POTTSTOWN >> The 95-degree heat wasn’t enough to keep some of Pottstown’s best community crusaders from spreading their message.
Clustered underneath the shade in Riverfront Park Saturday were members of a variety of community organizations who gathered there for the eighth annual Stop the Drugs, Stop the Violence event.
Representatives from the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, Women’s Center of Montgomery County, Pottstown School District and several religious organizations came together to educate the public about some of the troubling problems in Pottstown.
“Our mission is really to eradicate the drugs and violence in Pottstown and we want to show people that there is help,” explained the Rev. Georgiana Harris of Harris Ministries. “We try to do it in a family setting and make it pleasant but it’s a very serious thing that we want to see change in.”
As volunteers prepared food under the pavilion, members of the organizations met with each other to discuss issues and build relationships.
“We have a lot of community programs. We have them in Pottstown, Norristown and the county in general,” explained Dean Beer, chief public defender for Montgomery County. “We’re starting here in September a participatory defense program. It’s a program that allows families whose family members are in the criminal justice system to find out how they can be of help to their families.”
Beer explained that though they have programs to help those already in the criminal justice system, they are working with other organizations to determine ways in which they can prevent it from happening in the first place.
One of the representatives there on Saturday who was working on the preventative end of the problem was Kevin Downes, principal of Franklin Elementary. Downes was there representing the Pottstown School District and attended in order to educate people on the developmental issues in children that often result in drug use and violence.
“The Pottstown School District is involved in a lot of community programs to cope with what we’re seeing,” explained Downes. “We’ve networked with a lot of organizations and were a part of the original group starting Pottstown Trauma Informed Community Connection. So this is a group of people looking at this problem.”
Downes explained that the issues the group is looking at are referred to as ACES, or adverse childhood experiences. These experiences can range from abuse to neglect or loss and have been scientifically proven, Downes said, to affect the development of children’s brains. He added that in many cases, the difference in development can lead to a higher likelihood of becoming an alcoholic or drug addict. As a result, the Pottstown School District is working with a variety of organizations to improve the educational and social development of the affected children before it develops into a larger problem. The district’s efforts have even recently won them first place in the Pottstown Health and Wellness Healthy Schools Initiative.
In addition to Harris Family Ministries, who were hosting the event, other religious organizations made an appearance as well.
“This is what we would like to see in Pottstown, community leaders coming together to make a difference in our community,” said Rev. Garrison Lockley, pastor at Bethel AME Church. “We want to bring awareness to the community about the services we can provide from education to social services and to let them know that we care.”
In order to keep the momentum of the effort going after the day’s events were over, Art Fusion made an appearance as well, looking to collect drawings inspired by the event that they could later publish online each day to remind people that the violence and drugs need to stop.
After the groups had time to get acquainted, the representatives took part in a panel discussion in which they talked about approaching the issues of drugs and violence in the community and forged ways to work together to come up with viable solutions.
“I’m here to help make my community a better community because this has got to stop,” said Bobby Watson of the Harris Family Ministries’ Board of Directors. “The people in the community that have come, they’re concerned. We do have people coming and this place should be packed but it’s Saturday morning and not as people are here that should be here. But we’re here to do our part and that’s the most important thing.”
