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.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine