5/8/2007
OUR OPINION - Times Leader Editorial
Nanticoke’s battle against scourges deserves boost

GIVE CREDIT TO the Nanticoke residents who just said “No.”
No, we won’t deny that drug and alcohol abuse is a rampant problem in our community, they said.
No, we can’t ignore that overdoses, sometimes fatal ones, happen here all too often.
No, we don’t dare wait for outside help; we need to do something.
Led by a city police officer who recognized the extent of the crisis, the residents rallied in 2003 to start a group called the Greater Nanticoke Area Drug Task Force. On Saturday dozens of task force members and guests ceremoniously sliced the ribbon on a newly completed youth recreation center.
The center – tucked inside a former fire hall at 24 S. Prospect St. – is a place where teenagers can go to escape street temptations, and where people of all ages can get facts about addictions, intervention and recovery. It’s a great addition to this worn-down city, where healthy diversions for young people can be hard to find.
The task force’s project has been generously aided by city officials, law enforcement agencies, churches and the area school district.
But now it deserves even broader support.
If more adults volunteer to supervise activities here, the hangout for high school and middle school students can open on most weeknights instead of a mere two hours on Tuesdays.
Likewise, area businesses ought to back the effort with contributions of snacks and material goods that make the center more inviting.
By joining in this grassroots undertaking, people throughout Greater Nanticoke will be helping to make an important statement.
No, we haven’t stopped caring.
GET MORE DETAILS
For more information, visit www.nanticokecity.com and click on “GNA Drug Task Force.”
Or call 762-4009.

5/06/2007
Hard work pays off for youths
BY COULTER JONES
STAFF WRITER

Only the ceremonial ribbon cutting was left for the Greater Nanticoke Area Drug Task Force community center to officially open Saturday.
That step was seemingly overlooked, as the vanity, over-sized scissors couldn’t slice through the three-inch wide red ribbon.
No matter, the hard part — securing thousands of dollars in funding from private and public sources, hours of work by dozens of volunteers to turn the old Stickney Fire Co. headquarters into a youth center — had been completed during the past several months.
“It’s great,” said Angela Smith, 16, and vice president of the task force. “I tell people to bring their friends. Everyone’s welcome. There’s always something to do.”
The task force, a youth group that works to encourage kids to avoid drugs and alcohol, has been using the building since fall, as painting and other repairs were finished. Organized about three years ago, the group started meeting in the basement of the St. John’s Church before moving to St. Francis Church on East Green Street. Neither location was big enough. Students involved asked Nanticoke’s City Council for help and in June 2005, the council leased the fire hall to the task force.
Funding for the community center got a boost in December when the Luzerne County District Attorney’s office donated $10,000 confiscated from drug dealers.
Smith, a sophomore at Nanticoke Area High School, has been involved since the group’s inception. With red and blue painted fingernails that matched the tie-dyed task force shirt she wore, Smith painted faces during Saturday’s grand opening festivities.
When she first started coming to task force meetings, there were only four other students. Now, on Tuesdays, there are more than 40 students who show up. About 100 middle and high school students in the area participate at times, said Frank Vandermark, president of the task force. He helps organizes most of the activities for the students, such as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins games and an annual summer fishing trip.
“We try to do whatever we can to get the kids out of here and into the community,” Vandermark said.
In addition to giving kids an alternative place to hang out, the task force has group discussions for teenagers. Parents and other adults can stop by too, to talk with volunteers about concerns they have, Vandermark said.
The students want to help their communities in a lot of ways, Vandermark said, from park cleanups to drug prevention programs..
“You’d be surprised,” Vandermark said. “All we do is ask and they come. These kids want to help their community.”
cjones@citizensvoice.com

5/4/2007
Offering alternatives
Mark E. Jones | Community Advocate | Times Leader

They lost too many teenagers to drugs and alcohol in this city, heard about too many overdose deaths.
So concerned adults banded together about four years ago and formed what became known as the Greater Nanticoke Area Drug Task Force. This weekend, members of the grass-roots group will show off their newly completed youth recreation center – a place where teenagers and others can go to escape temptations of the street and, if needed, get help for addictions.
A grand-opening celebration is set for 1 p.m. Saturday at the former Stickney firehall, 24 S. Prospect St.
Billed as a recreation and community resource center, the two-story brick building houses a hodgepodge of pool tables, dartboards, exercise equipment and other diversions intended to allow school-age children to fritter away their free time without falling into trouble.
“If we don’t show them things to do, keep them away from (destructive habits), our future’s going to be pretty bleak,” said task force president Frank Vandermark.
Initially the recreation center will be open for games only one night per week – from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays. However, organizers aim to recruit volunteers willing to supply adult supervision on other weeknights, giving young people more access to the hangout.
Meanwhile, the center’s upstairs meeting rooms are being used for weekly programs such as “Straight Talk.” This session on Monday nights is intended to let parents or children get facts about substance abuse, addiction, intervention and recovery.
Plus, two programs – one for teenage girls and one for teen boys – allow young people to chat with their peers about all sorts of serious issues and get support. Neither program is a substitute for formal counseling, Vandermark and other task force members said.
They added that young people might be referred to professional counselors or agencies. “If we can’t help them right there, we tell them where to go,” said Vandermark, 44, a Newport Township resident.
The task force had been running its programs out of nearby St. Francis Church. It outgrew that basement space and, with backing from city officials, slowly began renovating the fire station located within eyesight of the Kanjorski Center on Main Street.
The task force pays the city $1 a month for use of the building, Vandermark said. It will rely on donations to cover utility and other expenses, estimated at about $5,000 a year.
The new center – part kids’ clubhouse, part community hub – is expected to serve as a kind of rallying point for area residents determined to confront society’s drug problems with action, not apathy.
“You can’t sit back and say, let the government solve the problem, let the school solve the problem,” said Don Williams, chairman of the task force’s outreach committee. “It’s a communitywide problem. And it requires a community-based response.
“You just can’t push it off on other people.”

