush tattoos, sand art and the ever-popular dunk tank.

This year, the event also features an Israeli theme, with music, foods and handcrafted gifts all hailing from the 60-year-old state. Meaning that kids who protest their first taste of falafel can be bribed with cotton candy or snow cones for dessert.

JCC Children's Carnival
May 18, 2008, 11am to 5pm (Rain date June 1)
Rosenthal JCC of Northern Westchester
600 Bear Ridge Road, Pleasantville
(914) 741-0333

Posted by plumberry at 01:28 PM | Permalink

It’s easy to forget, when you are busy making reservations at your favorite new restaurant or purchasing delicacies from a preferred local purveyor, that some of your neighbors will not be eating as well as you tonight. No, not the palate-impaired ones down the street who think that Applebee’s served a perfectly fine dinner; families throughout the area face real hunger on a daily basis. The Food Bank of Westchester (formerly known as Food-PATCH) estimates that 200,000 people in our county are at risk or are hungry – including many elderly and children.

Okay, well, that’s dampened your appetite. Whet it again – both for great local food and great local causes – at the 3^rd Annual Taste of Our Towns Food Festival, sponsored by St. Mark’s Episcopal Church to benefit the Community Center of Northern Westchester, the Mount Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry and the Emergency Shelter Partnership. Featuring fare from 12 local eateries, including Belizzi, Brio Ristorante, Francesca’s Bistro, Jennifer’s Kitchen & Catering, Mount Kisco Seafood, Quaker Hill Tavern, The Perennial Chef, and more, the festival offers a great way for families to discover some of the best dishes local purveyors have to offer, while lending a hand to the groups that help our neediest residents.

Now that’s something to chew on.

Taste of Our Towns Food Festival
May 3rd, 12 Noon to 2:30pm
$15 adults; $5 children under 12
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
85 E. Main Street, Mount Kisco
(corner of Rts. 117 & 133)

Posted by plumberry at 01:25 PM | Permalink

Those aging ‘60s radicals have spent the last 40 years or so griping “Whatsamatta with these kids these days” with a ferocity matched only by their own crew-cut parents’ disparagement of their long-haired, unwashed Summer of Love. Given that they managed to miss Gen X’s campus protests on apartheid in South Africa, Take Back the Night Marches and such, who knows if they are registering Gen Y’s current commitment to social causes such as the Dafur conflict, the African AIDS crisis and the environment. Well, they may be out of the loop, but you aren’t, and you’re darn impressed with these kids. Support the latest generation of positive social activism by stopping by the Awareness Day Craft Fair, sponsored by Teens for the Future, a group from Bell Middle School in Chappaqua. In the past year, this group of 7th and 8th graders has collected 1000 notebooks for refugee children in Darfur; collected funds to send a pediatric nurse to Uganda to medically serve 6000 orphaned children, as well as sending care packages for 100 of them. Currently, the group is working to address the needs of local underprivileged children, raising funds to support Heifer International, and again collecting notebooks for refugee children in Darfur, with this year’s target being 2500. Whew. Okay, so the day itself – which you are amazed they even have time to plan, given all the above – will include great food and fun crafts, along with presentations on their activities. Being held at the Chappaqua Library Theater on Sunday May 4th, from 1 to 4 pm, Teens for the Future will be joined by other youth-led groups with social missions from around the area. And with role models like these, who knows what certain Gen Z'ers just might be doing a few years from now. Awareness Day Craft Fair Sunday May 4th, 1 to 4pm Chappaqua Library Theater 195 S. Greeley Avenue Chappaqua, NY

Posted by plumberry at 01:36 AM | Permalink

The downside of leaving the city: Giving up instant access to Intermix and your standing dinner res at Gramercy Tavern. The Upside: Your kids have fresh air to breathe and grass to run on in the backyard. But what if your child still had trouble breathing and couldn't run? That is among the many struggles that 4-year-old Sydney Lerman, a little girl living in Chappaqua faces every day of her life.

