Pubdate: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 Source: Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, PA) Copyright: 2006 The Times Leader Contact: http://www.timesleader.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/933 Author: Mark E. Jones DRUG-PREVENTION PROGRAM RECEIVES $25,000 Millennium Circle Fund Votes to Give a Grant to Luzerne-Wyoming Counties Drug and Alcohol Program. WILKES-BARRE -- A group of community-minded Luzerne County residents on Tuesday afternoon voted to award a $25,000 grant to help tout drug and alcohol prevention messages among area schoolchildren. The money will allow the Luzerne-Wyoming Counties Drug and Alcohol Program to deliver anti-drug lessons to 13 school districts, said Michael Donahue, the program's director. "If we don't talk to our kids about drugs, the dealers will," Donahue told members of the Millennium Circle Fund, an area philanthropic group. In all, group members heard grant requests from six organizations during a series of rapid-fire presentations at the Genetti Hotel & Convention Center. Each nonprofit organization's representative was allotted two minutes to explain how it would use the grant and about two minutes to answer questions from the audience. The Millennium Circle began in 1999 and, leading up to Tuesday's event, had bestowed five grants totaling $65,000. Prior recipients include Candy's Place, a cancer resource center in Forty Fort, and the McGlynn Learning Center, an after-school program for children living in a Wilkes-Barre housing complex. The Millennium Circle -- a project of the Luzerne Foundation -- consists of more than 300 area groups and individuals who each have contributed a one-time gift of $2,000. Their combined cash gets invested in a single fund, producing yearly income that is donated to local causes. Fund promoters eventually hope to sign up 2,000 contributors, amassing a total pool of $4 million. That sum would generate enough money to give annual gifts of $200,000 or more, they said. Rusty Flack, the foundation's board chairman, referred to the Millennium Circle Fund as "one of the most active and one of the most visible funds in the community." Millennium Circle members become eligible to nominate projects and to vote for a favorite one from among the finalists. About 25 nominations were submitted for consideration in 2006. A committee of Millennium Circle members, who had been selected at random, picked this year's half dozen finalists. They included the Commission on Economic Opportunity, the Salvation Army's Kirby Family House and the Interfaith Clinic at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. Other contenders were the startup Hispanic Resource Network Center for Community Initiatives and the Little Theatre of Wilkes-Barre. Millennium Circle membership is open to individuals, families, civic organizations and other groups, even loose-knit bunches such as golf foursomes and card clubs. Several area businesses, including the Times Leader, also belong to the circle. GET INVOLVED To join the Millennium Circle Fund, call the Luzerne Foundation at 822-5420 or (877) 589-3386. - --- MAP posted-by: Elaine