Goshen Rotary celebrates community

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood last weekend -- especially if you were in the neighborhood of Goshen’s Myron Urbanski Park on Craigville Road.

For the past eight years, the Goshen Rotary Club has sponsored Community Day as a free event for all its neighbors. The incoming chapter president, Mark Gargiulo, said the tradition continues as "a way to say thank you to the entire community."

He said the Goshen community enabled the club to continue its scholarship programs, its worldwide efforts to fight polio, and its two newest endeavors: providing shelter in areas devastated by natural disasters via Shelter Box, and an international effort to bring potable water to areas that need it. Each Shelter Box tent is well-insulated and accommodates up to four people. Rotary clubs from across the globe have embraced these shelters, sending them to locales suffering in the aftermath of hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, and any other disaster that leaves large numbers of people without homes. Find more by going to shelterboxusa.org.

Gargiulo also recognized the efforts of Jason Giordano and Vince McCormack, both busy working at other spots throughout the park.

Firefighters and the village police were on hand. Attendees got a chance to climb on a fire engine and see up close how it works. The police officers offered child car seat checks and child ID kits -- so important in finding kids who are lost or abducted.

Turnout this year was the highest ever. Gargiulo and the rest of the Goshen Rotarians are already thinking about ways to make next year’s event even better.