To Saturday's Bread, which recently celebrated 20 years of serving free weekly meals to the Oneonta community.
The feeding program is entirely volunteer-run, operating on donations from the community and from the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York.
"The secret is volunteers. We have had 115,000 volunteer hours in 20 years," Frank O'Mara told The Daily Star. O'Mara is president of the board of directors of Saturday's Bread.
These people don't have to do this. It's not their job. But week after week _ more than 1,000 weeks, in fact _ they show up at the First United Methodist Church to help their neighbors.
And it's not just them. Part of what keeps the program going are donations from folks who want to help.
"Whenever Saturday's Bread needs help, we reach out to Oneonta and we get it," O'Mara said.
We wish many more years of success for this grass-roots effort to ensure that food will be provided for those who need it.
To local efforts aimed at combatting the emerald ash borer, an invasive insect that destroys ash trees.
Two local projects recently sought to identify vulnerable ash trees in the region so that a baseline can be established before the dreaded emerald ash borer reaches the area.
In Oneonta, the Catskill Regional Invasive Species Partnership recently enlisted volunteers to conduct an ash tree inventory. In Sherburne, biology students partnered with the state Department of Environmental Conservation to tag ash trees on the school's 450-acre campus.
The EAB, as it is known, has not been reported in our area, but it is drawing closer. The more we can do to be ready, the better off our forests will be.
To the reopening of the Unadilla Drive-In in time for Memorial Day Weekend.
The local landmark's 60-year-old screen was destroyed by a wind storm in early March.
The wind storm may have been a blessing in disguise. "It was time for it to get replaced," co-owner Eric Wilson said at the time. "It did its job. We definitely will be replacing it."
The wooden screen, which measured 40 feet tall by 80 feet wide, was replaced by a 36-by-84-foot steel panel widescreen.
The Unadilla Drive-In is the only one in the area, and only about 400 drive-ins remain in the United States, Wilson said. The local drive-in can accommodate up to 300 automobiles and 1,300 people.
At the time of the damage, more than a dozen readers left comments on The Daily Star's website sharing memories of the drive-in and expressing relief that the owners were planning to rebuild.
"I have some pleasant memories of this drive-in while visiting Unadilla some years ago. ... As much as modern projection techniques and surround-sound may be all the rage, it is still hard to beat the '50s charm of the Drive-in Theatre," wrote Phil Relf of Sydney, Australia.
We agree and wish the owners many years of success.
