Vibe Check: Capital Region Gives Back
PLUS: Tree House Brewing opens for business (kind of), Miss New York comes to town, and Lake Placid's 2026 Olympic odds.
If you were at this week’s 6th annual Capital Region Gives Back fundraiser, you’ve already heard this. But I think it’s important enough to say twice—and not just because I wrote it:
People always ask me how we choose the honorees for Capital Region Gives Back. It’s not like we pick out the 10 people who have donated the most money in the last year, or the 10 people whose efforts have touched the largest number of people in the broadest possible area. Instead, we pick out regular people who are using what resources they do have to make this community a better place. They’re people you know: It’s the lady who groomed your dogs for 20 years, the woman who runs your favorite live music venue, your old college professor, the guy that built your house. They’re people in whom we saw a passion, whether that passion was caring for the unhoused or giving young people tools to succeed. Not everyone has millions of dollars to donate, or the time to spend thousands of hours in service of a cause. But everyone has something to give. And I think this year’s Capital Region Gives Back honorees prove that.
On Wednesday, our 10 honorees were joined by more than 100 guests at Putnam Place for a cocktail party and awards ceremony hosted by NewsChannel 13’s Mark Mulholland. “What’s the DJ’s name?” Mark asked me before taking the stage. “DJ Ketchup,” I replied, to which Mark said something along the lines of “Do you think his parents named him that?” (DJ Ketchup, I later learned, was a good get on Putnam Place’s part; one attendee told me he was a hit at a recent wedding, and ended up staying later than the couple had booked him for because he was having so much fun.)
The event itself was made possible by sponsors Caffe Italia and Rotor-Matic Sewer & Drain Solutions, and Rotor-Matic’s Jason Lorenz ended up winning one of two boozy raffle baskets (the drawing wasn’t rigged—we promise). Though Mark’s presentation wrapped up shortly after 8pm, Jason and friends stuck around, putting the O Snap photo booth to good use and essentially shutting the bar down.
While HeartsHerd Animal Sanctuary founder Tracy Muscatello brought the most guests out of all the honorees (and therefore “won” the friendly competition to raise the most money), I spent much of the evening surrounded by SoBro Conservancy founder Tom Denny’s contingent. First to arrive was Universal Preservation Hall’s Teddy Foster, who got there even before the man she was there to support. “Tom’s always late,” she told me. SoBro board member Carol Godette came over to me harboring a grudge against her husband, who had just spilled red wine on her new white sweater and then had the audacity to say he wouldn’t have done it if he knew she was wearing white (as if he hadn’t just driven to the party with her).
Another SoBro board member, Deirdre Ladd, showed up wearing the same red shawl as her friend, Saratoga Children’s Literacy League cofounder Erin Smith; the pair had come directly from the red-themed Jake’s Help From Heaven fundraiser at Cantina. “My friends are killing it,” she said, referencing Erin’s work with Clifford and Ollie's Book Bus and Jake’s Help From Heaven founder Heather Straughter’s award-winning podcast. (Heather is a 2020 Capital Region Gives Back alum; Saratoga’s nonprofit scene is indeed a small world!)
Also in attendance: event-throwing extraordinaire Bo Goliber, who despite being a paying guest, kept trying to help out with party logistics; Ken “the most interesting man in Saratoga” Rotondo; Gives Back photographer Megan Mumford, who wound up making friends with many of the honorees; 2022 Capital Region Gives Back alum Nancy Underwood; Barry Potoker, who will be riding with me in the harness track starting gate sometime in 2025; Kim Weir, supporter of any and every horse racing–related charity; renaissance man Adam Feldman of Letterly and Sidecap Hard Cold Brew fame; Tiina Loite, who came out to combat her weather-induced malaise; and Capital Region Living cover subject Rachel Ferluge. Saratoga Living cover subject Drew FitzGerald couldn’t be there, but several women asked if they could take home the blow-up of the cover with his face on it.
And then, of course, there were the guests of honor. Of all the compliments the Saratoga Living team got throughout the evening, this was the most meaningful: “You guys nailed it in choosing this year’s honorees.”
