The 2023 Tour de Cure: Finger Lakes, the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) premier cycling event, is returning to Webster on June 10.
This huge event draws cyclists from all over the area, riding courses ranging from 12 to 100 miles, which begin and end at one of the Xerox parking lots off of Chiyoda Drive (across from the Rec Center). It’s the ADA’s largest fundraising event of the year,
And you want to talk about a party atmosphere? The day of the ride, that lot is filled with tents and music and fire trucks and food trucks, thousands of bikes and people. Webster can be very proud to be hosting this, one of the biggest Tours in the whole country. And it’s extremely well organized.
Thanks in large part to the event’s signature sponsor, West Herr, Tour Day will feature two live bands, food trucks and a kids’ zone. So basically this is a fantastic event for the whole family.
The COVID pandemic punched a big hole in participation, but Rochester riders are coming back in force. Last year 800 adults and children participated, raising more than $600,000 to help end diabetes. Organizers are expecting about the same in 2023, welcoming riders from Syracuse and Buffalo as well as Rochester.
But they need our help. Organizers are looking for cyclists to participate. Routes are available for all ages and abilities. You can find out more and sign up here. Many volunteers are also needed to help the event run smoothly. Click here for more information about that.
For at least a couple of years, Rochester’s Tour de Cure was the biggest Tour in the country. Unfortunately, that distinction was recently taken from us by Napa Valley, but if we all pull together this year, we’ll get to #1 again.
Here’s a little more information about the diabetes epidemic:
More than 37 million Americans have diagnosed diabetes, including more than 1.7 million in NYS alone. An additional 456,000 people in New York have diabetes but don’t know it. More than 5 million people in New York who have prediabetes, with blood glucose levels higher than normal but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.
People with diabetes have medical expenses approximately 2.3 times higher than those who do not have diabetes. Total direct medical expenses for diagnosed diabetes in New York were estimated at $15.1 billion in 2017, with an additional $6.1 billion spent on indirect costs from lost productivity due to diabetes.
Events at Cherry Ridge assisted living community have been rather limited the last two years, but — finally — the free summer concert series has returned.
The series kicks off on Tuesday June 14 with the always popular GateSwingers Big Band, an impressive 19-piece band featuring music from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and present day. On Tuesday July 19, Mr. Mustard makes its Cherry Ridge debut. This four-piece Beatles tribute band plays tunes that captivated an entire generation and you’re sure to know (if you’re cool and hip).
The concerts are held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Gates open at 5 p.m., and food concessions begin at 5:30. You’ll want to bring your own lawn chair or blankets.
Cherry Ridge is located at 900 Cherry Ridge Blvd., across the street from Webster Schroeder High School.
June programs at the Webster Public Library
On Tuesday June 7 from 2 to 3 p.m., join Christine Simons for a digital tour of various Normandy beaches on D-Day. The presentation will also feature some French memorial museums, an American cemetery and memorial, and the Island of Guernsey, comparing how it is now to when it was occupied by Germany in WWII.
This summer’s Webster Library reading program for adults is called “Oceans of Possibilities.” All summer long, participants will enjoy ocean-themed reading challenges, prizes, book discussions, crafts and movies. On Tuesday June 21, stop by the library from 1 to 4 p.m. for a preview of the program, and enjoy some tasty treats. No registration is required.
Here are two fun crafts for teens and tweens:
Monday June 13, 6 to 7 p.m., a yarn wall hanging. Teens grades 4-12 and adults are welcome. Register here.
Thursday June 30, 11 a.m. to noon, come paint an ocean scene! All materials and instruction are provided. Teens grades 4-12 are welcome. Register here.
Here’s some summer fun for children and families:
Tuesday June 14, 10 to 11:30 a.m., The Marina Drive-in! Start off the morning in the storyroom decorating personal boats, then take a drive over to the Boat Marina (community room) to watch a short movie. You can even bring your boat home to continue the fun. Children ages 2 to 5 are welcome. Register here.
Tuesday June 28, 2 to 3 p.m., bring the entire family to play Ocean BINGO and kick off the summer reading program. All ages are welcome. Register here.
This month’s make-and-take crafts:
Watermelon craft (for the kids)
Rainbow-beaded suncatcher (for teens)
DIY shelf decor (for adults)
Materials are available while supplies last.
