Red Cross to honor local 'heroes'

March 12, 2010 -- The American Red Cross of the Mohawk Valley announced this year's honorees for the annual Great Heroes Breakfast, slated for next Thursday.

The breakfast, held at Herkimer County Community College on March 18, will honor WKTV Anchor Steve McMurray and Remington Arms for their services to the community.

"It can be tremendously embarrasing and humbling to be honored," said Andria DeLisle-Heath, executive director of the American Red Cross of the Mohawk Valley, "... but here the pressure's not on."

A news conference was held Thursday morning to announce the honorees and award winners at the Remington Arms Gallery in Ilion.

DeLisle-Heath said both honorees as well as the community award winners are exemplary of what the Red Cross is all about.

Community Award winners -- those Red Cross recognizes as selflessly serving the community in one way or another -- include:

• Bill Keeler
• Tiffany Lott
• Carol Higgins
• Julia Bunce
• Sgt. Vincent Scalise

Keeler, a local radio show host for Keeler in the Morning and the publisher of Utica Daily News, was honored for a telethon he held on the air in the wake of the fire on James Street last year that claimed the lives of four and stretched the Red Cross thin.

"I feel so undeserving because I always think it's the people that do the giving who should be honored," he said.

Scalise, founder of the Central New York Veteran's Outreach Center in Utica, is being honored because of the work he's put into it, and other work he does with fellow veterans.

"It's a nice feeling," he said. "I'm very proud of it -- humbled and a little embarrassed even.

The veteran's center services anywhere from two to 36 veterans on any given day, and gives them access to an Internet cafe, help accessing benefits they earned in their military service, and eventually, housing units -- a project awaiting funding.

"Those housing units will be the cap," Scalise said.

Some of the breakfast's sponsors were also in attendance, including Sharon Lanza, co-owner of CTM in Frankfort. She said it was important to contribute to organizations such as the Red Cross because of the ongoing need even in the immediate area.

"It's not the first time we've been a sponsor," Lanza said. "We're all helping each other, and we feel Red Cross is an organization we need to keep in the Mohawk Valley. From small tragedies like house fire to larger ones like earthquakes, any time you need the Red Cross, they are there."

As a matter of fact, Lanza said she has diretly benefited from services offered by the organization. When one day she found her mother flailing in the back yard swimming pool of her house, Lanza was able to use CPR to save her.

"I took that CPR course thinking I'd never have to use it," she said. "Now, we offer it to our staff."

To be recognized as a sponsor is a great feeling, she said, thinking of her father, who started CTM in 1987.

"It feels really good," Lanza said. "I think my dad would be very proud of us and what we are doing for the community."

NBT Bank was another sponsor shelling out an initial $20,000 to the Red Cross this year.

"You can't say no to those ladies," said NBT Senior Vice President and Mohawk Valley Regional Manager Dennis P. Surace in reference to DeLisle-Heath and Victoria Cataldo. "We're a community bank, we thought it would be appropriate to donate in the strong year we had."

When bank management announced an employee program to benefit the Red Cross's efforts to Haiti, it offered an incentive to match any donations up to $10,000.

"In all the branches together, we donated $27,000," Surace said. "We're pretty proud of that."

This year, DeLisle-Heath said, thanks to a matching pledge from the Herkimer Polish Community Home, all gifts made to the American Red Cross the morning of the event will be matched.

The breakfast is slated for Thursday, March 18 from 7:30- 9 a.m. at HCCC's Robert McLaughlin Campus Center. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by contacting the American Red Cross at 733-4666 or 866-2890. Tickets can also be purchased at the door.