COLONIE The Colonie Chamber of Commerce honored residents, businesses and the town’s former police chief, Steve Heider, at its annual dinner on Thursday, Jan. 28 at the Century House with drinks, laughs and plenty of congratulations for the accomplishments of the past year and beyond.
Following an hour of amiable open bar mingling, Tom Nolte, president of the Colonie Chamber, welcomed dinner guests and introduced VIPs before the meal was served. Once dinner plates had been cleared, and as the chocolate mousse was being served, the awards ceremony got underway with the presentation of giant checks to two philanthropic organizations.
The first was in the amount of $732 and was awarded by the Chamber’s Women-4-Women committee, a coalition of local businesswomen who are “dedicated to furthering the professional development and leadership of women in and around Colonie, N.Y.” The money, raised during a networking event held over the summer, went to a local nonprofit called WERC (Women’s Employment Resource Center), a program that provides workforce development services to women in Albany and Rensselaer counties who are single mothers or who have lost a source of income due to divorce, death, disability or dislocation.
Another check in the amount of $1800 was presented to the American Cancer Society after Chamber members gave up shaving for the whole month of November and donated the savings in what Nolte called “a month-long journey in which participants forgo shaving and grooming in order to provoke conversation and raise awareness by embracing our hair, which many cancer patients lose, and letting it grow wild and free.” No-Shave November culminated in a
