270 Elissa Garay “Sustainable Travel” and Amy Summers from “Raising Hope”

In the first half of today’s show, I am joined by Elissa Garay, Freelance Editor & Writer in Travel & Lifestyle. A modern-day explorer, perpetual seeker, and diligent travel scribe, she’s also a champion for sustainable tourism and believes that we can all travel with conscience, for the greater good. With over 20 years’ experience in the field, she’s worked as an editor at leading travel publications like AFAR, Fodor’s,Travelzoo, and ShermansTravel, and has had hundreds of travel and lifestyle articles published in Condé Nast Traveler, Good Housekeeping, Parents, CNN, BBC, and more. She studied journalism at SUNY New Paltz and has since 2016 lived here in our home base of Kingston, NY.

Today, Elissa shares her path to writing about sustainable tourism, what sustainable tourism means and tips for the traveler on how to adopt more green travel practices.

Following our conversation, I shared a positive story about what has happened locally in my hometown of Olive to better conserve and preserve our natural resources during a time of major development here in the Hudson Valley. The Pacama Conservation Organization has been vital in preserving land near and dear to me.

In the second half of the show I am joined by returning guest, Amy Summers, Raising HOPE Program Director. She is responsible for overall management and leadership of Raising HOPE including outreach, recruitment, interviewing, and managing workshops, trainings, and support groups. Amy joined the United Way team in 2019.

Before joining Raising HOPE, Amy directed a Big Brothers Big Sisters program at Amherst College, owned Transformations Workshops and Gallery, and taught meditation and Conscious Communication at the Five College Consortium. In 1999, Amy founded the Center for Circles of Empowerment, where she led women’s empowerment workshops. Amy is a former resident of Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, she also resided and taught at Centro Creativo, in Costa Rica. She serves on the New Start
for Women Advisory Board (SUNY Ulster) where she also teaches Stress Management. She is an Ulster Leadership Development Institute alumna, a facilitator of women’s empowerment circles for the Hudson Valley LGBTQ+ Center, and a graduate of Omega Institute’s Women’s Leadership Intensive.

Amy holds an advanced degree in Women’s Studies and is the founder/facilitator of Aquoga aquatic cardio, yoga and meditation classes. She is a survivor of a near fatal car accident, and brings the unique perspective of someone who healed from 16 assorted broken bones, and relearned how to walk, into her tool box of inspiration.

Amy shares about the Benefit Concert for Raising Hope’s Scholarship Fund happening on Saturday April 29th at Rosendale Theater. BETTY will be the special guest performer at this special happening! We also talk about their mentorship program and the amazing workshops that they offer on a regular basis. It’s always uplifting to hear about the good work happening at Raising Hope.

You can purchase tickets to the benefit party at Rosendale Theatre.

Here’s your New Moon Report.

Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda of Radio Kingston.

Our show music is from Shana Falana !!!

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

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#123 Raising HOPE with Amy Summers and Tasha Ortloff

Today I am joined by two phenomenal women from Raising HOPE!

Amy Summers, Program Director for Raising HOPE. She is responsible for the overall coordination and organization of the Raising Hope administrative and operational components, and programmatic components as well as recruitment. She was the former Director of the Big Brothers Big Sisters satellite program at Amherst College where she interviewed and matched “Bigs” with “Littles”, supervised an onsite program, planned and ran program events, and provided support and trainings for program participants. She is also an experienced facilitator of women’s empowerment workshops, meditation and stress reduction classes, and conscious communication counseling, all of which she culls from to create, facilitate and coordinate programming & workshops for Raising HOPE participants. She has a degree in Women’s Studies with a concentration in Workshop Development and experience as an entrepreneur, as the former owner of Transformations Workshop Center and Gallery in Amherst MA, and currently operating Aquoga Aquatic exercise and adapted yoga classes in Ulster County.

AND

Tasha Ortloff who is the Raising Hope Assistant Program Director who brings administrative, operations, marketing, advocacy, technology, and interpersonal skills to Raising HOPE. As someone who attained her college degree while working, and being the single parent of two children, she knows first-hand the difficulty of achieving educational and career goals in the face of challenges. She is a Board Member for Health Care is a Human Right, and prior to her work at Raising HOPE, she was the Director of Operations and Development at the Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of NY.

Raising HOPE, is a women’s mentoring women program through the United Way of Ulster County whose vision is to inspire a community of women to mobilize their time, talent, and financial resources to help other women achieve their potential. They offer H-O-P-E, Help, Opportunity, Passion and Empowerment to support women on their journey to self-sufficiency. Woman-to-woman mentoring, where a mentor supports, encourages and guides a mentee has an immensely powerful impact on the mentee’s ability to achieve her academic and professional goals. In short, having someone believe in you can make all the difference.

Raising HOPE serves women 18+ who want to achieve personal, educational, or vocational goals and seek support to reach them. Their Mentees have a broad range of life experiences, but they all have one thing in common: a desire to improve their lives, and those of their families, by making a commitment to their Mentors – and themselves – to work hard to achieve their goals.

They welcome all women 30+ who have life experience they’d like to share and desire to help others, to consider becoming a Mentor.

Their Mentors play a number of roles including:
-Partnering to achieve personal, educational, or vocational goals.
-Being a sounding board about choices and priorities.
-Providing feedback in communication and life skills.
-Motivating when encouragement is needed.

Raising HOPE offers regular online classes including Motivational Mondays which you can learn more about via their Facebook Page. They are accepting mentee applications now for a new matching that will take place this Fall, and stay tuned for info on their Celebration of HOPE event taking place this October, 16, 2020!

Today’s show was engineered by Nick Panken of Radio Kingston, www.radiokingston.org.

We heard music from our fave, Shana Falana, http://www.shanafalana.com/

Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org

Leave me a voicemail with your thoughts or a few words about who has what you want and why! (845) 481-3429

** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IT 🙂

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