Three local retirees who volunteer in the RCS district were among ten individuals honored by Albany County Executive Michael Breslin at a ceremony on April 29, 2009. James Sutton of Selkirk, Nancy Bruno of Coeymans and Marion Shields of Ravena each received the 2009 Executive Volunteer Award for years of community service in a variety of activities. Shields, Sutton and Bruno all volunteer with the STARS (Seniors Teaching and Reaching Out to Students) Program, which recruits retirees to volunteer with elementary students in Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk School District classrooms.

Marion Shields, James Sutton and Nancy Bruno with Albany County Executive Michael Breslin.

Sutton has been a STARS volunteer at the A.W. Becker elementary school in Selkirk since the program began on a pilot basis in 1996. He volunteers in a fourth-grade classroom, working with students on math and science activities. For the past 13 years, he also has provided AARP tax assistance for low-income and senior citizens at the Bethlehem Town Hall and Senior Projects of Ravena, and he makes home visits to help shut-ins, serving approximately 100 individuals each tax season. For the past 31 years, he also has done repair work for his elderly neighbors and for the Bethlehem Grange and The First Reformed Church of Bethlehem in Selkirk.

Bruno has devoted nine years as a STARS volunteer in a first-grade classroom at the P.B. Coeymans elementary school in Coeymans. She also has been a STARS volunteer for the homework club, the summer reading program and at the A.W. Becker elementary school. She is a lifetime member of the Coeymans Volunteer Fire Company Auxiliary (50 years), a Coeymans Landing Neighborhood Association member for 12 years, a Ravena Coeymans Historical Society Trustee for six years and a Little Red School House Historical Society Member and Trustee for four years. She was very active in the successful efforts to build the large gazebo that graces Coeymans Landing today. Bruno also is a volunteer at the St. Patrick’s Church thrift shop and the Senior Projects of Ravena.

Shields was nominated by the Stratton VA Hospital where she has spent the past couple years visiting with hospitalized veterans and baking treats for the hospice patients. Known fondly by veterans as the “Cookie Lady,” she uses her own baking supplies and develops special recipes that are sugar-free for the veterans. “The veterans are my heroes and I feel so blessed to visit with them. I can’t explain the feeling that I get when I leave there,” Shields said. She is also a long-time STARS volunteer at P.B. Coeymans, a member of the Coeymans Ravena Women’s Club for at least five years, including vice president for two, a VFW Auxiliary member and an active volunteer and member of the Trinity United Methodist Church

Breslin thanked Sutton and Bruno for the years they have dedicated to the STARS Program by working with students to help them improve academically, and he thanked Shields for sharing her warm cookies and warm heart. He added, “You all are immeasurably impacting the lives of youngsters and others in the community.” He urged the audience at the event to “go forward with the notion that we too can help out as they all have done.”