SARATOGA SPRINGS – In order to keep her business surviving through the pandemic, Happy Hound Pet Sitting Service owner Kathy Lovelace completely reinvented herself and the business.

Knowing dogs love social contact more than most people do, Lovelace wanted to continue her dog sitting and walking service to her clients. To achieve this, Lovelace first became COVID-certified by Pet Sitters International. In order to become certified, Lovelace learned about COVID-19 and how to not only protect herself but those around her as well. 

“I learned all about the virus and the best ways to avoid it,” Lovelace said.  “I want to keep my clients and their pets safe. I have also educated myself on the local regulations, such as stay at home orders, to know specifically how everything can impact our local area.”

Pet Sitters International is an international educational association for professional pet sitters based in North California. The pet-sitting association represents nearly 7,000 independent professionals, Lovelace being one of them. 

After becoming certified, she made some modifications to her daily routine as well as her business. Previously, Lovelace would meet and great clients and their pets inside. However, she recently changed the meet and greet to be outdoors with masks and staying socially distanced. 

“For home visits, if the client is home they will stay social distanced with a mask or they agree to go into a separate room into their home. Sometimes they’re home because, well, they’re working from home. While I’m in the home, I wear a mask and while walking the dogs, I simply stay socially distanced,” Lovelace said. 

She now enforces a strict hand washing routine as well and asked all clients to complete a COVID-19 form, asking recent travel, contact and quarantine questions. Her clients only have to fill it out once, and will sign to agree to report any changes on the form. Despite making those multiple changes, Lovelace still faces a challenge: clients working from home. 

“I feel that the challenge is that I have established some nice clients who I really miss. Now, more and more people are working from home, so I’m not seeing my clients as much. I would see their dogs up to five times a week sometimes and I have became attached to them,” Lovelace said. 

She believes that if other independent businesses adopt similar methods, they can be successful as well. However, one benefit to owning a professional dog service is that adoption rate has increased these past months. 

“Pet adoption and dog ownership has gone way up. Adoption has helped bring sunshine into homes and it’s a great to see,” Lovelace said. “At the end of the day we are all in this together and we’ll make any and all changes as we need to.”

Lovelace can be reached by phone at 518-583-6561 and is located at 72 Waterview Drive in Saratoga Springs. To learn more about Lovelace and her business, visit www.petsit.com/pet-sitter-saratoga-springs-ny-happy-hound-pet-sitting-service-llc

Click Here for Darling Doughnuts Opens July 29th: 50 Flavors With All Local Ingredients

ALBANY — Representatives from the Freihofer’s Run for Women recently presented a check for $7,600 to the Community Foundation of the Greater Capital Region and the United Way of the Greater Capital Region’s The Capital Region Community COVID-19 Response Fund. 

Funds came from event registration and donations made by participants during online registration. The Capital Region Community COVID-19 Response Fund has provided 104 grants to organizations on the frontlines of the pandemic, including Colonie Senior Service Centers, Inc. (CSSC), which has made adjustments to its Senior Dining, Umbrella and Transportation programs and has expanded its capacity to operate seven days a week. 

For the last few months, CSSC has provided 1,200 nutritious take-out and home delivered lunches and more than 325 dinners weekly to seniors in Albany County. 

BALLSTON SPA — The Saratoga County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) can now provide financial assistance to COVID-19 impacted small businesses and nonprofits within the county.

This past month, Govonor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law that gives IDAs the authority to provide grants and loans to businesses and nonprofits with 50 or fewer employees. The new bill will expire on Dec. 31, 2021 or when the state of emergency for coronavirus ends. 

A grant of up to $10,000 per applicant is one option IDAs can provide. The grants can be used for the purchase of personal protective equipment (PPE) and, according to the law, “installing fixtures necessary to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” such as safety shields. IDAs can also provide interest free loans up to $25,000 per applicant to pay for employee salaries, rent, utilities and other expenses. The loans have a one-year term after a grace period.

How each IDA loan program works, however, is based on local agency leaders. Rod Sutton, president of Saratoga County IDA, said the board would host a discussion this week about their program. 

