News from C0-Wardens

Durrie Golding and Camilla Calhoun

Lector, Usher, Altar Guild

Now that we have resumed in-person worship in the church, we need Ushers as well as Lectors and Altar Guild.

CREATION CARE at ST. MARY’S

Creation Care means many things – here at St. Mary’s we will be exploring the definition of Zero Waste and learning how we can be more mindful stewards of the precious resources around us. Under that umbrella, in

February 2024 Chris Lee, Durrie Golding, Camilla Calhoun and Sandy Dammann visited the county composting facility in Valhalla with a guided tour by Aleks Jagiello, the Westchester County program specialist for composting. He was generous with his time and also gave us our starter composting bin.

Our starter bin is now set up just outside the Parish Hall patio doors. All kitchen food scraps are to be put in the white container to the right of the kitchen sink. Please bring your food scraps from home to contribute to our compost if you can’t compost at home (see Camilla or Durrie about this if you have any questions).

We will be using leaves on our grounds to add to the “brown” part of our bin, saving them for us. Step-by-step instructions about the 2:1 ratio of browns and greens and other pertinent information about composting at St. Mary’s can be found in this link here.

(Click here for Composting Program Info Sheet)

We are in discussion with Barbara Romeo, and with the help of others, to create native gardens on our property. This would be a great way to make use of the soil our composter is making. We encourage parishioners to help us with “spring clean-up” and welcome any ideas about how we can further embrace Creation Care.

We will also be exploring ways to save energy in our buildings. Heating is a major expense for us, so we hope to reduce that burden and our carbon output. We are meeting with the “Green Team” for more ideas to move forward.

In keeping with our Creation Care objective, we will be trying to use less disposables and plastics at our Strawberry Festival. Stainless steel tumblers will be available to purchase this year – with some free refills! Aside from the waste issue of bottled water, it is also a health concern – see below. Aside from the waste issue of bottled water, recent studies from Columbia University and Rutgers University found 110,000 to 370,000 nanoplastics in a liter of bottled water. Nanoplastics have been found to pass the blood brain barrier. (See links below)

Click HERE for an important link about nano plastics.

Brain health: Click HERE for link to info about nanoplastics linked to Parkinsons' disease and dementia.

The season of Lent was musically varied and busy: we had beautiful solo performances by Chris Maxfield (soprano), Michael Lanzano (baritone), duet performance by Barbara Doss (soprano) and Jeannie Aplin (alto). Many thanks go to our volunteer violinists, Barbara Doss and Elisa Tustian, for making our prelude special on Sunday, March 17, and to our guest performers Michael Meade (cello) and Zachary Pulse (oboe).

The music on Easter service was glorious thanks to the special performances by the following groups and performers: SMTV Children's choir, SMTV Chamber group and our guest trumpet player, Nickolas Vest.

Below are some of the exciting musical events planned for the Spring:

• Children's Choir concert - May 19
• Kids a-Musicing concert - June 9
• Piano solo recital by A. Beliakovich: May 4

If you or someone you know would like to join our choir, sing a solo or play an

instrument during our Worship services, please let me know by emailing me at

belpianist@yahoo.com.

From the choir: "We want to express gratitude and appreciation for Eve who has joined the choir (see Parish Profile) - her support invigorates us all, her voice has a great range from Alto to Tenor and beyond. And she’s lots of fun. We feel very blessed. Thanks

Meet the Parish

Meet the Wolff Family

Eve, Will, Wolff (8th gr.) and Liam (6th gr.) in Ireland

Eve and Will Wolff moved to Pleasantville in November 2022, after nearly 20 years of living in NYC. They first met as teenagers, when Will became high school friends with Eve’s cousin, and after years of friendship and dating, they married in 2008. Originally from Alaska and raised in St. Paul, MN, Will is the President of U-Haul of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Eve is the Deputy Director of Dancing Classrooms, the nonprofit organization featured in the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom, which teaches social and ballroom dance in schools around the country. Originally from the suburbs of DC, Eve moved to NYC when she was four, when her father (an episcopal priest) started working at Trinity Church Wall Street. Soon they moved uptown to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Eve grew up dancing and singing at special events at the Cathedral, including original pieces by her mother, a composer. As a result, her love of liturgical music and mystery was solidified at a young age. 

Will and Eve moved to Flushing Queens in 2012, with their two young children, Wolff and Liam. Shortly thereafter, they began attending Zion Episcopal church of Douglaston Queens. Eve joined the choir, and (eventually) Will joined the vestry. During COVID Will helped plan and install all new AV equipment to support virtual and hybrid services. He soon became chair of the properties committee, and oversaw upgrades to the Parish Hall, a new roof, and more on the 100 year-old building. In June, 2023 Eve & Will’s oldest child, Wolff, was confirmed at Zion, by the Bishop of Long Island. 

