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Volume 6 • Issue 44 SaratogaPublishing.com
On The Brink More Families Facing Financial Disaster, Hiding Struggles From Neighbors and Friends by Michelle Read DeGarmo Saratoga TODAY SARATOGA COUNTY – Through combinations of job loss or reduced hours, and increasing energy bills, interest rates and living expenses, previously secure and comfortable families have found financial instability faster than ever thought possible. Across Saratoga County, there is
Photo by chamberdoorart.com
New faces at the local food pantry
a growing population of middle-class families that are quietly on the verge of homelessness. They are newly impoverished, and they are facing a unique set of challenges. As one local put it, “I don’t know how to be poor.” November is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Month, a campaign traditionally associated with a low-income population that is grouped together by the perception of what it means to struggle financially. Some consider poverty a lifestyle – one that many on the outside of the low-income bracket feel insulated from by their educational or professional status. But how many of us living in good neighborhoods are a few paychecks away from financial crisis? How many of our neighbors are teetering on the edge of homelessness, or struggling to provide healthy meals for their children? How many are too ashamed to ask for help? In this unstable economy, there’s no solid line. Over the next few weeks I will explore the challenges of
See Facing page 9
A Fighting Chance by Daniel Schechtman Saratoga TODAY SARATOGA SPRINGS – Six days a week, sometimes seven if he can swing it, 26-year-old Vincent Miranda tightly wraps his hands with tape, slips on a pair of gloves and bangs away at the heavy bag, trading blows with sparring partners and trainer Tyrone Jackson at the Saratoga Boxing Gym off of
Photo by Cathy Duffy for MarkBolles.com
Trainer Tyrone Jackson and Vincent Miranda See A Better page 12
Inside TODAY...
Sustainability – ‘To Go’ Your Home by Yael Goldman Saratoga TODAY SARATOGA SPRINGS - If you ask sustainable restaurateur Kim Klopstock what she does to limit her impact on the environment, she'll tell you she does what she can but can "always do better." Klopstock has three aspects to her business: she owns 50 South Restaurant and Bar, located at 2128 Doubleday Avenue, a catering business called Lily and the Rose, and also sells her So Lively Tapenade at the Saratoga Farmers' Market.
With all that's on her plate, she still has time to consider the bigger picture: how every transaction impacts her surroundings. It's called thinking sustainably, a grand notion that, for Klopstock, involves composting food waste, recycling and repurposing, limiting energy consumption, purchasing low-impact products, and working closely with the farmers that put food on her tables. She has fine-tuned her operation to do more with less impact, but
See Sustainability page 11
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pgs 13-28 Letters to Editor pg 5 The Dance Factory pg 7 Spa Catholic Award pg 8 Beatlemore Skidmania pg 33