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thevalleyadvantage.com
April 22, 2016
Long May They Wave
ON THE INSIDE The latest happenings in our area Page 2
valley
In Jermyn, even the flags are getting a scrubbing by Christopher Cornell
ADVANTAGE EDITOR
The Jermyn Shade Tree Commission (JSTC) has officially declared “cleanup month,” and it runs through Saturday, May 21. Jermyn Citizens are asked to clean their section of street, curb and sidewalks of winter’s dirt, rocks and recyclables. Residents should bag winter refuse and place it at the curb no more than 24 hours prior of their regularly scheduled trash pick-up day and place the blue recycling containers for recycling day pick-up. Call the borough office (570-876-0610) for brush pick-up. Members of the commission have been busy too. This week they held the annual Arbor Day ceremony, completed with the planting of the Arbor Day tree. This year a rosebud tree was planted in memory of former JSTC member Paul Buchinski. The JSTC and Jermyn/Mayfield Girl Scouts planted the tree at the Jermyn Community Center. JSTC officials Mary Perrault and JoAnne Wilson also recently made an educational visit to fourth-graders at Scott and Mayfield Elementary schools in the Lakeland School District. They showed the kids a video called “Kids Can Make a Difference; You Can Too.” They spoke to the kidsabout Arbor Day (April 29) and Earth Day (April 22), and volunteerism in their communities. The students were also given activity booklets about planting trees, flyers on recycling and strawberry plugs, which they could plant, in hopes of harvesting a crop of delicious strawberries by the end of summer. The goal of cleanup month is to have clean streets and curbs for the summer months, and especially for the upcoming Memorial Weekend festivities. That goal was also in the minds of the members of Jermyn’s William J. Griffith American Legion
Get Grillin'
Working on the borough’s flags are, from left, Wayne Martin, Nick Mattise and Ron Muir.
Post No. 465. At a recent borough council meeting, an issue was raised about the condition of the 99 American flags that hang from the light poles on the main streets of the borough. “People were complaining that they were dirty and in bad shape and they looked terrible,” Legion member Nick Mattise said. “There was a suggestion that the borough should get all new ones, but that was going to cost a lot of money. So, just for the heck of it, I said, ‘Why don’t we just take them down and try to wash them?’” The Department of Public Works (DPW) took a few flags down and gave them to the Legion as a test. And the result? “They came up really nice, almost like new. So
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they gave us all 99 of them. One guy said, ‘I have a brand new washer’ so we gave him a lot of them. His wife isn’t talking to him. I’m just kidding.” Six Legion members worked on the project, which also involved some minor repairs to the flags and then reattaching them to the poles. “Meanwhile, the DPW guys found some bags in storage somewhere that had more flags in them,” Mattise said. “We washed those too, so now we have extras.” Mattise praised the work of the JTSC and expressed pleasure that young people are getting involved in improving their surroundings. “I’m 90, so I’m delighted that people are taking an interest,” he said. “The over-the-hill gang is slowing down, and the young people have to take over.”
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