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General News: Residents Discuss Community Action for Youth
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| Residents respond to youth problem |
October 25, 2006
A meeting called to discuss how the community of Cornwall can help develop safe alternatives for young people ended Tuesday night with concerns that not enough people would come forward to realize these goals.
The meeting, organized by the Ruth Bowles of the Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Council of Orange County, was the second one to explore what residents can do in response to a perceived increase in trouble by juveniles in the village and town. Last week, about forty village residents aired their concerns about juvenile behavior to the village board of trustees, looking for answers from local officials.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Ruth Bowles, the coordinator of the Council’s Community Prevention Program, warned that solutions don’t come easily but require a commitment from local community leaders to take action to prevent young people from falling into a path of delinquency, violence, and drug use. “We offer a form of community-based prevention,” Bowles told the group of about 25 concerned citizens as she described the model called Communities That Care,. “It is a strategic plan to move you along in the process,” she said, “if you decide this is what you want to do as a community.”
If there is enough interest to move ahead there are state resources and federal grants available to help support local action, Bowles said. She pointed to a successful model of community support for young people in Highland Falls, called Friends Working Together.
Village police chief Charles Williams, who attended the meeting along with Mayor Ed Moulton, said that he would be pleased to have the organized support of the community, what he described as the missing piece required to receive grants for youth-oriented programs.
At the meeting, people referred to issues that had been voiced at the first meeting held last month: Vandalism, lack of respect, vulgarities, no safe place for kids to congregate, and skateboarding on school property.
Several adults present acknowledged that teens need a place to call their own. “Kids have to create that place,” noted Lucinda Poindexter, whose daughter, Georgie, spoke up to recommend that a youth group center could be created in the park near Munger Cottage.
Ruth Bowles said that part of the work of the committee, if it moves ahead, will be to look at the resources the community offers, such as the potential for youth-oriented activities at the river. Reverend Thomas Margrave of St. John’s Episcopal Church mentioned the need to reach out to families like those near his own church that he called “invisible” because they are Hispanics and people of color who may not be at all plugged into the community. Reverend Dan Russell of the Cornwall Presbyterian Church noted that a changing community, and changing demographics, was underlying much of the problem.
Several of the people in attendance Tuesday night, like Brendon Coyne, president of the Cornwall Board of Education, were eager to sign up now to get the ball rolling to do something for Cornwall youth.
Susanne Vondrak, a mother of two, acknowledged the need to move ahead but as plans were laid for the next meeting on November 28, she commented, “it would be more comforting to know there are more people who want to be part of this.”
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