The 2022 Tour de Cure, the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) premier cycling event, is returning to Webster on June 11.
This huge events draws cyclists from all over the area, riding courses ranging from 12 to 100 miles. It’s the ADA’s largest fundraising event of the year, and they could use your help.
Organizers are looking for cyclists to participate, and volunteers to help with the logistics. The event begins and ends at the Xerox campus in Webster, and is very well organized. Routes are available for all ages and abilities, and it’s not too late to sign up.
If you’d like more information about participating, click here. If you’re interested in volunteering, click here.
This notice from the school district:
All of Webster CSD’s students need to turn in their school-issued electronic devices by the end of this school year, and in August returning students will be provided a new device for the 2022-23 school year.
The district’s Transforming Learning through Technology (TLT) initiative puts a Chromebook in the hands of all One Webster students grades 3-12 and an iPad in the hands of all of our K-2 students, so they may take the devices back and forth from home to school to extend their learning beyond the traditional school day. As part of TLT, the devices are replaced every three years. All Webster CSD student devices will be replaced this year.
Elementary students should return their devices to their classroom teachers by the end of this school year. Secondary students are asked turn in their devices according to the following schedule:
Spry and Willink middle schools – June 16 and 17 during lunch and June 21 before the Checkpoint exam.
Webster Thomas High School – return devices to the WTI room:
June 8, 8:00-11:00 a.m.
June 9, noon-3:00 p.m.
June 10, 8:00-11:00 a.m.
June 13, all day
Webster Schroeder High School – return devices to the cafeteria:
June 8, noon-3:00 p.m.
June 9, 8:00-11:00 a.m.
June 10, noon-3:00 p.m.
June 13, all day
New Chromebooks are being made available for pickup August 22 to 24, from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and August 25 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Willink Middle School, 900 Publishers Parkway. For parents/guardians unable to attend one of these dates to pick up their child’s device, student devices will be delivered directly to the students during the first week of school.
Lots of fun family-friendly activities are coming up later this month, including a village-wide sidewalk sale, the first Family Games and Beer Night of the summer, and the start of the Movies in the Park. Stay tuned for more details about all of these events, and stay on top of everything going on in the village at www.websterbid.com.
With the conclusion of Webster Thomas High School’s recent production of Little Shop of Horrors, the final curtain has come down on the high schools’ 2022 spring musical season. But each school actually has a spring drama in the works.
Mark Stoetzel, the drama director at Webster Thomas, emailed me not long ago with some exciting news about their production of The Neighbors, planned for late May: it’s going to be staged outside.
The Webster GeoTech Class is building an outdoor stage in one of the school’s courtyards, complete with a pergola. On May 27 and 28, students will hit the stage to perform several one-act plays they’re writing themselves, each set in a townhouse complex.
More details to come as the date approaches.
The Webster Schroeder Theater Company is also working on a drama, The Secret Garden. Shows are scheduled for Friday and Saturday May 6 and 7 from 7 to 9 p.m. Tickets are available now, but I’m having trouble finding a link or details on how to purchase them. If anyone can fill me in, please email me so I can share that information.
The Webster Museum has all sorts of programs planned in the coming weeks. They seem particularly excited about their upcoming exhibit focusing on the history of West Webster. The little hamlet had its very own zip code not too long ago (14581) and is currently anticipating a revitalization.
Among the materials the museum has collected are the two maps below. The first was drawn by Maguerite Collins around 1938, possibly as a class project. It shows the names of some of Webster’s earliest settlers and when they arrived. The second map, created in 1852, adds more names.
Descendants of some of these early settlers still live here today, and many of them never left. Interested community members are invited to “meet” some of them on Sunday June 19 from 2 to 4 p.m., when the Webster Museum hosts a West Webster Cemetery Tour. Costumed characters will on hand representing many of the hamlet’s former residents who are buried there, and guaranteed they’ll have some interesting stories.
More information to come about this fun event. (Teaser: I’m going to play a character!)
