The Adirondack Trust Co. was honored at the third annual Financial Capability Innovation Awards presented by a leading technology innovator, EverFi Inc.

Presented at Nasdaq Marketsite in New York City, the award recognizes the company’s “significant efforts to improve the financial capability of local teenagers through unique online learning initiatives,” officials said in a new release.

Adirondack Trust has partnered with EverFi to bring the EverFi and Vault Financial Literacy Courses to local students at no cost to schools or taxpayers and has reached over 2,000 students since the 2014-2015 school year. The web-based program uses the latest in simulation and gaming technologies to bring complex financial concepts to life for today’s digital generation, officials said.

Charles V. Wait Jr., bank executive vice president, said the company “is honored to receive the Financial Capability Innovation Award from EverFi and Nasdaq. As a community bank, we feel it is important to encourage students in our local communities to learn about financial education and we are proud to be able to provide it through the EverFi program.”

He said he is committed to providing students with the skills and knowledge needed to successfully navigate the increasingly complex financial world.

“Each year, we travel to the birthplace of the American financial system to honor institutions that are truly dedicated to going above and beyond in service to their communities,” said Ray Martinez, EverFi President of Financial Education. “The Financial Capability Innovation Awards have given us the opportunity to share and celebrate the tremendous investment these institutions are making and continue to make in the communities where they live, work, and serve. For EverFi, our time here reminds us just how critical the role innovation continues to play in empowering Americans to pursue economic opportunity and achieve financial security for themselves, their families, and their community.”

By Susan E. Campbell

A unique fundraising event promises to jump-start Tri-County United Way’s new fiscal year and help dozens of worthy agencies receive the financial assistance they need.

“We are going over the edge,” said Duane J. Vaughn, executive director of the United Way office that has served Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1923.

She meant, literally, over the edge of the five-story Queensbury Hotel. Tri-County United Way has partnered with Over The Edge, a company out of Canada that has raised $50 million for nonprofit agencies since its inception by helping brave volunteers rappel down the side of a building—scaling down the building using a special rope setup. Professionals guide participants through the entire rappel, and Over the Edge adheres to strict guidelines set by experts in the industry;

“This fundraiser works like a walk-a-thon or road race where participants collect pledges from their own pools of friends and family,” Vaughn said.

Because the participants raise the money rather than the nonprofit organization itself, Vaughn hopes to reduce “donor fatigue.”

“Ours is a very giving community and donors are very important to us,” he said. “We are always looking to find ways to lessen their burden.”

In response to the continued high prevalence of tobacco use in the region, the North Country Population Health Improvement Program (NC PHIP) of the Glens Falls-based Adirondack Health Institute has established the North Country Tobacco Use Reduction Task Force.

The task force, comprised of individuals and organizations committed to improving the health of North Country communities in six counties, will promote strategies to reduce the use of all forms of tobacco products throughout the region via a new initiative, “It’s Time to Clear the Air in the North Country,” according to organizers.

AHI officials said state Department of Health figures indicate that in 2014:

• More than 22 percent of adults 18 years of age and older in the North Country were cigarette smokers compared to 15 percent of adults in all of the state.

• The percentage of adult cigarette smokers in each county in the North Country exceeded the state percentage.

• North Country young adults (ages 18 to 24) smoked cigarettes at a significantly higher percentage than all New Yorkers in that age range (21 percent compared to 13 percent).

• More than one quarter of males ages 18 to 24 in the North Country smoked cigarettes in 2014.