A belated congratulations to Webster Schroeder alumna Nina (Scalzo) Smithson (class of 2000) for her recent induction into the New York High School Girls Soccer Hall of Fame.
As a forward for Webster Schroeder, Nina had a remarkable high school career, leading her team in scoring all four years. She set a school record with 90 goals and 50 assists, a performance that earned her numerous accolades, including being named Greater Rochester Player of the Year in 1998 and Monroe County Division I Player of the Year in 1999. She was a three-time All-Greater Rochester and All-County first-team selection and was named first-team All-State as a junior and senior.
After high school, Nina continued her successful career at Syracuse University, where she became a four-year starter. She ranks fourth all-time at the university in career goals (24) and points (61) and sixth in assists (13). She earned Soccer Buzz All-Regional Honors, becoming the first player from her program to be selected to the first team.
The induction ceremony for the Class of 2025 took place on September 6, at Niskayuna High School in Schenectady. Nina is the first athlete from Webster Central School District to receive this honor.
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The community is invited to an open house hosted by the One Webster SparX robotics team on Wednesday, Oct. 8 at 6 p.m. at Webster Thomas High School. This event is a great opportunity to see the incredible talent and innovation of the SparX team, which is made up of students from both Webster Thomas and Webster Schroeder high schools.
The team will be fresh off the Rah Cha Cha Ruckus competition held on September 28. This local event gives robotics teams a chance to use last year’s robots to practice their skills and get new members up to speed.
Images from a few of this year’s competitions
The SparX Open House will give students an opportunity to showcase their robotics projects and share their experiences in STEM education. This is also an opportunity for students to connect with community leaders and inspire the next generation of innovators. For anyone interested in serving as a mentor, this is a great opportunity to learn more about the program. (If you’re interested but can’t attend the open house, email team coach David Schenk at david_schenk@webstercsd.org.)
The SparX team competes annually in the FIRST® robotics competition. The team will receive this season’s new challenge in January, where they will be tasked with building a robot to compete in a high-pressure, specialized game with other robots.
About FIRST® Robotics
The FIRST robotics competition is a global competition that combines the excitement of sports with the rigors of science and technology. It’s run by the nonprofit organization FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), which was founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen. Each year, teams of high school students, along with professional mentors, are given a new, action-packed game to play with their robots. They receive a standard “Kit of Parts” and have just six weeks to design, program, and build an industrial-sized robot to complete the game’s specific tasks.
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Webster Comfort Care Home will be hosting a very special event on Oct. 7 which will give you and yours a chance to remember someone special who has passed away. It’s called “Their Light Shines,” a memorial luminaria gathering to honor and celebrate the lives of loved ones we carry in our hearts.
For this beautiful evening of remembrance, participants are invited to purchase a luminaria and personalize it in honor of a loved one. On the evening of Tuesday Oct. 7, they’ll all be placed around the Comfort Care Home’s parking lot, and at sunset, they’ll all be lit. It makes for a very powerful and moving scene.
After a brief welcome at 7 p.m., light refreshments will be served and music provided by the Threshold Singers.
Each luminaria costs $20. To purchase yours, log onto www.webstercomfortcare.org. Even if you can’t attend, consider purchasing luminaria to honor your loved ones. That way, their light will shine even if you can’t be there.
Webster Comfort Care Home (WCCH), located at the corner of Holt and Klem roads, provides free hospice care to the terminally ill of our Webster community. The dedicated staff members and volunteers there uphold the dignity and ease the suffering of its residents, while supporting their loved ones in a warm, home-like atmosphere.
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Get ready for a spectacular evening of sight and sound when our very own Webster Marching Band presents its 39th annual Autumn Fanfare field show and competition on Saturday October 4 from 6 to 10 p.m. at Webster Schroeder High School, 875 Ridge Rd.
