For a Good Cause
Dancing with the Rye Y’s Volunteer Champions
The Rye YMCA will honor its 2024 award recipients at its Dancing Through the Decades benefit March 1. The Gold Spirit Awards will go to Caroline Scully and Lew Nash. Callie Erickson will receive the Community Service Award.
Scully served on the Rye Y board of directors from 2015 to 2022. During that time, she was a member of the finance, executive, and financial development committees, as well as treasurer for three years. She chaired the Growing Stronger Together Campaign, which raised over $1.5 million for the Studios at the Rye YMCA.
Her activities were not limited to the Rye Y. She also has volunteered for the Junior League and the Bell Center for Early Intervention Programs. She was chair of the fundraising committee for the Alabama Ballet and The Twig and the Rye Free Reading Room Auxiliary Board. She also is co-president of the Rye High School Parent Organization and a member of Impact 100 Westchester.
Lew Nash, another Rye Y board veteran, served as vice president and on auditing and finance, board development, and strategic planning committees.
His six years on the board were some of the organization’s most challenging, as it had to deal with the effects of the pandemic and a major flood. Despite the difficult times, the Rye YMCA was able to open the Y Studios and expand programming, including childcare. He was a member of the search committee that selected Sabrina Murphy, the Rye Y’s first female CEO. Nash also served on the board of the Port Chester Carver Center.
Callie Erickson will receive the Community Service Award for her extensive work on education in Rye. Currently in her sixth year on the Rye City Board of Education, Erickson has been treasurer of the Rye Free Reading Room Auxiliary Committee and a member of the Osborn Elementary School Executive Board and the Rye Middle School Squash Club. She worked as secretary of the Rye City Finance Committee and has coached Rye Youth Soccer since 2015.
Before joining the Board of Education, Erickson chaired the board of the Rye Presbyterian Nursery School Auxiliary. She said volunteering there “made me realize how much I enjoy the field of education and supporting our kids and our community.”
Dancing Through the Decades will celebrate the 70s, 80s and 90s with the versatile, high-energy band ETA Music. The fun begins at 7 at the Harrison Meadows Country Club.
Proceeds from the live auction at the benefit will go to the Rye YMCA’s Y Cares Financial Assistance Program. That support will send kids to camp, provide working parents with affordable childcare, subsidize senior memberships, and support cancer survivors, among other services. For ticket information or sponsorship opportunities, contact Susan Olson at susanolson@ryeymca.org or 914-967-6363, ext. 202.
Out & About
Old-Fashioned & Fine
For the 48th year, the Rye Nature Center invites families to walk up the hill and enjoy log-sawing, carnival games, maple sugaring, and hiking its trails on March 2 from 12 to 3. The occasion is also a chance for the Center to recognize its members, for whom admission is free.
Talks & Workshops
A Treasure Trove of Native American History
Drawing from the Rye Historical Society’s extensive collection as well as the insights of Lenape descendants, local historians, and scholars, Joie Cooney will lead a presentation and interactive Q&A on 13,000 years of Native American history, Feb. 27 at 6:30 at the Rye Free Reading Room.
Learn how Rye’s first residents lived, the historical events that shaped them, what they left behind, and their survival as a people.
The Odyssey of Poet Phillis Wheatley
Born in West Africa in 1753, a 7-year-old girl was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Boston. Unlike most enslaved people, Phillis ended up with a caring family, the Wheatleys, who not only recognized her writing ability but encouraged her. Their daughter tutored Phillis in reading and writing. Their son brought her poetry to the attention of publishers.
On March 3 at 3 at the Jay Heritage Center, historian David Waldstreicher will provide listeners with a rich and full portrait of Wheatley from his recently published and highly praised “The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence.”
The program is free, but pre-registration is required.
Musical High Notes
Commemorating Musical History
When organ virtuoso Marcel Dupré toured the U.S. in 1921, 19-year-old Clarence Watters was lucky enough to meet and play for him. Like audiences across the country, he was awed by the Frenchman’s extraordinary skill and technique. The New York Times described Dupré’s improvisation of an entire organ symphony at one concert as a “musical miracle.”
After Watters became organist and choirmaster of Christ’s Church in Rye the following year, he set about ensuring the high musical standards that continue today. In 1924 he installed a new organ, described by the Rye Chronicle as “one of the finest in this section of the country.” For the dedicatory concert, on March 7, 1924, Watters invited Dupré, who was once again touring America.
To mark the 100th anniversary of that event, Grammy-nominated organist Stephen Tharp, who is currently artist-in-residence at St. James’s Church, Madison Avenue, will perform a selection of Dupré’s works at Christ’s Church at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 7. Tickets are available at the door or in advance via Venmo. A reception will follow.
The 1924 concert was the prelude to decades of collaboration between Watters and Dupré. The young American studied with the master in Paris in 1926 and went on to champion his works, often being the first to perform or record them in the U.S. He was Dupré’s “most faithful interpreter”, said Madame Dupré, and, in 1973, two years after Dupré’s death, Watters performed his late friend’s works before more than 3,000 people at Notre-Dame Cathedral.
For further information about the special anniversary concert, visit www.ccrye.org/dupre.