Sunday Dinner and That’s What’s Up Broome County

Adam Weitsman: Success Shared Is Success Multiplied

Some people build successful businesses. Some build wealth. The people who leave the deepest mark on a community are the ones who look at what they have built and ask what they can do with it for others. This week, Sunday Dinner and That’s What’s Up Broome County spotlights Adam Weitsman, the Owego-born entrepreneur, industrialist and philanthropist whose latest gift to Tioga County Rural Ministry is another chapter in a long record of giving back to the communities around him.

On July 6, Weitsman made a $102,600 personal donation to Tioga County Rural Ministry, money designated for the organization’s emergency financial assistance program. The need is real. Tioga County Rural Ministry says it is seeing urgent demand for help with food, fuel, utilities, rent, car repairs and other emergency expenses, with more than half of those seeking assistance employed full-time but still struggling under rising costs and unexpected financial crises.

That donation did not come out of nowhere. It is part of a much longer pattern. Weitsman built Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling from an Owego operation into one of the region’s major scrap metal businesses, and over the years he has repeatedly turned success into support for local nonprofits, youth programs and community organizations.

Like most human beings, Weitsman has had his share of troubles, hard chapters and past mistakes. What makes his story worth telling is not that he somehow lived a flawless life, but that he embraced responsibility, rebuilt his life and remade his public image in breathtaking ways. He became an example of what can happen when a person owns the past, changes direction and decides to use success for something larger than himself.

And, to tell the story properly, some credit probably belongs to his wife, Kim, and their daughters, who seem to have served as the unofficial rehabilitation board, accountability committee and reality-check department all rolled into one. Joking aside, family has clearly played a central role in the man Weitsman became and in the life he has built since.

His local philanthropy runs deep. In 2019, Weitsman donated $175,000 to Boys & Girls Clubs in Owego, Binghamton, Syracuse and Endicott. His grandfather, Ben Weitsman, was a founding member of the Tioga County Boys & Girls Club, and Adam and Kim have continued that family connection through repeated support of youth programming and local causes.

The Krebs restaurant in Skaneateles became another vehicle for giving. After Adam and Kim Weitsman restored and reopened the historic restaurant, its net profits were directed to local charitable organizations, particularly those serving women and children. Through efforts such as Southern Tier Tuesdays, Weitsman has also supported regional nonprofits with recurring grants, including Tioga County Rural Ministry itself.

That is why this latest $102,600 gift matters beyond the number on the check. It gives Tioga County Rural Ministry more power to help keep the heat on, put food on the table, prevent an eviction, repair a car needed to get to work, or help a family survive the kind of sudden financial blow that can push an already struggling household over the edge.

Adam Weitsman has achieved extraordinary success, but locally, his legacy is not measured only in businesses built, facilities opened or wealth accumulated. It is also measured in children who had a Boys & Girls Club to go to, families who got emergency help, nonprofits that could keep serving and community organizations that could do more because someone with the means decided to step forward.

We also thank Adam for the way he shares his life on social media. He gives people a window into the successes, the family moments, the businesses, the challenges, the generosity and the life he has built. That openness makes the story more human and lets people across the region see not just the public figure, but the person behind the success.

A good neighbor does not have to solve every problem. A good neighbor sees a need, steps forward and does something.

We think Adam Weitsman is not just a good neighbor, but a great one. We are happy for his success because, in a real way, his success belongs to this community too. When someone from here builds something extraordinary and then keeps giving back to the people and places that helped shape him, all of us share in that story.

We are blessed that this is where Adam comes from, that this is part of his home, and that so many people across our region have benefited from the success he chose to share.

And that is a fact.