The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) had much to celebrate this year, as the non-profit organization received $100,000 in funding from New York State after years of a budget shortfall.

Assemblywoman Paula Elaine Kay, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Budget Director Blake Washington and Assemblywoman Deborah Glick received the Partnership Award from the UDC for their work in securing the funding in the 2027 state budget and undoing a 38-year void of anticipated state operating aid since the UDC’s inception in 1988.

At the awards ceremony on September 13 at The Central House in Beach Lake, PA, Kay and Washington accepted the award.

“It is a team effort,” Kay said. “The fact that [the Governor’s office] were able to sit down and work through this, it’s so important and so meaningful for all of us for years to come.”

UDC Executive Director Laurie Ramie especially called out Kay for being “a champion and catalyst” for the organization and spoke of the financial challenges they were facing.

“The UDC had reached a critical point of everyday expenses exceeding our federal funding, which has been unadjusted at $300,000 [annually] since 1988, forcing staffing and program reductions,” she said.

The awards ceremony, which opened with a keynote address by Sullivan County Historian John Conway, also honored many groups and individuals that have contributed to the quality of life in the river valley.

Among those were two groups that carried out river rescues on July 4 this past summer: the National Canoe Safety Patrol (which was written about in a front-page article by the Sullivan County Democrat) and a group of young women who saved a drowning man in the Sparrowbush area.

Receiving the Robin M. Daniels Memorial Lifesaving Award were Jenna Waligroski, Madison Balmos, Chiara Theodore, Anna Maley and Reagan Myers. On a fun Fourth of July river tubing trip, the five friends came upon a 25-year-old man with no life jacket struggling to keep his head above water.

He had flipped out of his own tube while looking for some expensive sunglasses, lost his footing, and was unable to swim.

Emergency crews had already been dispatched, searching for two men in trouble after his pal jumped in and also struggled.

The five girls surrounded him with their tubes and instructed him to hang on to their connecting rope through the rapids, since they weren’t able to physically pull him out of the water yet due to the rushing current.

Once they made it through the rapids, Reagan and Madison shared a tube and helped the man into the vacant one. Jenna called her father, Rob Waligroski, a volunteer with the Port Jervis Fire Department, who relayed their location to emergency crews, and the man was safely brought to shore.

After receiving accolades from the crowd at the awards ceremony for their heroism, the evening was rounded out with the Distinguished Service Award given to Nadia Rajsz, Chairwoman of the Sullivan County Legislature and member of the UDC for 20 years.

“I am humbled and grateful to be receiving this award,” Rajsz said. “I’m also honored to be working alongside the members of the UDC for so long, since 2000. It’s been a great adventure, and we will continue to work to protect our river valley.”