When looking to move to Westchester Eve’s late aunt, Kristin Jones (a former resident of Ossining and Mt. Kisco) began sending Eve the email newsletters from St. Mary the Virgin. She and her husband, Lewis, had spent some time at St. Mary’s years ago, and it was a top recommendation. In fact, the late October 2022 newsletter was one of the last things Eve and Kristin discussed before Kristin’s passed away from brain cancer in November, 2022. Kristin’s persistence, along with the beautiful music program, is what first drew Eve and Will to St. Mary’s in 2023. 

Their children Wolff, now in 8th grade, and Liam, 6th grade, both attend Pleasantville Middle School. Eve has recently joined the choir at St. Mary’s, where everyone has been extremely welcoming! She hopes to find more opportunities for her middle (soon-to-be-high) schoolers to find friends and community here, as well.

World Vision

This month our Sunday School, led by Joanne Tiebout Douglas, will be drawing pictures/writing to Kimyin Choeng in Cambodia. Thanks to Penney & Gerry Klingman, our children have a relationship with the child we are currently sponsoring through World Vision.

The Sunday School children of St. Mary's, who are now young adults, exchanged letters with our sponsored children Sopha Sak and later Kimhieng Phlay, both in Cambodia.  We supported their education as our children grew up together. St. Mary’s is currently sponsoring the education of Kimyin Choeng.  To see a profile of Kimyin Choeng, you can open this link, Sponsored Child Lookup, and enter her ID number which is 199769-5701. St. Mary’s is sponsoring her education.

World Vision is a Christian relief and development organization dedicated to helping children and their communities worldwide reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty. World Vision serves the world's poor, regardless of a person's religion, race, ethnicity or gender. To learn more about this organization, see https://www.worldvision.org/.

Following a presentation in church by representatives in 2006, the Outreach Committee, in coordination with the Sunday school, funded the annual sponsorship of a Cambodian girl, 5 year old Sopha Sak. At that time, over 30 families in our parish also chose to sponsor a child through World Vision. 

The $30 monthly sponsorship fee provides basic necessities that help sponsored children reach their full potential, including access to safe water, better nutrition, health care, educational opportunities and economic development opportunities for their family, community and other families in need.

From 2006 until 2014, our Sunday school children sent letters and small gifts to Sopha, and she in turn wrote back to the Sunday school. In addition to the sponsorship fee, St. Mary’s provided additional funds which enabled Sopha to get a bicycle, clothes, mosquito nets for her family and rice for the village granary.

In 2014 when Sopha was offered an educational opportunity and no longer needed our support, the Sunday school made the decision to sponsor another child, 9 year old Kimhieng Phlay. When Kimhieng and her family moved away from their community in 2016, we began sponsoring Kimyin Choeng. Kimyin lives in Mongkol Borei, a poor rural community in Cambodia with her grandmother who is a construction worker.

In 2010, Penney Klingman was able to travel to Rwanda with World Vision to meet the children being sponsored by her family and she saw firsthand how sponsorship makes a real and lasting difference in the lives of these children and their communities. Penney would be glad to speak with anyone who would like to learn more about sponsoring a child through World Vision.

You may contact Penney Klingman at jklingman@aol.com. 

Souper Bowl of Caring

Sunday, Feb 11, 2024

$1,000 raised!

Thanks to all who cooked, baked, served - from prepping to clean-up (including drop off extras to at Neighbors Link and bringing the funds to the charity -- and all who generously supported the "Souper Bowl of Caring” at coffee hour.

Our young adults did an awesome job on Super Bowl Sunday serving soup and goodies to our parishioners and raising $1000! This was donated to the Interfaith Emergency Food Pantry in Pleasantville. 

Thanks to SMTV Youth: Cole Fitzgerald, Catherine Fenlon, Charlie Hayes, Kate Paskowitz, Jonathan Forrest, Joe and Jack Santilli. Younger siblings Henry and Will Forrest were also a great help!

Agape Meal

On March 28th, following the Maundy Thursday Holy Eucharist with Foot Washing, there was a gathering for a traditional Agape Meal.

An Agape Meal, or “Love Feast” as it is also called, is an ancient tradition of table fellowship. The practice of holy hospitality precedes the Church, going back to the hospitality Abraham showed to his three unknown visitors (Genesis 18). Such meals seek to strengthen communal bonds and foster a spirit of harmony, goodwill and congeniality.

MRAP by Barbara L. Jackson

Migrant Relocation Assistance Program - Neighbors Link

Father Chris has so often rightly reminded us of the scripture and response of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 22:36-40: “Master, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Two decades ago, Neighbors Link was founded in Mount Kisco to meet that call through loving the recent immigrants who congregated at the train station, waiting for work in the cold and rain and often subject to underpaid wages and unfair treatment from those who picked them up for a day’s work.

Despite an unwelcoming community and only being allowed to locate a community center on Columbus Avenue in a masonry warehouse near the town’s garbage dump, Neighbors Link was founded in 2000 by a few who had listened and loved according to the scripture, and it signaled the miraculous transformation of not only the Mount Kisco community but also neighboring communities in Westchester and Connecticut.

