Benefiting Communities
- There are many myths and misconceptions about the effects programs such as ours may have on the community. A study by George Washington University debunks the most common ones concerning property value and crime rates. (click for study)
- Firetree’s facilities provide jobs. We employ staff with a wide range of education and experiences.
- The renovation and rehabilitation of older properties or construction of a new building, often improve the neighborhoods in which we are located.
- Local businesses benefit. There are often subcontracting opportunities in the form of office supplies; office equipment contracts; garbage and snow removal; medical services; kitchen supply contracts, etc.
- Firetree helps residents and clients build a new way of life; leads them to be productive, contributing members of society.
Firetree programs strive to be part of and contribute to their communities.
Lycoming House: Our Neighborhood
Click Here for Virtual Tour
Lycoming House is located in the Point Breeze area of Philadelphia. It is a neighborhood under revitalization from the efforts steered by Universal Companies, South Philadelphia HOMES and other prominent Philadelphia organizations. The familes, business owners and friends of Point Breeze are working toward a safer, greener community. Lycoming House staff and residents are proud to be part of this revitalization effort by partnering with the Point Breeze Community Coalition.
Lycoming House residents are involved in a number of community service projects. Many hours of volunteer time are given to its closet neighbor, the Point Breeze Performing Arts Center as wel as South Philadelphia HOMES. Residents' volunteer activitites including painting, cleaning, building maintenace, weeding empty lots and picking up litter. These activities give residents a way of "giving back" as well as helping them to learn to connect with a local community in positive ways.
Lycoming House continues to provide community support to various local businesses and organizations. Recently, Lycoming House staff received two awards and one letter of recognition and appreciation for their outstanding community work. The awards were given to Linda Solano, Kiyoshi Howard, and Junette Butler by the Executive Director of South Philadelphia Homes for their direct involvement and participation in several events sponsored by this local business.
The letter of involvement and
appreciation was presented to Lycoming House by the Point Breeze
Performing Arts Center Director, Al Brown and President Donna Brown
for the many hours of community service provided by employees and
clients to this local entertainment center.
Think Spring! Cleaning That is...
What do you think of when
you hear the words “spring cleaning?”
While “spring cleaning” can be two very dirty little words (pun intended), around the Firetree family of facilities those words translate to “community”, volunteerism” and “neighborhoods.” This Spring, Conewago Place and Lycoming House were presented with unique opportunities to turn those words into actions.
On April 17, 2008, 16
clients and four staff members from Conewago Place
in Hummelstown took part in the Great PA Cleanup.
The group from the facility spent the day removing
trash and sprucing up the areas of Shank Park and
Bullfrog Road in Derry Township. This is the
first year that Conewago Place has lent a hand in
the local cleanup efforts and plans to make their
participation an annual event.
Residents and staff of
Lycoming House in Philadelphia helped out with the
Philly spring Cleanup that was held on April 5, 2008
and was sponsored by Mayor Michael Nutter’s office.
The work crew from the facility joined with the
South Philadelphia crew and cleaned up several city
blocks as well as local playgrounds. The
Mayor’s Office set a goal of 10,000 volunteers to
clean up 1 million pounds of trash. Instead,
15,000 volunteers cleaned up 2.56 million pounds of
trash* which is a true testament to what people can
do when they take the time to get involved.
Each of the participants from Conewago Place and Lycoming house worked very hard and were able to see the fruits of their labor almost immediately. They should be proud of what they accomplished and how their actions helped to improve the quality of life for many people.
*Source:
www.phillycleanup.com
Syracuse Pavilion - Our Neighborhood
Click Here
for Virtual Tour
Syracuse Pavilion borders
both business and residential areas. It is
also a short distance from the University of
Syracuse campus. In September 2009 the
Syracuse Center of Excellence will open, directly
across the street. “The award-winning design is
meant to showcase and create a test bed for
innovations in environmental and energy systems.
SyracuseCoE partners are actively planning
collaborations that will be featured in the facility
during the 9th International Healthy Buildings
Conference and Exhibition.”
http://www.syracusecoe.org/hqbldg/index.aspx
The area will soon play host to representatives of
the international community visiting the Center.
Syracuse Pavilion residents
and staff are active in the community.
Residents’ volunteer activities range from painting
and clean-up for area non-profits to speaking to
professional groups about the challenges facing them
as they reenter the community. Staff members
sit on various local committees, many of which are
focused on reducing recidivism and reentry
initiatives.