“Right now we are going to gather and review the legislation. We’re going to get our seven-member board to sit down and discuss the grant loan program,” Sutton said. “One of the biggest problems we have now is we can’t meet in public, so we are going to coordinate a Zoom or phone meeting. We expect to meet sooner rather than later to set up a program so we can go public with it and decide what the parameters will be for any applicant.”

Sutton said they would discuss the terms of how much they have to offer for each grant and loan. The board plans to project a three-year income expense that allows them to have a better idea on the monies available for the grant and loan. 

“We’ll be sitting down with our chief financial officer and the full board to see how much money we can afford to allocate,” Sutton said.

When the legislation passed to make this program possible, Clifton Park IDA Chairman and Clifton Park County Supervisor Jonathan Schopf, with the unanimous support of the Board of the IDA, made the decision to provide direct grant support to our small business community, allocating $100,000 of its fund balance towards this grant program which will be available to businesses located within Clifton Park, according to their website. Grants will be available in tiers of $1,000, $3,000, $5,000, and $7,000.

Schopf said in the release: “Simple, easy to apply for financial relief for our small business community is a priority for the IDA. These grants are easy to apply for, 100% forgivable, come with no strings attached and will be locally distributed and administered to support our business community.”

To receive any funding from IDAs, businesses and nonprofits must be located within the County or Town of the IDA agency. Notification will be given to the community for any public meeting of the IDA. 

The Saratoga County IDA is located at 50 West High Street in Ballston Spa and can be reached online at www.saratogacountyida.org/about-us/ or phone at 518-884-4705.

On May 12, Preston Allen, the Chair of the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors announced the creation of a Saratoga County Reopening Advisory Committee chaired by Waterford Supervisor Jack Lawler.

In addition to Supervisor Lawler, the advisory group includes: Cathi Duncan, Director of Saratoga County Public Health Services; Saratoga County Sheriff Michael Zurlo; Town Supervisors Ed Kinowski, of Stillwater; Eric Connolly, of the Town of Ballston; Tom Richardson, of Mechanicville; Kevin Tollisen, of Halfmoon; Dan Pemrick, of Greenfield; and City of Saratoga Springs Supervisor Matt Veitch; as well as Charles Wait, of The Adirondack Trust Company; Gary Dake, of Stewart’s Shops; and myself, Todd Shimkus, of the Saratoga County Chamber.

This Advisory Group was tasked with working with Saratoga County Administrator, Spencer Hellwig, who was himself named to the region’s control group, to help navigate the complicated process of reopening Saratoga County’s economy. 

The Advisory Group has met once a week for the last 9 weeks. Each meeting includes a report on the work of the regional control group as it has sought to clarify the details for local businesses and officials as we’ve progressed to our phase 4 reopening. The advisory board also receives updates on how Saratoga County is doing in terms of the key health metrics by which our communities are being judged in order to reopen our economy. We also have a weekly update from Sheriff Zurlo relative to compliance issues arising from calls to New York State’s various hotlines to report potential issues.

The first action taken by the Advisory Board was to set up a new page on Saratoga County’s website at www.reopeningsaratogacounty.com. This website is a one-stop shop for local employers to get the latest information about the phased reopening of our economy. In less than 6 weeks, the site has registered more than 35,000 views. Every day, the site is updated as daily directives from the Governor’s office are announced.

Saratoga County also has an online COVID 19 Dashboard. This is updated every day and includes the latest local information about: confirmed cases; deaths; active cases; recovered cases; and hospitalization. This site also includes confirmed cases by municipality as well as confirmed cases, hospitalizations and deaths by age. 

Led by Supervisors Matt Veitch and Ed Kinowski, the Advisory Board is exploring how Saratoga County can continue to help local employers with personal protective equipment. 

Supervisor Eric Connolly worked with Sheriff Zurlo and myself to create a video which allowed the Sheriff to talk about the most common complaints his office is receiving. As you might guess, most complaints are about the wearing or not wearing of masks. This video can be viewed at www.reopeningsaratogacounty.com. 

At the recommendation of the Saratoga County Reopening Committee, the Board of Supervisors voted 17 to 6 to authorize an expenditure of $50,000 out of the $1 million COVID 19 budget to promote Saratoga County’s Reopening within the Capital and Hudson Valley regions.