The Neighbors Link mission is to strengthen the whole community through the healthy integration of immigrants. Our mission is achieved by filling a service gap for new immigrant families, offering education and empowerment programs, involving longer-term residents in volunteer opportunities and creating substantive partnerships with other local organizations, including the police, the schools, and the hospitals. Our strategies to educate, empower, and employ families include a Worker Center, English as a Second Language education, legal services, and advocacy, workforce development, parent

education, early childhood programs and academic support for school-age children of immigrants.

Responding to the most recent call to assist newly arrived immigrant families with children living in NYC shelters who would like to move to other parts of the state, Neighbors Link is participating in the New York State funded Migrant Relocation Assistance Program, to assist newly arrived families in identifying safe and affordable housing in Westchester, administering subsidies for rent and utilities for one year, assisting with basic needs, and providing case management services for one year.

And parishioners from St. Mary’s have responded so generously to the age-old call as well from sponsoring Neighbors Link families in participating and enjoying last year’s Strawberry Festival, to volunteering at weekly Neighbors Link Family Nights, to donating small household goods purchased through an Amazon Wish List organized by Denise Hanchet and delivered to Julie Bleha for collection at the Rectory.

Criteria for acceptance to the MAP program include: needs to be families in the city who indicate they want to move to this area, have to have asylum pending and have at least one child. Neighbors Link, through your generous support, has now resettled, or about to resettle within the next two weeks, a total of 53 families. The largest number of families have come from Venezuela and Afghanistan. But this number also include families from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Turkey, Russia, Guinea, and Nigeria.

On March 7, after collecting and loading eleven boxes of household goods provided by the generosity of SMTV parishioners, the “Welcome Home” goods were delivered on March 7 by Denise Hanchet and Barbara Jackson to a family of five from Nigeria, which includes children, ages, 12, 4 and 1, looking forward to their new home in Yonkers and a new life in a new land with new neighbors. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

We at St. Mary’s have both lifted our lamp and responded to our Lord’s call.

Gratitude and Blessings,

Barbara B. Jackson

Link here for Fact Sheet for MRAP

For more information about sponsoring additional families, please contact Denise Hanchet at hanchet@verizon.net or (914) 671-0128.

MIDNIGHT RUN

Our next Midnight Run will

be on Friday, May 17, 2024



Parishioners of all ages and their friends are encouraged to drop by the parish hall that evening any time from 7-8:30PM to prepare food and sort donated clothing and toiletries for the homeless. Families are welcome to come for any or all of this prep time. No RSVP needed. Pizza will be available for anyone who would like to eat some food during the prep. Some of our little ones come in pajamas to help out before bedtime. It is a special time of parish service and fellowship and a lovely way to introduce potential new parishioners to St. Mary's.

Donations may be dropped off to the parish hall during the month of May. Please label them "Midnight Run" and put them in the upstairs classroom with a sign stating “Midnight Run”:

• Used (or new) men’s pants, shirts, jackets, hats, gloves, shoes, especially size XL
• New men’s underwear and socks (many request black socks though all are appreciated)
• Soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, disposable razors, shaving cream, combs, brushes. Please do NOT include mouthwash in donations
• Many men request men’s deodorant
• Occasionally women show up for donations so we also accept some women’s clothing
• For more information, please visit midnightrun.org

If you are interested in going on the run to deliver meals and distribute clothing and toiletries, please contact Denise Hanchet at hanchet@verizon.net or (914) 671-0128. 

Denise is managing the waitlist for Eric Dammann and Sean Fitzgerald.

There are a limited number of seats in the van, so you may be wait-listed for a future run.

Midnight Run is a volunteer organization dedicated to finding common ground between the housed and the homeless. The late-night relief efforts create a forum for trust, sharing, understanding, and affection. The human exchange, rather than the exchange of goods, is the essence of the Midnight Run mission.

Ars Antiqua

Saturday, April 20th

JOIN US

Corelli Reimagined

Sacred & Secular Transformations

Featuring newly discovered 18th-century music of ravishing beauty and dazzling virtuosity.

Followed by a sumptuous buffet reception of Italian Desserts & Coffee Catered by Susan Lawrence

Details HERE

Seating is limited:

Please order your tickets in advance:

http://ars-antiqua.org/Home/Tickets

Congrats Graham!

Graham Hanchet accepted his offer to attend Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business in the Fall—Class of 2026. His MBA program will be focused on sustainability. 

Views from the Appalachian Trail

On Feb 29th, Adam Bayer (now 25) & his Greeley High School friend, Ben Sackler, began their journey to hike the entire 2,190 miles of the Appalachian Trail. They have hiked approx 17 miles per day, and taken several "zero days" of rest in hostels or motels off the trail. Their goal is to finish (GA to ME) by the end of July. Keep them in your prayers!

Here is an excerpt from this week in VA."there's something so special about constantly traveling north every single day as spring starts to reveal itself. Up here in the mountains, spring takes a little longer to appear. Constant northbound travel delays that process even more. But living outside allows you to see the seasonal transition happen in a unique and rewarding way, and we are happy to say it finally FINALLY feels like spring."