Sydney was diagnosed at birth with a very severe form of Marfan syndrome, a potentially life-threatening disorder that affects the heart and blood vessels, skeleton, and eyes. The most serious problem associated with Marfan syndrome is its effect on the aorta, the main artery carrying blood away from the heart. At the age of two, Sydney went into severe heart failure requiring a heart transplant.

"We truly could not believe what was happening." says Sydney's mother Barbara Lerman, recalling her days by Sydney's hospital bedside. "Our prayers were answered when she received the new heart, but the following months of recovery were filled with tremendous ups and downs. Through it all we never lost hope. We knew deep down that Syd was going to pull through."

In addition to being supportive of Sydney, Barbara and Sydney's father, Jonathan Lerman are active members of the National Marfan Foundation that holds HEARTworks, an annual gala in New York City. Last year, the event, which featured Broadway stars Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin, raised 1.2 million dollars.

The couple along with twenty women from Chappaqua, are teaming up to chair the first HEARTworks Westchester gala, an off-shoot of the New York City benefit. The women who comprise the committee came together after watching the family go through the various ordeals that Sydney has endured throughout her young life. "The Lerman family has demonstrated immense courage as they have dealt with one medical challenge after another brought on by Sydney's Marfan syndrome," said Carolyn Scarbrough, a benefit committee member from Somers. "The strength of our community lies in what we give to others in their time of need. We have been here for the Lermans and, as mothers, the benefit committee members want to do all we can to support the thousands of other children, like Sydney, who have Marfan syndrome.  Through this gala, we hope to raise $150,000 for the NMF's life-saving programs."

The Westchester benefit will be held at the Metropolis Country Club in White Plains on May 29 at 7 pm. There will be a cocktail reception and a silent and live auction. Tickets, which are $250 each, are available by calling 516-883-8712. A limited number are available.

Proving yet again, that you don't have to travel to the city to be a part of something great.

HEARTworks Westchester
Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 7pm
Metropolis Country Club
289 Dobbs Ferry Road
White Plains, NY

For ticket information:
516-883-8712
jgrignoli@marfan.org

Posted by plumberry at 01:26 PM | Permalink

Whoever invented the Saturday night babysitter should be sainted. Her arrival means that for one blessed evening, putting the kids to bed is somebody else's problem. Still, week after week of dinner with friends does get a little old, not to mention expensive. If you're gonna spend your hard-earned cash, you might as well make it worth your while. 

Casino for the Cause -- which will benefit the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America --is a sure bet for an entertaining night out. Texas Hold Em', Black Jack, Craps, Roulette: All the excitement of Mohegan Sun without the schlep or guilt if you lose (it's all for charity).

"I got involved in the CCFA Casino for the Cause after my now six-year-old son was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at the age of four," says co-chair Jennifer Paley. "I felt it was my responsibility, as his mother, to do something to help find a cure. The event is really a lot of fun and the best part is that it raises money for a very important cause."

If wheelin' and dealin' ain't your thing, you can try your luck at both the live and silent auctions where you could score fabulous stuff like sports memorabilia, designer jewelry, iPods, vacations, Broadway shows, designer bags at well below cost. All this and you won't go hungry. Delicious hors d'oeuvres, dinner and bottomless cocktails will be served all night.

You really won't remember the last time you had so much fun and for such a good cause.

Just remember to tell the babysitter you'll be late. 

Casino for the Cause
Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America Fairfield/Westchester Chapter
Saturday, March 29th at 7pm to 11:30pm
Grand Ballroom, Renaissance Westchester Hotel
White Plains
$150 per person
http://www.ccfa.org/chapters/westfield 

westfield@ccfa.org

 

Posted by plumberry at 02:03 PM | Permalink

Those picky eaters of yours are beginning to get to you. Try as you might to ask, cajole or demand that they eat the healthy contents of their lunch, you are usually left to toss out the baby carrots or three-quarters of a turkey sandwich at the end of the day. And as you do, that infamous phrase  -- “Think about the children starving in Africa” -- passes through your mind, if not crosses your lips.