Dealing with dire situation

A handful of people, including Nanticoke police officer Kevin Grevera, spearheaded the task force’s creation in response to a looming crisis.
They recognized that illegal drug use had inflicted emotional and financial hardships on many families in this city of fewer than 11,000 residents. “There have been at least 100 instances of drug overdoses over the last four years,” Grevera wrote in a letter published in the Times Leader during November 2004. “To wit, 37 have resulted in death.”
Since then, the task force has received acclaim for the way it mobilized to confront drug abuse. WVIA-TV, the region’s public broadcasting station, focused one of its “Call the Doctor” programs on the group’s efforts, and other communities have asked task force members for advice.
Debbie Reddy, a prevention specialist with Wyoming Valley Alcohol and Drug Services Inc., belongs to the group, as do clergy members and public school officials. Williams, who has been with the group almost from the outset, is a Nanticoke resident and executive director of Clear Brook Lodge, a Shickshinny-area treatment center for young people with addictions.
But even with their range of expertise, task force members “are not 100 percent certain of what we’re doing,” Williams said candidly. He stressed that the group is “trying to deal with Nanticoke and not be the model for Northeastern Pennsylvania.”
Nevertheless, its anti-drug efforts probably deserve a closer look by other Luzerne County cities and boroughs.
The task force has succeeded in connecting several people with treatment and recovery programs, Vandermark said. And, although sources couldn’t provide figures to back the claim, they said overdoses probably dipped when the task force’s programs got under way.
“It may or may not be attributed to our programs here,” Vandermark said, “but we’d like to think we had something to do with it.”

Gaining wide support

On a recent Tuesday night, 13-year-old Brett Schenck banged out “Chopsticks” on the recreation center’s piano.
The eighth-grade student had been told about the center while at school. “I came down by myself (a few weeks ago) and saw how nice it is, so I brought my friend with me.”
The center’s public debut this spring coincides with other notable projects in Nanticoke, all striving to give young people more safe, healthy options. A proposed skate park, for example, is expected to be built soon.
Separately, Luzerne County Community College officials recently announced plans to establish a substance abuse education and training institute.
Task force members, meanwhile, proudly noted that they get enthusiastic responses from area businesses and residents when they ask for support. About $8,000 was contributed during a mail campaign conducted more than a year ago.
More recently, area residents donated labor and skills to improve the building’s plumbing and electrical systems. Volunteers also painted walls and then added kid-friendly games and gadgets, including a row of used computers.
The biggest donor to date has been the Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office, doling out money seized in drug arrests. It presented a $10,000 gift to the program in December.
Making good choices
In the future, task force members said they hope tutoring will be offered at the center by National Honor Society students. They also plan to schedule educational programs for the public at large and get teens involved in more community-enhancing volunteer activities.
For now, however, the emphasis is on helping young people avoid adolescent temptations, some of which seem to be woven into modern culture. Beer signs, for instance, glow in a café’s windows directly across the street from the recreation center, which is squeezed between a beauty salon and a funeral home.
“There are temptations everywhere,” said Jim “Sam” Samselski, 45, of Nanticoke. “It’s up to the kids to make the right choice. We have to educate them on the right choice. And we have to pick them up when they fall down.”
Samselski emphasized that the center won’t turn away someone who previously used poor judgment and had a substance abuse problem.
“Nobody’s banned from the place,” he said. “Everybody makes mistakes; I just hope they aren’t fatal ones.”

Get involved

Area residents can lend support to the Greater Nanticoke Area Drug Task Force in many ways.
Attend the recreation center’s grand opening. The event will be held from 1-4 p.m. Saturday at the Stickney building, 24 S. Prospect St., Nanticoke.
Donate material goods or money. Contributions to the nonprofit organization are tax-deductible.
Enter its golf tournament. The event is set for July 9 at Wyoming Valley Country Club, in Hanover Township. Cost per team is $340. For more details, call 814-9002 or 762-4009.
Learn more about its mission. Go to www.nanticokecity.com, click on “GNA Drug Task Force.”

