Sharon Kroeger named Wassaic Citizen of the Year

AMENIA — Wassaic resident and proprietor of Calsi’s General Store Sharon Kroeger was selected as Wassaic’s Citizen of the Year for 2025. The honor, presented at the Thursday, Dec. 18, meeting of the Amenia Town Board, recognized her contributions to the betterment of the Town of Amenia and the hamlet of Wassaic in particular.

“This recognition is way overdue,” said Town Supervisor Leo Blackman, as he spoke of the several major community accomplishments helped along by Kroeger, owner and proprietor of Calsi’s General Store in the hamlet for more than 20 years.

Blackman noted that Kroeger runs the store as a “health food store” and a co-op for small family farms in the area. The store is also a lending library, he added.

In the 1990s, Kroeger formed a nonprofit with John Whiteford to take ownership and save the deteriorated Maxon Mills grain elevator, a prominent feature within the hamlet. As a result of Kroeger’s efforts, the structure was included on the State Register of Historic Places. Subsequently, the grain elevator gained new ownership and extensive renovation, now serving the arts community and the Wassaic Project, a nonprofit group that hosts resident artists and art installations in and around the former mill building.

During the years when graffiti was spreading, Kroeger teamed with Bea Nelligan to commission “the mural on the Main Street Bridge,” a work that won a Public Art Award from Dutchess County in 2003.

When the Luther family was moving away from Wassaic, Kroeger purchased the long green building standing between Main Street and the railroad tracks, a building that housed a dairy pavilion and livestock auction house where animals were loaded onto trains. That building is now the home of Vitsky’s Bakery, a thriving attraction for the hamlet.

Kroeger has reactivated use of a grassy space between the General Store and The Lantern for leisure reading and summer chess games.