And while your children are left to contemplate airlifting tonight’s vegetables to a deserving place, you know there kids who are saying “Mom, I’m hungry!” because they really are, and not just because someone forgot soccer snack this week. And they are not all in war-torn or famine-stricken nations – more than a few are right here in your own backyard of Westchester. Yes, Westchester.

As you chew on that, you might get acquainted with the Food PATCH, Westchester’s Food Bank. Last year alone, they distributed well over a million pounds of food to help feed hungry children throughout the county. But they need all the help they can get.

Attend “An Evening in Good Taste” to End Childhood Hunger on October 11 at the Performing Arts Center at SUNY Purchase. Sample the culinary wizardry of Westchester’s top chefs, snag really amazing stuff at the silent auction, and do it all for a good cause. Your contribution will go towards such Food PATCH programs as “Every Child Deserves a Lunch.”

You will be saving an underserved but well-deserving child’s future – even if you still won’t be able to get your own child to finish his turkey sandwich.  

An Evening in Good Taste to End Childhood Hunger
October 11^th 6 to 9pm at the Performing Arts Center at SUNY Purchase.   

For further information about donations and volunteering for Food PATCH (Westchester’s Food Bank): www.foodbankforwestchester.org

Posted by plumberry at 01:49 PM | Permalink

There are two reasons to shop: out of necessity (socks and underwear) and out of necessity (Tory Burch Audrey ballet flats). The first is guilt-free; the second leaves you hiding receipts and discarding shoeboxes.

Need a third reason? Shop For a Cure to benefit Jacob's Cure and the Fight Against Canavan Disease. This non-profit foundation is named for Jacob, a young boy who is afflicted with Canavan disease, a devastating genetic brain disorder. Because federal funding for research is scarce, it is through fundraisers like this that Jacob and others like him can find hope.  

You can feel proud breaking out your checkbook at Shop For a Cure and go home with trendy tees, jeans and dresses for summer, shoes, belts, jewelry, handbags, and housewarming gifts.

The joy of knowing that your contribution is helping to fund important research...Priceless.   

Shop for a Cure
Thursday May 10th
10 - 2pm
Congregation B'nai Yisrael of Armonk
2 Banksville Road
Armonk, New York
914-273-2220

To learn more about Jacob's Cure and Canavan Disease, please visit:

www.jacobscure.com

Posted by plumberry at 02:35 PM | Permalink

If your child’s idea of expanding his palette is to eat pepperoni pizza instead of plain or chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs, how, you wonder, will he ever grow to be a foodie like yourself?

Give him – and the whole family - a chance to sample the offerings from multiple local eateries at the 2nd Annual Taste of Our Towns festival this weekend. You’ll find a world of food that will appeal to both adults and children – Indian fare from Passage to India; made-on-the-spot sushi from Haiku, upscale Italian from the new Spinelli’s, plus other delicious offerings from Al Fresco, Myongs Private Label Gourmet, Ladle of Love, Lexington Square Café, Quaker Hill Tavern, The Perennial Chef, Strega, and Villarina’s Pasta & Deli. Kids (in age and at heart) will be treated to ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s.

Held at St. Mark’s Church in Mount Kisco, proceeds from the event go to benefit three local charities: The Community Center in Katonah, Mount Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry and the Northern Westchester Emergency Shelter Program.

So you can eat well and do good at the same time, which is always a mix worth savoring.

Taste of Our Towns

 

Saturday, April 28, 12 -3

Admission $12 adults; $5 children under 12

 

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

81 East Main Street (corner of Rtes. 117 & 133), Mount Kisco

 

Posted by plumberry at 08:28 AM | Permalink