webster on the web

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

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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.

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

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

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.