Jeffersonville youth program wins grant

	TRR photo by Tom Kane From left, Barbara Hahn, Barbara Yewchuk and Frank Haskell view photos from the summer youth program. (Click for larger image)

By TOM KANE

JEFFERSONVILLE — A Jeffersonville youth program won second prize in the 2001 Fleet Bank All Star Contest. The group will receive $7,500 on Wednesday, December 12. Presenting the check will be Fleet’s Jeffersonville branch manager Ruth Brustman and Fleet District Manager Christine Cassidy.

The group, called Jeffersonville Enhances Main Street (JEMS), was founded as a Sullivan Renaissance project. In that contest, JEMS was selected third out of a field of 30 Sullivan County community programs that were completed last summer.

Starting last May, 249 youths worked 667.5 hours to complete multiple projects designed to clean up and enhance Jeffersonville’s Main Street.

During last summer, third and fourth grade students planted flowers and shrubs and painted rails along Main Street while high school students of the school’s technology class built and erected wooden decorative grills along the street that hid unsightly alleys between buildings.

The youth groups that participated were: the Boy Scouts, Catholic Youth Organization, Ecumenical Youth and Skateboard Work, 4-H, the Girl Scouts and the Jeffersonville campus of Sullivan West.

“The board of JEMS hasn’t yet decided how to use the money, but whatever is done will benefit the youth,” said Barbara Hahn, one of the adults on the board. Other Jeffersonville residents on the board are Frank Haskell, who designed and built the Jeffersonville Village Clock, and Barbara Yewchuk.

The Fleet All-Stars program was created by Fleet Bank in 1996 to challenge youths to make a difference by volunteering in the neighborhoods where they live and play.