Jeanne Sager | Democrat BRENDA HALL OF Mongaup Valley went tumbling down one of the giant bounce houses set up at Stegis Lake at the Eldred Preserve, her niece Karol Wood, 6, of Monticello, following behind her. Hall also brought her daughter, Patience, to enjoy the benefit for flood victims in the Roscoe area.

Sullivan Community Shows It Cares

By Jeanne Sager
ELDRED — July 31, 2007 — It’s how Sullivan County deals with disaster.
We regroup.
Then we fund-raise.
Sunday’s benefit at the Eldred Preserve’s Stegis Lake fell into what the Orange-Sullivan American Red Cross Chapter head Bette Popovich calls Sullivan’s “volunteer culture.”
The preserve donated the location and the food.
The artists – Rivers Edge, the Rausch Brothers, Melissa, Haze and recent Sullivan County Colgate Country Showdown winner Trista Wheaton – donated their talent.
The door prizes were all donated – by local businesses.
The children’s entertainment was donated too by PartyMaster.
And the folks who drove out to Eldred for an afternoon of music and food were there to open their wallets and their hearts to the victims of the flash flooding last month in June.
“Right now, it’s very limited what we can do for our own people in Roscoe,” said resident Tammie Guzzo. “This is the best thing we can do.”
Guzzo’s family lost their campground during the floods of June 2006.
She’s spent the last few weeks like many residents of the area – volunteering.
“You feel the pain when people go through these things,” she said. “We just lost a campground. They lost their homes.”
Which makes it even harder to help, said her cousin, Lisa Varner.
“You can’t really give them things because they don’t have a place to put it!”
That’s what prompted the Eldred Preserve to act, said Manager Lou Monteleone.
“We just wanted to help,” he said simply. “We figured we could do something.”
Within a matter of weeks, the folks at the Preserve threw Sunday’s concert together with help from Thunder 102 (which provided a portion of the music) and other sponsors, including the Sullivan County Democrat.
The American Red Cross garnered the money raised from ticket sales to the 135 folks who joined the festivities, and donations were also dropped off for the Flood Relief Fund set up at M&T Bank in Roscoe.
Monteleone said any additional donations should be sent straight to the organizations. 
The fund, which is being overseen by a dispersal committee made up of Roscoe-area representatives, will be closed up August 11, adding to the urgency of donating.