Month: May 2026

Pitney Meadows Community Farm Expands Food As Medicine With Three-Year Grant

May 19, 2026May 19, 2026

A worker holds harvested beets at Pitney Meadows Community Farm as its program expands.
Courtesy Pitney Meadows Community Farm

Pitney Meadows Community Farm has received a three-year grant from The Hortense and Louis Rubin Community Health Fund of The Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region to expand its Food as Medicine: Clinical program with Saratoga Community Health Center.

The partners plan to scale the Nutrition Rx program and further integrate locally grown produce into patient care. The collaboration is entering its seventh year.

Over the next three years, the program is expected to grow from 20 to 40 to 80 participants per year across Saratoga Community Health Center and the Saratoga Backstretch Clinic.

Patients receive weekly prescription produce boxes during a six-month growing season, nutrition education in a group setting and ongoing support. Participants complete pre- and post-program assessments to track changes in food access, health outcomes and behavior.

“This is a turning point for how healthcare shows up for people in our community,” said Brooke McConnell, Executive Director of Pitney Meadows Community Farm. “Over the past seven years, our partnership with Dr. Rodriguez and CHC has proven that when you connect people to fresh, nourishing, local food, health outcomes change. Now, we have the opportunity to scale that work… embedding food not as a supplement, but as a fundamental part of care and overall wellness.

Northern Builders Expands With Focus On Trades, Workforce And Growth

May 19, 2026

Northern Builders owners Nic Denno, bottom left, and Mark Stewart, bottom center, are shown with team members outside the South Glens Falls-based company, which they formed together in 2020.
Courtesy Northern Builders

By Ann Donnelly

When Mark Stewart and Nic Denno merged their independent contracting companies to form Northern Builders in 2020, they brought more than construction expertise to the table. Both men balanced successful careers in law enforcement with their building endeavors, an experience that forged a strong foundation for their business partnership.

Stewart, a former investigator who retired from the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Department in 2023, and Denno, who worked as a police officer and a contractor for about 20 years before retiring in 2025, met while working the 4 p.m. to midnight shift at the sheriff’s department. Today, their South Glens Falls-based company employs 22 to 24 in-house staff members and manages 40 to 60 subcontractors daily. The team oversees 12 to 14 major projects at any given time, handling custom residential homes, commercial projects and high-end renovations.

“We really wanted to switch from being contractors and home builders to a construction company,” Stewart said.

For Denno, the partnership thrives on the mutual respect they built in their previous careers.

Empire State University Offers Extensive Curriculum For Those Seeking Degrees Online

May 19, 2026May 19, 2026

President Lisa Vollendorf leads Empire State University, New York state’s online public university.
Courtesy Empire State University

By Rod Bacon

Empire State University was founded with the mission of providing adult student-centered education.

As New York State’s only online public university, it has graduated 105,000 alumni since it was established as a college in 1971. Currently, there are 18,500 students enrolled from all 50 states. The youngest graduate is 19 and the oldest is 83. The school is growing at 10 percent per year.

According to President Lisa Vollendorf, Ph.D., there are significant challenges facing education today that are addressed by the school. She said there is a lot of questioning around whether there is true value to a college degree.

“There is a whole generation who have accumulated a lot of debt going to college and are having a difficult time paying down that debt,” she said.

In addition, there are about 42 million Americans with some college but no credential, meaning they took some college at some point but never graduated.

“Those two things together have created real challenges in the eyes of the public and policy makers around the true value of college and what the investment should be in college on the part of taxpayers,” she said.

Dr. Vollendorf emphasized that these challenges were not created by Empire State or institutions like it. Undergraduate tuition is less than $7,500 and credit is awarded for prior learning.

“Empire has a long tradition of being committed to full transferability,” she said. “One of the things that happens in education is people attend one college and transfer to another but a lot of the time more than forty percent of credits aren’t transferable. We award up to ninety-three transfer credits.”

Regional Childcare Shortage Pushes Families, Employers And YMCA To Adapt

May 19, 2026

Children take part in a Saratoga Regional YMCA activity as the organization expands child care programs across the region to help families and employers adapt to a shortage of available slots.
Courtesy SRYMCA

By Carol Ann Conover

When a parent in Warren, Washington or Saratoga counties goes looking for infant care today, the search often ends before it begins. The wait list at the Saratoga Regional YMCA’s Malta Early Learning Center stretches two years. In some cases, families are signing up before they even try to conceive.

