Tucked into the lineup of upscale boutiques and floral design and art studios that make up the Shops at Water’s Edge in Westbrook is a studio of a different sort. This one has a green screen, digital video mixers, teleprompters, and miles of cable. This one—Valley Shore Community Television in Westbrook—is Pete Mezzetti’s home away from home.

Pete is the host and producer of a weekly televised community affairs show whose guests have included U.S. Representative Joe Courtney, State Comproller Kevin Lembo, State Commissioner on Aging Betsy Ritter, and Dr. Henry Lee, one of the world’ foremost forensic scientists and Connecticut’s chief criminalist from 1979 to 2000.

On Jan. 18, Pete and his all-volunteer crew celebrated their 100th taping. It was a low-key affair with a dozen chocolate cupcakes, a group photo, and when the mikes were cut and the cameras switched off, cheers and a round of applause.

“For about 12 or 14 years,” says Pete, “I was a public access host at Comcast Cable in Clinton.”

Two years ago, he recalls, one of his colleagues asked, “Do you realize Clinton doesn’t have its own public access TV show?”

Pete didn’t. He thought it should.

“I’m into covering community affairs, finding out what’s going on in the community, and letting people know.” He approached former first selectman Willie Fritz about starting a show. “Willie said, ‘Congratulations! It’s yours.’”

Fritz was the show’s first guest.

Since then, Pete has brought on notable state and national policymakers as well as leaders, organizers, and volunteers at the local level. The Pete Mezzetti Show airs in Durham, Haddam, Killingworth, Centerbrook, Chester, Deep River, Essex, Old Saybrook, Westbrook, and Clinton.

“I actually get out there and cover things that might not make the news, but are important to people who live here,” says Pete.

Though he and his crew might spend an hour or two taping each week, most of the work that goes into the show happens off-camera and involves outreach, research, writing, editing, and publicity.

“I’m a one-man marketing team,” says Pete.

On average, he spends 10 to 14 hours every weekend prepping for his show, which includes a radio broadcast of his televised interviews. Outside the show, he’s a full-time job sales and customer service representative for an e-commerce flower retailer, where he’s worked for the last 10 years.

Channeling His Energies

“I was a hyper, rambunctious kid,” says Pete, who admits he’s still a huge extrovert. “Ninety percent of the time, I’m outgoing. But what people might be surprised to know is that every once in a while—when I’m working on something and it’s really challenging or stressful—I get very quiet.”

Born in Fort Lauderdale, Pete relocated with his family to Clinton in the 1970s, when he and his older brother, Joe, and their younger sister, Tricia, were kids.

“We moved for my dad’s job,” he recalls.

His father worked as a sales rep for a frozen dough company at the time, and his parents—Joe and Dolly—opened up a bakery in Madison known as Dolly’s Madison Bake Shop.

A former Clinton selectman and tax collector, Dolly “is the reason I got involved in the community,” says Pete. “She inspired me. I started on the Fair Rent Commission, and now I’m the Board of Education representative for the Cable Advisory Council, as well as a council member.”

He also serves on the board of directors for Literacy Volunteers Valley Shore and is the group’s communications chairperson.

For the past year, he’s volunteered as director of social media for The Morgan School football program.

“This was my first year, and I had a lot of fun with first-year Huskies coach Peter Nye,” Pete says. “The coaches and players are great.”

Pete himself is 1994 graduate of The Morgan School and a huge football fan.

“That’s what I watch when I’m not working on my own show.”

His favorite TV programming includes college football, news (“I’m a CNN guy”), and the Food Network.

Hitting Home

For this hundredth show, Pete interviewed Stocky Clark, executive director of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, who described Ronald McDonald House as a “shelter in the storm” for families of children with life-threatening medical conditions. More than 350 Ronald McDonald Houses around the world provide housing and other services for families of hospitalized children so that they can be near their loved ones. These include parents and siblings of babies born prematurely, children awaiting organ transplants, and those undergoing cancer treatment or critical orthopedic surgeries.

Clark oversees a 22-bedroom house in Springfield, Massachusetts, and a 12-bedroom house on George Street in New Haven that has served 10,000 families over the last 30 years. The New Haven facility is moving to a new, expanded location on Howard Street, directly across the street from Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital and will ultimately offer 40 bedrooms in addition to respite rooms for parents who need a place to rest, shower, or get some work done.

“Kids don’t have to go it alone,” said Clark, “when families are part of the treatment plan.”

Construction of the larger New Haven Ronald McDonald House is expected to start this April, with the building ready for occupancy in May 2017. Clark spoke on The Pete Mezzetti Show about the valuable role of individual donors and volunteers in the Ronald McDonald House Charities (most families served are low-income, and Ronald McDonald House funding comes primarily from small, private donors). He also talked about the strength and gratitude of the patients and families served—a point not lost on the show’s host, himself a 14-year cancer survivor.

With his hundredth show behind him, Pete is already hard at work on his spring lineup of guests, which will be a mix of new faces as well as a few encores he’s excited about.

The Pete Mezzetti Show is televised on Valley Shore Community Television (VSCTV) and airs Tuesdays from 7 to 8 p.m. on Comcast public access Channel 19. It can be viewed on Frontier TV, WCNX TV (the second and fourth Saturday at 9 p.m.), and online at vsctv.com and youtube.com. Radio broadcasts can heard Mondays at noon on the University of New Haven’s radio station (88.7 FM, www.wnhu.net), Sundays at 4:30 p.m. on WCNX AM 1710 and WCNXRadio.com , and on demand at www.ctwsr.com. A tune-in app is available at http://tunein.com/radio/WNHU-887-s21438/.

Anyone interested in submitting guest or story ideas or becoming involved with the show is encouraged to call Pete at 203-506-8135 or email petemezzettishow@icloud.com.