The Saratoga County Chamber was asked to create and manage this campaign. We agreed to do so at no cost to the County so that every dollar spent will help to attract visitors and customers to our locally owned businesses as they do everything they can to survive this pandemic. 

This ad campaign will reach hundreds of thousands of people via social media, digital marketing and television advertising. 

We’re inviting people to “Feel the Freedom” in Saratoga County. 

Every week now, the reopening advisory board is being updated on this campaign and its reach. We’re monitoring data to see what impacts reopening our local economy is having on public health.

We’re confident that this type of public-private partnership will help us to reopen our economy safely and that we are Stronger Together.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga National Bank and Trust Company was recognized in June as a 5-Star Superior bank by BauerFinancial, Inc., the nation’s leading bank rating and research firm. 

Saratoga National has earned this designation for the past 45 consecutive quarters, securing its prominent position as an “Exceptional Performance Bank.”

The 5-Star rating indicates Saratoga National Bank and Trust Company is one of the strongest banks in the nation. To earn 5 Stars, banks must excel in areas of capital quality, asset quality and profitability, according to Karen Dorway, President of BauerFinancial.

Based in Coral Gables, Florida, BauerFinancial has been reporting on and analyzing the performance of U.S. banks and credit unions since 1983. No institution can pay for or opt out of a BauerFinancial rating. To learn more, visit bauerfinancial.com.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Hospital has promoted Jeffrey Methven to executive vice president, responsible for operations. Marcy Dreimiller has been named vice president of human resources. Both have more than a decade of experience in roles of increasing responsibility at Saratoga Hospital.

“As our organization has grown and become increasingly complex, Jeff and Marcy have consistently and proactively taken on additional challenges with skill and grace,” Saratoga Hospital President and CEO Angelo Calbone said. “We congratulate them on this much-deserved recognition of their leadership and commitment to our organization and those we serve.”

Methven  previously was vice president of ambulatory services and chief human resources officer. He joined Saratoga Hospital in 2006 as vice president of human resources and, since then, has assumed responsibility for the hospital’s outpatient network of over 20 locations. He also was instrumental in growing the multidisciplinary Saratoga Hospital Medical Group, which has more than 250 providers in over 30 specialties.

As executive vice president, Methven will continue to be responsible for the operations of the medical group and many Saratoga Hospital outpatient sites. He also will work closely with other members of the hospital’s leadership team to oversee much of the organization’s daily operations.

As vice president of human resources, Dreimiller oversees all major human resources functions, including recruitment, employee relations, benefit administration, training and leadership development and compensation. She also is responsible for employee health, volunteer services and pastoral care.

Dreimiller joined Saratoga Hospital in 2009 as director of human resources and was named associate vice president of human resources in 2017. Previously, she was the vice president of human resources at Glens Falls Hospital for 17 years.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — In the midst of the pandemic and the chaos of our daily lives, members of the community have stepped up to join the board, renew their terms and lead our museum into a bold path for the future. 

David Martin became Board President in January of this year and volunteered to extend his term by an additional year to help the museum through the current crisis. Martin is a native of Saratoga, is currently serving his third term on the board and is the son of two of the Museum’s founders, Alice and Randy Martin. 

Brandon Ture, another Saratoga native, has agreed to serve his third term on the board as chair of the facilities committee. Ture has two young children who help guide his thoughts on exhibits and their durability. The museum bids a farewell to Jennifer Allen, Immediate Past President, who brought her creativity, passion and fundraising experience to the museum for six years.

This Spring Nicole Rodgers, Katelyn Donovan and Lou Ann Stewart joined the Museum board. Rodgers owns her own law firm in Saratoga and is the mother of young children who attend school in the Burnt Hills/Ballston Lake school district. Rodgers’ business acumen, legal knowledge and experiences as a mother have already proved invaluable. 

Donovan reports, “I am very excited to join The Children’s Museum at Saratoga. Growing up in the Saratoga area, and having had a few of my own celebrations at the museum, I am looking forward to being a part of creating exciting ways to continue to support the children of Saratoga for the next 30 years.” 

Donovan’s experience in development has been incredibly helpful during this unprecedented challenge for nonprofits. 