—Natalie
See photographer Jess McNavich’s full gallery of images from Capital Region Gives Back here.
Toying Around
This week, Toys for Toga—a partnership between DeCrescente Distributing Company, Death Wish Coffee, Brewnited and others—donated more than 4,500 toys and $12,000 to three Saratoga County community centers. Now in its 12th season, this year’s initiative was aided in large part by fundraising efforts by local businesses: Death Wish gave away coffee in exchange for toy donations at its Saratoga office, G. Williker’s Toys & Games offered 20 percent off purchases made for Toys for Toga, and Saratoga Tattoo Company gave free tattoos to anyone who donated a toy worth $25 or more (the artists worked for 12 hours and did more than 200 tattoos). In total, more than 100 Saratoga County businesses helped make this year’s Toys for Toga one of the best yet.
“We really received a great outpouring of support from the community this year,” said Carmine DeCrescente III, vice president of DeCrescente Distributing Company. “All of our toys and donations stay local, and I think that really resonates with the organizations that participate and help promote our program.”
This year’s donation included $37,000 in gifts and technology specifically for teenagers (think AirPods, Stanley cups and video game consoles), who are often overlooked when it comes to toy drives. “The agencies were so pumped about the shopping for teens,” Brewnited’s Max Oswald said of the representatives from Franklin Community Center, CAPTAIN Community Human Services and the Mechanicville Area Community Services Center. “It made me tear up multiple times.”
In total, an estimated 1,500 children and teens will benefit from this year’s donations. You can still donate to the cause via Toys for Toga’s GoFundMe.
A Royal Welcome
Last weekend, Abby Quammen, current wearer of the Miss New York crown, had a chance to explore what we here at SLAH would consider the crown jewel of the Empire State. During her time in the Spa City, Abby had a chance to check out Northshire Bookstore, Sweet Mimi’s, Hatties, The Merc, Saratoga Spa State Park and the Victorian Streetwalk. She’ll also be featured on an early episode of Destination Saratoga, a new Discover Saratoga podcast coming soon from Bright Sighted Media.
Let it Slide
Will upstate New York ever experience a “Miracle on Ice” again? Well, there’s actually a chance, but it may come on the bobsled course rather than the hockey rink. Adirondack Daily Enterprise reports that Lake Placid has been selected as the “Plan B” host for the 2026 Winter Olympic sliding sports (bobsled, luge and skeleton). In other words, those three disciplines will be contested right here in our backyard if the sliding track Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy isn’t completed by March 2025. How likely is that to happen? Well, the Milano Cortina 2026 Organizing Committee is “confident” that the Italian track will be completed on time. So it may indeed take a miracle.
Go Can Crazy
No, this isn’t a 2005 Price Chopper commercial. Yesterday, Saratogians were going can crazy for another reason: The much anticipated Saratoga Tree House Brewing opened for select can pickup from 10am-8pm. “Reporting here live from Saratoga - we’re getting absolutely crushed, and you guys are fantastic,” Tree House wrote on X around 1:30pm. The Tree House team warned that several beers were likely to run out, but that more were on the way. Indeed, on my way there shortly before 5pm, I saw a Tree House tractor-trailer making its way north past the Stewart’s at exit 13.
While someone wrote on What’s Going on Saratoga that the can pickup was causing traffic delays on Route 9 around 7:30pm, we didn’t have to wait long before pulling into a parking spot. The woman that greeted us told us that we should’ve ordered ahead of time online, but we were able to place a mobile order then and there, and we only had to wait a few minutes for someone to bring out our four-pack of the Sap IPA.
Saratogian Justin Metzger got one of the first tastes of the Hello, Saratoga IPA, and reported on Instagram that the label has a familiar Spa City sight:
As of last night, Tree House was planning to be open again for can pickup today from 10am-8pm.
The Golden Globes
Consider this a public service announcement: The Adelphi’s private, heated snow globes are back and available for booking daily from 11am-8pm. That is all.
ICYMI
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