Carrying 40- to 80-pound boxes of honey from beehives to his truck was becoming painful for Nick Shilliff in the summer of 2015. His left hip would ache during the day and keep him awake at night. “It got so I couldn’t take three steps without pain, and I couldn’t sleep because I could not get comfortable,” he recalls.

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Kitty Shallenberger of Hector was gradually giving up her regular three-mile walks with friends because the aching in her right knee had grown more painful during the last few years.

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Barbara Dubow, a registered professional nurse, worked in the health-care field for 41 years. She is well known in the Ithaca community as the former school nurse at Boynton Middle School and as a skilled caregiver at both Cayuga Medical Center and Surgicare. Dubow, now 63 and recently retired from nursing for the second time, is busier than ever in her role as “Granna” to three active young grandchildren. When her precious young charges visit, Dubow’s time is taken up with rousing rounds of kickball in the backyard, climbing up and down steps at the lake for fishing with the boys, and playing on the floor with her ten-month-old granddaughter. Nine months ago, however, this kind of activity would simply not have been feasible. (more…)

Madison Lodge is an energetic 16-year-old who never stops moving. Her whirlwind sports schedule starts each August with swim practice, shifts to basketball in November, and ends with her favorite—softball—in March.

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