That reality is not an anomaly. It is the baseline. Between 2019 and 2022, the number of regulated childcare facilities in Warren County fell 40 percent, from 50 to 30, according to a 2023 needs assessment by the Southern Adirondack Child Care Network. Washington County lost 37 percent of its facilities over the same period. Across New York state, 60 percent of census tracts qualified as childcare deserts in 2023, a designation meaning at least three children under age five exist for every available slot, according to a February 2025 report from the Office of the State Comptroller. Rural upstate communities, the report found, are the most negatively affected.

Into that void, the Saratoga Regional YMCA operates a layered system of childcare programming across its six branches. The association expanded its footprint on Jan. 1, 2025, when the Family YMCA of the Glens Falls Area officially merged to become its sixth branch, deepening the organization’s reach across Warren County. The programming spans a licensed full-day daycare center at its Malta Early Learning Center serving approximately 100 children from infancy through kindergarten, a half-day preschool program at its Saratoga Springs branch serving 45 children ages 2 through 4, Universal Pre-Kindergarten classrooms operated in partnership with the Saratoga Springs and Schuylerville school districts serving roughly 72 children, and a school-age before-and-after-care program operating at 15 locations across seven school districts throughout the three-county region, including Glens Falls, Queensbury, Ballston Spa, and Saratoga Springs.

WSWHE BOCES Partnership Wins State Honor For Career Education Program

May 19, 2026

Champions of Change banners recognize WSWHE BOCES and SUNY Adirondack for Manufacturing and STEAM Day, a partnership linking students to postsecondary options and manufacturing career paths.
Courtesy WSWHE B OCES and SUNY Adirondack

WSWHE BOCES, working with SUNY Adirondack, has been named a “Champion of Change” by the New York State School Boards Association for its annual Manufacturing and STEAM Day.

The recognition, part of NYSSBA’s Champions of Change program, cites the event as an example of an innovative partnership that connects students to postsecondary options and careers in advanced manufacturing.

“We are honored to receive this recognition for a program that reflects the meaningful opportunities we strive to create for students,” said WSWHE BOCES District Superintendent Turina Parker. “Our partnership with SUNY Adirondack is a powerful example of how collaboration can open doors. Manufacturing and STEAM Day helps students see what’s possible and envision themselves in careers that are critical to our regional economy.”

The Oct. 17 event included a panel of P-TECH graduates who earned Mechatronics degrees from SUNY Adirondack and discussed the transition from school to the workforce. Students also visited regional employers including Adirondack Studios, Creatacor, Fort Miller Group and GlobalFoundries and met with industry professionals and faculty.

Viva Empanadas Expands To Saratoga Springs With Third Capital Region Site

May 19, 2026May 19, 2026

Viva Empanadas’ new Saratoga Springs location is planned for 26 Congress Plaza this summer.
Courtesy Jaclyn Shyptycki

By Carol Ann Conover

Veronica Agama did not arrive in the Capital Region with investors, a business plan or a commercial lease. She arrived with a laundry cart loaded with empanadas, a portable frying pan and a customer base she had built one weekend at a time in a Queens park during the height of the pandemic. Four years later, her company, Viva Empanadas, operates two locations in the Albany area and is preparing to open a third in Saratoga Springs at 26 Congress St., inside Congress Plaza.

Agama, who immigrated to New York City from Ecuador at 18 and spent more than a decade working in restaurant kitchens — from an Argentine steakhouse in Queens to fine dining near Bryant Park in Manhattan — launched Viva Empanadas when COVID-19 shuttered the restaurant industry and left her without income and with two young sons to support. What began as a way to generate extra cash evolved, within a few years, into a multilocation restaurant business that has earned support from city officials and economic development organizations.

“Viva Empanadas is my dream,” Agama said at her Albany grand opening in August 2024. “It was years in the making. I wanted to bring all Latin flavors together under one beautiful roof with an offering that everybody can experience no matter the type of diet restrictions, the circumstance, the budget.”

The brand’s growth has been methodical. Agama first established herself at the Galleria 7 Market in Latham, where she built a following for her empanadas — each variety distinguished not only by its filling but by its dough. A corn-crusted Colombian-style empanada, a cassava-dough version that is both gluten-free and vegan, a plantain-crust offering layered with cheese: The menu reflects Agama’s years of working alongside cooks from Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Peru and Ecuador, and her conviction that Latin cuisine, in its full range, deserves a dedicated showcase.