Autumn Fanfare is always a spectacular evening of storytelling through music, marching, and even a little bit of acting. There are always huge set pieces involved to move the music-story forward. This is an awesome opportunity to see what our hometown marching band has been up to, and be impressed by the incredible amount of hard work these kids put in every year to create a show that will blow you away.
This year’s show is called In Times Of…, described as,
a powerful exploration of the human experience and the emotional arc of a lifetime. Like pages in a book, each movement reveals a new chapter, from the innocence of youth to the struggles of adversity, from the heartbreak of loss to the power of reflection. This show explores the moments that define us and the resilience that carries us forward.
In Times Of … serves as a powerful reflection on how life shapes us from the inside out. This show reminds us that we are not defined by a single moment, but by the way we move through all of them.
Wow. I mean, just wow.
Autumn Fanfare is a true spectacle, featuring 12 bands from across the region, who compete for top honors. Participating schools include Corning, Greece, Horseheads, Jordan-Elbridge, Lancaster, LeRoy, Medina, Orchard Park, Rochester, Victor, Webster and West Seneca. Every one of their amazing performances will have you at the edge of your seat and on your feet.
The show will take place on Saturday, October 4, from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Webster Schroeder Stadium, 875 Ridge Road, Webster. Gates open at 5 p.m.
Tickets are $12 at the gate or $10 pre-sale (cash only) available at Costanza Sausage, Herman’s Farm Market, and Canandaigua National Bank’s Webster branches. You can also purchase pre-sale tickets online here (an additional fee applies). Ages 5 and under are free.
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As a runner, I’m finding that I go through running sneakers pretty quickly. To some extent (like many of you, probably), when I get a new pair, all my other ones drop one rung down the usefulness ladder, relegated to walking sneakers, then schlep-around-the-house sneakers, then gardening sneakers. But when my used sneaker collection starts number four or five pairs, that system falls apart.
So right now I have a growing pile of worn out sneakers in the corner of my closet. But they won’t be there for much longer, because at the last Webster Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting, I met Ruby Black.
In her day job, Penfield resident Ruby Black works full time as the Director of Community and Employee Engagement at Volvo Cars Rochester. But it’s her part-time job working with Designer Shoe Warehouse and its partner organization,Souls4Souls, which reflects her real passion.
Soles4Souls is a Tennessee-based nonprofit which turns unwanted shoes and clothing into opportunities for people in need. They have four key initiatives:
4Relief, providing footwear and clothing to people in crisis situations,
4Opportunity, helping entrepreneurs in developing countries create sustainable businesses through shoe sales,
4EveryKid, delivering new shoes to children experiencing homelessness, and
4ThePlanet, keeping shoes and clothing out of landfills to benefit both people and the environment.
Ruby has focused her efforts on collecting and distributing footwear to those in need, spending much of her free time gathering, sorting, and bagging shoes. She’s been collecting shoes for five years now, through donation boxes placed in businesses throughout the city. Last year, her efforts hit a huge milestone of 10,000 pairs, and this year she fully expects to reach 11,000.
Here in Webster, Ruby’s donation boxes are located at
LA Fitness, 929 Holt Rd.
Garber Chevy , 740 Ridge Rd.
Burn Boot Camp, 1847 Empire Blvd.
LaLa of Webster, 38 E. Main St.
(I recently learned that Friday Brighton Hair Design Tat 80 East Main St. in the village is also collecting shoes, but I don’t know if it’s for the same program.)
So next time you’re ready to ditch that old pair of shoes, drop it by one of these locations instead. Soles4Souls will take shoes of any style, size or condition. New and gently used shoes are especially helpful for the 4Opportunity program.
Other ways you can help is to host a shoe collection box at your workplace or special event, help spread the word about Soles4Souls and its mission, and participate in Ruby’s annual fundraising run, where every $20 raised provides a new pair of sneakers to children experiencing homelessness in the U.S. (The run is held every May, but you can also send monetary donations through that link.)
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The Village of Webster was recently named one of 31 recipients of a Preserve New York Grant.