Stay tuned also for more details about the museum’s upcoming West Webster exhibit. Among the history to be shared will be photos and artifacts from the West Webster Fire Department. It was originally housed in Webb’s garage, then Brewer’s barn, then the former Goetzman Store, followed by its move to its current home on Gravel Road. A number of former West Webster residents have shared memories of turkey raffles, liverwurst sandwiches, craft shows and ice rinks in the firehouse parking lots.
Several programs have been scheduled in May to highlight West Webster history. I’ll tell you all about them in a future blog.
The Webster Museum, located at 18 Lapham Park in the Village of Webster, is open 2 to 4:30 pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Beer lovers will want to be a part of a program scheduled for this Thursday April 21. Will Cleveland, former investigative reporter for the Democrat and Chronicle, will talk about the past and future of the Western New York beer scene, a beat which he has covered since 2014.
The program, called “Rochester Craft Beer: The History and Future of the Scene,” runs from 7 to 8 p.m. and registration is required.
Tweens and teens, you can make your very own hair scrunchies on Wed. April 20 from 1 to 2 p.m. Materials will be provided. Kids in grades 4 to 12 are welcome. Registration is required.
This month’s make-and-take crafts include recycled milk cap fish (for kids), clothespin peek-a-boo eggs (for teens) and a bead bracelet (made from magazines) for adults. Materials can be picked up at the library during regular business hours while supplies last.
This is a drive-through event. Dinners will include a half chicken, salt potatoes, cole slaw, roll and butter for $12. There will be no advance sales; cars can pay when they enter the parking lot, first come, first served. Signs will direct cars to the pay station, and then to the side entrance where you can pick up the boxed dinners.
Proceeds will support St. Martin’s Christmas Stocking Project which reaches more than 500 youth in Monroe and Wayne counties.
The Tour de Cure is returning to Webster on Saturday June 11, and even if you don’t plan on riding, you can still help out.
In this annual premier cycling event, riders sign up to cycle anywhere from 12 to 100 miles, to benefit the American Diabetes Association. It begins and ends in one of the old Xerox parking lots near the Webster Recreation Center. If you’d like to participate, you can sign up here. Or you can help the cause by becoming a volunteer. More information about those opportunities can be found here.
Finally (and this is especially for all of you who are still reading this long blog, because I know you appreciate local news) I want to draw your attention once again to what’s happening with the Webster Herald.
Our little town newspaper recently experienced another editorial change, when Colin Minster left in March. A new editor, Tim Young, has since taken the reigns, and accepted the daunting challenge of publishing a weekly newspaper.
And it is daunting. I’ve said this before, but it deserves repeating: with a small, hyper-local, weekly publication like the Herald, the editor has to be a Jack-of-all-trades, not only managing the layout and editing, but actively searching out and writing stories of local interest. It’s a 24/7 position from which you can never take a vacation.
The job is made that much more difficult without support from advertisers, contributors and subscribers. I think we can all agree that local news is a dying breed. The Webster Post isn’t around any more, and the Democrat and Chronicle couldn’t care less about Webster local news. The Herald is now one of the few places we can go to to find news about our community. So we need to do everything we can to make sure the Herald doesn’t go anywhere anytime soon.
Tim touched on a few of these concerns in the column he wrote a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, it’s not online anywhere, but you can click here to see a photo of it. In the column, Tim talks about how staffing issues are a challenge and that advertising is hard to come by. He also notes that people are actually complaining about all the legal advertising in the Herald, pointing out that those legals are the only things that are keeping the paper afloat.
It’s not fair to criticize the job a weekly editor is doing without being willing to help do something about it. Like make sure to renew your subscription every year. Encourage your friends to subscribe. Send in sports stories and photos, and your child can be pictured in the paper. Advertise your business. And how about stretching your writing chops and consider becoming a free-lancer? You’ll be paid for your work, and see your own byline in the paper.
Tim would love to hear from you. Email him at tim@empirestateweeklies.com. Let him know that this community is behind him and we still appreciate local news.
Do you know of any event coming up in Webster, or sponsored by a Webster organization, which you’d like publicized in my blog? Pretty much anything that comes across my email will find its way in sometime or another, so let me know about it!
I feature the people and places and events that make Webster the wonderful community it is — and throw in some totally-not-Webster-related personal ramblings every once in a while as well.
I love it when readers send me news about the great things happening in their schools or the community, so please email me anytime at missyblog@gmail.com
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