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The raffle prize table will be back again for today’s blood drive at the Webster Recreation Center from noon to 7 pm.

The two-day Webster Community Red Cross Blood Drive came back to town yesterday, at St. Paul’s Church, and by all accounts, it has been very successful already.Regular donors who know this blood drive for the coupon packet provided by local businesses were a little surprised but pleased with the new twist this time around. After signing in, each donor was handed 10 raffle tickets, which they could use to try for more than two dozen prizes. Then they were handed a free Red Cross t-shirt, and three other coupons, including one good for a pint of ice cream at Brusters.

All of this before they even sat down. Which means that even if for some reason you’re told you can’t donate blood today (like, my iron was too low again), you STILL get all the freebies just for coming in and trying to donate.

Despite the strong turnout of donors, the wait times were quite short and there were plenty of donation tables to go around. Most people were getting in and out within about an hour.

Today, the blood drive moves to the Webster Recreation Center, 1350 Chiyoda Drive, from noon to 7 pm. All of those great things will be happening again — the raffle prizes, the t-shirts, the coupons — PLUS the Woman’s Club of Webster will be manning the canteen with home-baked cookies.

So consider taking an hour out of your day to be a hero and help save lives, by coming on down to the Webster Rec and donating. Here are some of the prizes you might win:

• Gift cards from Abbott’s Frozen Custard
• Gift certificates from Barry’s Old School Irish
• Paul Mitchell products from Beyond Cuts Salon
• Gift certificate from The Chicken Coop
• Gift card from Eastway Liquor
• Free hair cut certificates from Great Clips
• Gift basket from Hegedorn’s
• Gift basket from Kittelberger Florist
• Grumblers and pint glasses from Knucklehead Craft Brewing
• Free month of classes from Matsunami Karate
• Gift certificate from Natural Alternatives
• Gift certificate from Ron’s Auto Repair
• Gift certificate from Rubino’s
• Fruit gift basket from Schutt’s Apple Mill
• 10 free classes from Strike Back Martial Arts
• Decorative vase and Lenox candle holders from The Garage Sale Store
• A free ice cream cake from The Goodie Shoppe
• Free month’s membership from World Gym

PS: A Huge thank you to all of our local business owners who have helped make this drive a success.

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I never had the pleasure of knowing Mary Ann Gangi, but from what I learned about her on Friday night, I really wish I did.

Mary Ann, who was a third grade teacher at Klem South Elementary, and who had been with the school for more than 20 years, passed away unexpectedly last year.  On Friday night, the school honored her with a joint PTSA Family Fun Night and Mary Ann Gangi Scholarship Fundraiser.

Hundreds of people filled the school’s lawns throughout the evening. Children were kept entertained with a bounce house, face painting, and lots of lawn games. Food trucks and vendors lined the bus loop, along with a silent auction table and raffles. Some of the school’s young musicians even provided entertainment.  And there were lots of cow connections, including cowhide balloons, because Mary Ann loved cows.

It was all a fitting tribute to Mary Ann, whom Klem South Principal Erin Land called a “warm, wonderful person.”

“When you met her, you immediately felt a connection to her because she cared about you,” Land said. “It doesn’t matter where you met her, on the street, in the classroom, she was just that kind of person.”

“The work that she did in her classroom often revolved around peace and mindfulness and community. So we thought this event was a great way to honor her in her memory.”

Money raised at the event will benefit the newly established Mary Ann Gangi Scholarship Fund. Details are still being finalized, but Land believes the fund will go to support teachers who want to continue Mary Ann’s legacy by creating mindful, community-based activities in her classrooms, and for children who want to participate in them.

Donations to the Mary Ann Gangi Scholarship Fund, can be sent c/o Halina Gangi Dooley, Klem Road South School, 1025 Klem Road, Webster NY, 14580.

Here are some images from the evening:

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Just a quick reminder that I will be presenting my 2016 Tour de Parks talk again, Thursday night at the Brighton Memorial Library beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Still haven’t heard about it? Well, basically, last year I challenged myself to visit every one of Rochester’s east-side parks. I tried to hike a bit in every park that had trails, I took a lot of photos, and recorded my adventures in a blog.

It was a long year, but I accomplished my goal. Mostly.

You can hear all about it at Thursday night’s presentation. Chances are you’ll see a park or two that you recognize, and perhaps learn something about parks you never knew existed.

There’s no admission, and you don’t have to bother registering. But the library folks did promise they’d make cookies (it was the only compensation I asked for). So please do come, because I’d much rather speak to a larger crowd than just a few people. I promise it will be interesting.

And cookies. Just sayin’.

The Brighton Memorial Library is at 2300 Elmwood Avenue.

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It looks like the rains might hold off tomorrow morning for Webster’s Memorial Day Parade and remembrance ceremony, but make sure to bring an umbrella in case one of the passing thunderstorms should find us.