Volunteer

Adults are needed to supervise the recreation center on weekday evenings. Call 762-4009.
“IT’S A COMMUNITYWIDE problem. And it requires a community-based response. You just can’t push it off on other people.”
Don Williams Chairman of the task force’s outreach committee

5/3/2007
Youth task force hosting open house of new digs, seeks volunteers
Pam Urbanski - Nanticoke Area Notes

It was about four years ago when a group of Nanticoke residents, concerned about the growing drug problem, formed the Greater Nanticoke Area Drug Task Force.
The group’s aim has been to raise awareness of the drug problem by reaching out to the citizens and institutions of Nanticoke such as schools, youth groups, civic and religious organizations, and the business community. They seek out successful programs of recovery to serve the needs of the community, and they are a great resource, directing those in need — adults and teens — to find appropriate services. And, finally, they provide programs and activities that offer young people healthy alternatives to alcohol and drug abuse.
From the adult task force came the youth task force. It has an elected board made up of Nanticoke High School students. The youth task force will hold an open house Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. at its brand new recreation center at the site of the former Stickney Firehouse on South Prospect Street. Students and adults say they are thrilled to have a bigger and better facility to accommodate more students and activities. “We are really excited about our recreation center,” Cassie Samselski said.
The group originated with a recreation center in the basement of St. Francis Church. When more young people started using the facility, the group needed to find a bigger, more permanent center.
The new facility has three floors, Samselski said, including a basement, which houses comfortable bean bags ideal for watching TV, playing video games, or listening to music. The first floor features gaming tables including billiards, foosball, hockey and ping pong.
Youth task force secretary Shannon Provenzano can’t wait to show off the center. “So many of us have worked so hard ... The place was really dirty and messy,” Provenzano said. “We had to clean up a lot of stuff before we could even start to paint ... Painting was not easy either.”
All three floors have been painted attractive colors. “I think fellow students will find this a welcoming place,” she added. One of her favorite programs at the center is Girl’s Night Out, held Wednesdays at 7 p.m. “This night gives us an opportunity to talk about things going on in our lives.
“It helps to know that girls your age face the same problems,” she added.
She urges high school students to give the recreation center a try.
Kaila Sakowski, youth task force president, said the recreation center will benefit the entire community.
“This is a great place for high school students to get together to talk, hang out with friends, or join in some of the games and activities we have here,” Sakowski said.
Founding father and long-time task force adult leader Don Williams said with the facility completed, the group can focus on other business.
“We became bogged down when we had to deal with the issue of the building. I think people began to put distance between themselves and the programs, and we weren’t as close-knit as we were before,” Willilams said. “This grand opening puts a formal end to the transition.”
His hope is that they now will be able to attract more high school students in and around the community.
The call continues to go out for more adult volunteers.
“We have had a lot of support from the community. People have stepped up to help financially, to offer their assistance in getting the building ready and for agreeing to supervise during programs,” he said. But more adult volunteers are needed so programs can be added. Also, the center currently is open only on Tuesdays from 7 to 9 p.m. He would like to see hours expanded to two or three days.
The grand opening will be celebrated with refreshments, music, and face painting.
For more information or to volunteer, call the center at 762-4009.

Taken from Citizen's Voice
11/18/2004
Nanticoke can no longer afford to ignore growing drug problem

Editor:
This letter is for the edification of the citizens of Nanticoke as it relates to the growing drug problem within our community.
The following is a partial account of narcotics activity in Nanticoke City during October: A woman died from a heroin overdose; a pharmacy was robbed at gun point; a bar was robbed at gun point; a pharmacy was burglarized; two attempted burglaries of a pharmacy occurred; two families lost custody of a total of six children; 64 criminal arrests were made as a result of thefts, assaults, and other drug related crimes.
There have been at least 100 instances of drug overdoses over the last four years. To wit, 37 have resulted in death. I often hear the question, "In Nanticoke?" The answer is emphatically, "yes." Families have been ruined and bankrupt, parents have taken their own lives over this epidemic, and hepatitis has become no less common than a seasonal cold.
Despite the efforts of parents, police, clergy, schools and medicine, nothing has changed. We tell our children, "don't use drugs" but give them few alternatives. We placate the taxpayers and forget the future taxpayer. We ponder the exodus of the best and brightest, yet offer no vocational opportunity.
Slightly more than a year ago, concerned members of our city bonded together over the bleak realization that we are in big trouble. We formed the non-profit GNA Drug Task Force Inc. We held a meeting with about 30 people. All were under age 20. Three have since died. Overwhelmingly, they told us they wanted a place to go, a youth center. They asked why they never got their skate park that was promised.
To date, the task force has welcomed Narcotics Anonymous into Nanticoke, established a youth group, held educational events and organized efforts of recovery and treatment for individuals. We cannot afford to be embarrassed about our drug problem any longer. Our city needs a youth center, and we are working toward that goal.

If you need help, or can help; please contact us at:
GNA Task Force,
P.O. Box 139,
Nanticoke, PA 18634.
Officer Kevin J. Grevera
GNA Task Force president