Awarded annually since 1993, Preserve New York Grants provide funds to municipalities and nonprofit organizations that need technical, professional assistance to guide a variety of preservation projects. According to the Preservation League website, the grants “support important arts and cultural initiatives, as well as economic development related to our state’s arts and cultural heritage.”
The Village of Webster received $14,320, which will be used to fund a Cultural Resources Survey.
The press release from the Village explains that,
A cultural resources survey is an inventory of historically and/or architecturally significant buildings, sites, structures, and landscapes in a community. The results of a survey can serve as an excellent tool for local planning efforts, heritage tourism, economic development, and to help inform the Village of Webster Historic Preservation Commission of historically significant resources within the Village. The results of the survey will also help determine whether there is a National Register eligible historic district(s) or individual properties within the village. The Landmark Society of Western New York will serve as consultants to complete the survey.
Josh Durso, member of the Village of Webster’s Historic Preservation Commission, said,
“This grant gives the Village of Webster an important opportunity to document and preserve our history. It will not only help us share our community’s story but also guide future planning and development.”
As a huge fan of learning more about our village’s history and doing all we can to preserve and appreciate it, I congratulate the Village of Webster for going after and securing this grant.
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When the skeletons show up on Holt Rd., you know it’s almost Halloween.
Anyone who regularly travels down Holt Rd. is almost certainly familiar with the imaginative skeleton display erected every year at the corner of Holt and Klem roads. They’re the work of George Baker and his family, and for the last three years they’ve been bringing smiles to the faces of children and adults alike.
George started erecting monstrous skeletons in his front yard two years ago. At first, it was just one really big one, the big daddy of them all, standing a full 12 feet tall. That humongous skeleton alone, with its glowing eyes, drew a lot of comments and happy honking from the drivers passing by.
So of course, he couldn’t stop there.
Last year, George gave the big daddy a slightly smaller (10-foot tall) companion. And since that wasn’t nearly enough, he and his family also created a playground scene to accompany them, with a half dozen smaller skeletons swinging on swings, hanging upside down on a bar, and testing the waters in a kiddie pool (that skeleton had to have a mask and snorkel, just in case).
That was pretty cool, but this year, I dare say, they’ve gone one better.
This season, the silly skeletons (and there are at least three more of them) appear to be competing in a bike race. But they’re not taking the race very seriously; one is perched upside down on his handlebars, one is standing on the handlebars, two are riding piggyback, another has chosen to compete on a unicycle, and yet another on a scooter (he appears to be winning the race).
Plus, off to the left side of the scene, two other skeletons apparently had a bike accident. One is flying through the air after being catapulted over his handlebars. And if you think this is all spooky and bizarre during the day, you got to see it at night.
The annual skeleton spectacle is truly a family effort. George credits his wife Melissa for coming up with the creative ideas, his grandson Ryan is a master at manipulating the arms of the monster skeletons, and grandson Brendan came up with the idea to have the bike accident.
It took about five hours (and countless zip ties), and a team of five (including Rich Moorman and Chad Baker) to create this year’s display. It was hard work, but all of the smiles and comments the finished tableau elicits make it all worth it.
“I love it,” George said. “The whole time we’re doing it, someone is driving by, honking their horn…. People holler ‘Keep doing it for the kids!'”
“I do it simply to get smiles,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
The spooky bike race will be entertaining the neighbors and passersby through Halloween, but come November, it will be replaced by a Christmas-themed scene. Melissa already has an idea for that, but isn’t letting on what that might be. Last year the holiday scene featured Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus (wearing a tree skirt).
By the way, anyone who’d like to is welcome to stop by to take photos of the skeletons, or photos WITH them!
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I’ve written several times about the Senior Singers, an enthusiastic group of older adults who meet once a week at the Webster Recreation Center to sing, socialize and perform community concerts.
For the past many years, this fabulous vocal group has been led by Sylvia Vezzana, who’s recently decided to retire from that volunteer position due to family responsibilities. So the Recreation Center is hoping there’s someone out there who’d be interested in taking over.