Monday morning’s parade will begin on Sanford Street (next to Spry Middle School) at 9:30 am, then works its way down South Avenue and onto West Main Street. The parade will conclude with a ceremony at Webster Rural Cemetery, on Ridge Road at Holt.

The parade is always nice, but it is the ceremony which really moves me. Every year, members of our Webster veterans organizations and Scout troops spend several days placing American flags on the graves of thousands of veterans buried in our local cemeteries. You’ll see them peppered throughout the Webster Rural Cemetery, marking the resting places of those who fought for our freedom.

The post-parade ceremony is extremely moving. There are speeches, local officials lay wreaths, and children place flags at the headstones representing all of our country’s wars. And when members of the Webster Marching Band play Echo Taps, I always choke up. I’m thankful that I don’t have to visit my son’s grave in a military cemetery, and cannot imagine the pain felt by those mothers who do. 

I have not been able to attend the parade for the last two years because I’ve been out of town. But this year, I’ll certainly be out there with  my camera, traveling up and down the streets and at the cemetery, so keep an eye out for me!

Here’s a gallery of photos from 2013, a sampling of what this event is all about.

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And you thought the spring drama season was over? Not quite.

Next weekend, Willink Middle School will present a student-run production of The Girl with the Golden Locks, performed Friday and Saturday, May 19 and 20. Eight-graders Brynn Smith and Sarah Daniels, and seventh-grader Jakob Rothfuss are directing the play, which involves nearly 50 actors and stage crew.

The curtain goes up at Friday May 19 at 7 pm and Saturday May 20 at 12:30 pm. Tickets are $10 each for adults, $9 for seniors and $8 for children.  Advance-sale tickets are available at http://www.bit.ly/willinktickets. 

Willink Middle School is located at 900 Publisher’s Parkway.

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OK, here are some of the cutest photos you’ll see today.

Thank you to Kerri Kiniorski at St. Rita School for sending along these shots of the Easter Bunny’s recent visit to the school.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Twitter and Instagram

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Cameron Stone and Cassidy Shur perform a duet on viola. 

(Note: see photos of all the performers on my Webster on the Web Facebook page.) 

There were a lot of smiles at Plank Road North Elementary School Friday night.

The occasion was the third annual Music Showcase, an opportunity for Plank North students from kindergarten through 5th grade who take music lessons to perform in front of families and friends in a recital format.

The showcase was originally designed to highlight piano students, who don’t often have an opportunity to show off their talents to the school community.

“Piano students never get a chance to play for the kids at school,” said Plank North music teacher Sarah Rosenberry.  “Instrumental students at least get the chance to play in the school’s band or orchestra,” she added.

Nathan Alvaro played Tarantella by Bastien.  

More recently, however, the event was also opened up to students who take lessons in any instrument. After all, Rosenberry said, playing in school ensembles still means the kids don’t get a chance to “do their own thing.”

It wasn’t a long recital. It only took 40 minutes for the 18 young musicians to perform. But no matter how long each student’s performance was — whether 30 seconds or three minutes — the applause from proud parents and grandparents, and the encouraging cheers from their fellow students, made the evening a shining moment for each and every child.

(Note: see photos of all the performers on my Webster on the Web Facebook page.) 

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TYKEs (Theatre Young Kids Enjoy) will present the musical Goodnight Moon live at the JCC Hart Theatre, 1200 Edgewood Avenue in Brighton from April 1 to 9. The show is based on the cherished story of Bunny’s imaginative detours on the way to slumber “in the great green room.” Goodnight Moon is recommended for boys and girls ages three and up.

The classic bedtime story bursts to life on stage as Bunny and his friend Mouse go on an imaginative tour of the Great Green Room, visited by a host of exuberant characters including the tooth fairy, singing bears playing musical chairs, the dish that ran away with the spoon, and a perseverant cow attempting to successfully jump over the moon. The lively musical also incorporates elements from The Runaway Bunny, another Brown favorite.

During the course of the hour-long production, the paintings and other objects in the Great Green Room actually come alive. “It’s a very unique approach to theatre,” describes TYKEs’ co-founder and director Freyda Schneider. “Scenic elements transform before your eyes from simple stationary objects to vibrant living beings. It’s quite a clever technique for bringing a story — literally — alive on stage!”

Show times are Saturday, April 1 and 8 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.; Sunday, April 2 at 2 p.m.; and Sunday, April 9 at 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. {4:30 p.m. show is ASL-interpreted}.

Tickets are $16 ($15 for JCC members). Subscriptions, school shows and group sales are offered at discounted rates. Show information and ticket sales are available online at http://www.TykesTheatre.org. For more information or to order tickets by phone, call the JCC at 585-461-2000.

If you’ve read this far, you’re clearly interested in attending, and probably wondering why this has shown up in my all-about-Webster-and-pretty-much-only-Webster blog. Well, I’m helping out some good neighbors.