Stewart lives in Halfmoon and has wonderful memories of bringing her children to the Museum when they were young. Stewart’s expertise in strategic planning and marketing are necessary skills for the Museum as we continue to plan for our future.

For more information about The Children’s Museum at Saratoga, contact 518-584-5540 or ssmith@cmssny.org.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Marketplace, an indoor shopping and dining staple in downtown Saratoga Springs, has used the recent economic closure to reinvent the popular retail destination. Updates have included interior and exterior changes to individual stores and common spaces as well as the addition of new and expanded businesses. 

The two-story retail arcade has recently revealed renovations such as the restoration of the tin ceiling, complete interior painting and new lighting throughout. The property will continue with further updates in the coming months and has also added in many safety precautions to the building for customer care while shopping. 

The new bright and airy interior coordinates with the updated exterior courtyard complete with new turf lawn, tropical plants and spacious outdoor seating for Comfort Kitchen, The Night Owl and Tatu, the property’s restaurant establishments. 

With a predominance of young, local entrepreneurs, the space is home to more than 14 retail, lifestyle and restaurant properties. New businesses that have recently opened include Into Mischief, featuring gifts and home décor boutique, Saratoga Chocolate Company, Bella and Lindy, a dog gifts and treats store, Studio Sweet, a nationally recognized furniture designer, and Saratoga CBD Wellness. Betsy Olmsted Designs, a local textile designer with national recognition who’s been featured in Country Living, House Beautiful and HGTV Magazine to name a few, opened her first brick and mortar storefront on the main level. 

The Saratoga Marketplace is home to several art galleries including Frankie Flores, David Hill and Amp Gallery which features approximately 20 of the region’s top local artists, Lex and Cleo, which presents children’s clothing, gifts and toys has greatly expanded in its new space at the front of the building. Also updated are Lucia, Paper Dolls, Pangea and Yoga Mandali. 

The expansive courtyard at Saratoga Marketplace connects the mall with its sister property, 17 Maple Ave., which has undergone extensive renovations over the last year, including the launch of the new cocktail bar and dance club, The Night Owl. Tatu, an authentic Mexican restaurant, opened last fall on the newly renovated second floor. 

Opening this month, The Aston, is a modern living space available for private bookings. The Aston sits on the third floor above Tatu adding a stay component to the complex. This penthouse-style apartment boasts a rooftop patio, high ceilings with three bedrooms and one bath. 

The Saratoga Marketplace is owned by Saratoga Historic Restorations, Thomas Gardner and Mark Straus partners. For more information visit facebook.com/Saratoga-Marketplace or call Lucy Moran at 917-842-8924.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Local Paint and Sip studio announced the start of its weekly Kids Day Camp Painting program. 

Hosted every Tuesday and Thursday, each class features a different theme to incorporate different painting techniques. The students will create and complete different paintings each class. 

“We’ve never done summer camp at Paint and Sip before, so its been a whole new world for us to start this journey,” Catherine Hover, owner of Paint and Sip said. 

A main focus of the day camp is to give an outlet to kids who are ready to get out of the house. Socialization is important and right now everyone is losing that aspect as time goes on.

“It’s important to provide these programs that will get kids out of the house and get them creating. It’s a great therapy for kids who are feeling frustrated too,” Hover said. 

There is limited seating allowed to practicing safe social distancing. The camp will be offered through August, and a schedule of the July camps can be seen on their website. Each camper will be seated six-feet apart and have their own set of brushes to use and keep. A painting will be completed each class on 11×14 inch canvas panel to bring home. Paints will also be portioned out into 2-ounce paint tubes the campers can keep. 

Amanda Demarco of Paint and Sip said interested community members can sign up directly on their website. Currently classes run from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. but Demarco said the hours will change to 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. for the month of August. 

“The camp is $50 for the week and includes equipment the students can take home. Tables are six-feet apart and although seating is limited, parents can request to sit with friends or family they are comfortable with,” Demarco said. 

Hover added: “[the campers] are accumulating different arts and crafts and by the end of the session we’ll do a little art show, which may be done digitally.”

Located at 80 Henry St. in Saratoga Springs, the studio can be reached at paintandsipstudios.com by email info@saratogapaintandsip.com or phone 518-584-8244.