The commitment is not huge. Right now the group meets every Tuesday at 11 a.m. Once or twice a year they’ll have a community performance/sing-along. There are currently about 20 to 25 members in the group, and they’re supported by a wonderful accompanist.
The Rec Center would like to find someone as soon as possible to fill the (volunteer) role, and they’ll be happy to work with the new director if the current time and day are a challenge. So if you have any experience leading a chorus, or know someone who’d like more information about this rewarding volunteer opportunity, please email Daphne Geoca, the Recreation Center’s 55+ Coordinator, at dgeoca@ci.webster.ny.us.
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Located at 1450 Ridge Rd., Webster Hope was founded by Holy Trinity Church as an outreach ministry in 1999 as Hope Ministry to provide an organized and more comprehensive way of helping people in need by providing food and clothing. They operated under the umbrella of Holy Trinity until 2022, when they formed their own 501c3 and updated their name to Webster Hope.
The agency’s mission continues to be to serve the needs of residents in the 14580 zip code. Their volunteers embrace the spirit of compassion as they provide food, clothing, and household goods to those in need. Financial assistance is also available, with the emphasis on preventing homelessness.
Webster Hope doesn’t just hand out food and clothing. They meet with people individually on each visit. These conversations allow them to develop relationships with the people they serve. As a direct result of these conversations, the agency has added household items collections, Back to School nights for school supplies, and other services. Director Margery Morgan says the best part of being at Hope is the atmosphere of hospitality and getting to know their neighbors.
Webster Hope has one paid employee and more than 100 volunteers, active with Scouts, sports teams, schools, churches, and other Webster charities. They’re also always happy to send a speaker to participate in community events.
The Webster Chamber of Commerce hosts a monthly breakfast for Chamber members, guests, and visitors who are interested in investigating Chamber membership. The September breakfast will be held on Friday Aug. 26 beginning at 7 a.m. at the Webster Golf Club, 440 Salt Rd. The monthly breakfasts are opportunities to network, meet new contacts, develop current business relationships, learn, and earn visibility for your business or organization. This is the largest monthly Chamber networking event in the Greater Rochester area, with 70-90 attendees. Bring a door prize for visibility and your business card, to take your chances on winning a prize, too.
Visitors and members are welcome. Please register here.
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My husband Jack has recently launched an online publication which should be of interest to all of us who are getting older, and especially anyone who wants to make sure they’re doing all they can to stay healthy and make the best of our senior years.
It’s called Aging … better, a blog and newsletter created on Substack. The site has news and information about topics such as nutrition and exercise that support active older living. But it also will include coverage of the important topic of caregiving for older adults.
Those topics may at first glance seem contradictory, but really aren’t. People naturally want to remain as vital as they can as long as possible, but the connection between aging and caregiving is almost inevitable. Government statistics show that anyone 65 or older has a 70 percent chance of needing some kind of assistive care before the end of their lives.
In fact, even as many adults strive to be vital and active in their 50s and 60s, they find themselves as caregivers for parents in their 80s or 90s. So Aging … better’s subject matter is complementary even as it addresses two very different aspects of older life.
Jack’s interest in creating this new resource was sparked by several things. His interest in elder issues in large part came from a two-year stint with the New York & Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative, a nonprofit news organization which focused its coverage on caregiving for older adults. His own experiences helping care for his aging parents provided a personal perspective on caregiving issues.
Plus, as a long-time journalist (including 18 years at the D&C) and journalism professor, Jack likes to write (like me) and share his knowledge with the greater community.
All information published on Aging … better is freely available, without advertising or paid subscription. The site can be found at agingbetter.substack.com. Site visitors may register to receive email updates of the latest reports, but it’s not required.
Check it out and see what you think!
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email me at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)
You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Subscribe” link on the right side of this page (or all the way at the bottom of the page if you’re on your phone).
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
webster on the web 