The JCC an important community institution which has suffered some difficulties recently, resulting in lower-than-normal ticket sales. They reached out to me for extra support for this event.

I’m hoping that our Rochester community can show how much we love our JCC neighbors, and join them for a great story in the great green room.

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(This is a re-posting of the East Extra column I wrote for this morning’s Democrat and Chronicle. It’s a nice little story out of Webster.) 

Marty Parzynski helps his niece Bella into her brand new Bella’s Bumba chair last July. It took Bella only a week or two to learn how to maneuver it by herself.

Thanks to the efforts of a Webster couple, lots of young children with disabilities are enjoying newfound mobility.

For the last year, Rebecca Orr and her husband, Marty Parzynski, have been building miniature “Bella’s Bumba” wheelchairs for children throughout the country who suffer from spina bifida, a congenital defect in which part of the spinal cord is exposed through a gap in the backbone. The condition commonly causes paralysis of the lower limbs.

Their passion to help was sparked when their niece Bella was born in July 2015. When she and her siblings came for a visit last summer from their Buffalo home, Rebecca and Marty were troubled by Bella’s inability to move around and interact with other children.

“We were having to pick her up and put her around the yard so she could be with other kids,” Rebecca said. They would even have to turn and face her toward anyone talking to her.

“She was captured in her body,” Marty added.

For children as young as Bella, mobility options are limited. Insurance doesn’t pay for wheelchairs for children younger than 4 because they outgrow them so fast. Commercial versions of the Bumba chair, called a ZipZac, can cost more than $1,000. That’s a huge burden for families already dealing with significant medical bills.

Then Rebecca and Marty saw a pin on Pinterest showing how to make their own, and Marty got to work. Using a commercially available “Bumbo” infant seat, two 12-inch tires from a child’s bicycle and some spare parts, in no time he had built the very first “Bella’s Bumba.”

It took a few weeks for Bella to get the hang of it, but before long, the child was using her miniature wheelchair to navigate around their home or a playground safely all by herself, grinning from ear to ear the whole time. She was finally mobile.

“The chair made a huge difference in her life,” Bella’s father, Jeffrey Shorr, said. “Having the chair allowed us to take her outside, and she could interact with others rather than our holding her or sitting her in a chair.”

Once Marty and Rebecca saw the difference the chair made in their niece’s life, they started sharing Bella’s successes through their personal Facebook page, and then on a spina bifida parents group page.

“You see those families, how they’re struggling … looking for used items for their children to gain mobility,” Rebecca said. “They’re stuck in strollers (and) they’re stuck wherever you sit them. … I thought, ‘I want to get this away from our personal page and get it onto its own page.’”

Just a week after getting her new Bella’s Bumba in July 2016, one-year old Bella Shorr tries it out at a spray park in Webster, with help from her aunt Rebecca Orr.

They set up a Bella’s Bumbas Facebook page, and word started to spread. So far they’ve made and shipped five of the specialty chairs all around the country, and have pending orders for 22 more.

Their efforts are changing lives of young children, and their parents, in countless ways. Helping a non-mobile child become mobile is just the beginning.

Now that she has her Bella’s Bumba chair, Jeff said that his daughter is much happier in general. But her coordination and upper body strength have also improved significantly, which helped her learn to crawl and, very soon, use a walker.

Basically, her Bella’s Bumba has “brought progress to something that seemed like progress would never happen,” Jeff said.

“She’s one of the kids now,” Rebecca added.

For more information, to donate or to request your own Bella’s Bumba, connect with Bella’s Bumbas on Facebook or email bellasbumbas@gmail.com.

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If you like this story and want to read more positive news from our east-side towns, “like” my Our Towns East Extra Facebook page.

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I received this email just yesterday, and since this is happening this weekend, I wanted to make sure to pass it along.

A large group of students and adults, including many from Webster, will be traveling to Costa Rica this summer to conduct several outreach projects, from cleaning up beaches to planting trees.

This Saturday the group will be holding a huge garage sale as a fundraiser to help offset travel expenses and some of their projects.

The sale will take place on Saturday, April 1, from 9 a.m. to  4 p.m., at the Living Word Assembly of God Church, 2344 Ridge Road, Ontario. There will be antiques, home furnishings, clothing, toys, Legos, and much more.

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And now just a side note …

When I finally got to share my 2016 Tour de Parks experience with the Adirondack Club a few weeks ago, I had so much fun that I decided I want to do it again. And again.

So I’m taking the show on the road. In May and June I’ll be speaking at the Pittsford, Webster and Brighton libraries. So if the win storm and snow storm scared you away from the Adirondack meeting, you still have a chance (or three) to hear all about my adventures to visit 100 of Rochester’s east-side parks.

More details about dates and times to come.

(And many thanks to Gail Schott for getting me thinking about this idea.)

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com .“Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Twitter and Instagram

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