Syracuse Pavilion
Firetree Ltd.’s only
facility devoted to providing reentry services for
the Federal Bureau of Prisons is Syracuse Pavilion
located in Syracuse, New York. The facility opened
in November of 2004 and can accommodate 40 residents
total, males and females. Residents are
expected to find employment and participate in life
skills programming that will assist them in making a
successful reentry into the community.
Susan Fennessy, Facility
director, has been at Syracuse Pavilion since it
opened. She has been a major influence in the
success
of the Center by forging partnerships with community
members, agency representatives and Probation staff
in order to give residents opportunities and the
best chance at success.
Each year, Syracuse Pavilion
staff and residents participate in the Youth Day
Barbecue. The community joins together to
assemble book bags and school supplies for local
underprivileged children in order to encourage them
to stay in school. This project goes on for weeks,
culminating in a parade and day of fun, food and
activities for the kids. Each child leaves
with his/her own book bag to start the school year
off right. Syracuse Pavilion residents unload
trucks, assemble and distribute book bags and assist
with the Youth Day activities. Ms. Fennessy
notes that the experience is truly gratifying for
everyone involved and residents can experience
giving back to others.
Last year, Ms. Fennessy was
invited to join the local Justice Task Force, a
subcommittee of the Alliance of Communities
Transforming Syracuse (ACTS), to begin work on
eliminating obstacles faced by ex-offenders
trying to obtain IDs. The
Justice Task Force was instrumental in bringing the
concept of a widely recognized ID that can be used
by an ex-offender to the attention of local New York
State lawmakers. A presentation was prepared
by the Justice Task Force to highlight the need for
this type of service. Two Syracuse Pavilion
residents addressed the group and underscored the
difficulties ex-offenders have with reentry when
they do not have an accepted form of identification.
Ms. Fennessy believes that
each person is responsible for their past actions
and future successes. She feels that everyone
should be given one more chance to make the right
choice and hopes that Syracuse Pavilion will be the
spring board to successful reentry that the
residents so greatly need.
As a result of the Justice
Task Force efforts, legislation is being prepared to
create universally recognized ID for ex-offenders in
New York. The Justice Task force continues to
explore new issues for the coming year.
Syracuse Pavilion program
enhancements include securing free medical care
opportunities, creating an inter-agency drug and
alcohol referral process and having a bank
representative visit the facility quarterly to teach
and discuss banking and account management.
Arrangements are being finalized for a recycling
representative to visit quarterly to discuss
recycling laws and hand out blue bins. Current
focus is on organizing an employer fair with two
other agencies that will bring employers and
ex-offenders together.
Capitol Pavilion - Our
Neighborhood
Click Here for Virtual Tour
Capitol Pavilion is
centrally located in Harrisburg, approximately two
blocks from the Governor’s mansion. The
neighborhood is slowly being transformed by new
construction such as the condominium complex being
built directly across the street.
Residents and staff are active participants in the
neighborhood improvement volunteering for clean up
days as well as sponsoring programs for young
people.
Capitol Pavilion Halloween Party
This Long-Time
Tradition is a Favorite of the Community
Capitol Pavilion,
Harrisburg, PA, held its annual Halloween Party at
the facility on Saturday,
November 1, 2008. The gathering has been held
every year for the last 13 years and is part of
Capitol Pavilion’s Community Outreach Program.
The party is advertised and open to anyone in the
community who would like to join in on the fun.
Attendees included children
and parents from the surrounding area and
children of residents and Capitol Pavilion
employees. Staff were on hand to oversee the
festivities. The young ones were encouraged to
come in costume and enjoyed having their faces
painted, bobbing for apples and playing lots of
games. Refreshments were provided and everyone
took home goodie bags filled with candy and
Halloween treats.
Every year the Capitol
Pavilion staff and residents look forward to this
day of fun and the chance to give something back to
the community.
It's Not Exactly, "Scared Straight"
In 2005,
Capitol Pavilion began collaborating with some local
agencies that work with at-risk children and teens.
The goal was to give some of the residents
who have worked through their issues a chance to
share their hard-won knowledge with kids who so
badly need it. Kids today are
bombarded with so many messages, good and bad.
More often than not, any positive
communication is drowned out by the very experiences
children are subjected to in their day to day lives.
Who better to deliver a positive message of
hope than someone who has actually made poor choices
and paid the consequences?
Capitol
Pavilion residents participate in community service
speaking engagements once a week.
They speak to students with emotional and behavioral
problems, those in a teen parenting program and
students who participate in a peer challenge group.
All of the participants attend classes in the
Harrisburg School District. The
speakers are men and women who have criminal
backgrounds and are chosen to speak based upon how
they present themselves in their daily lives at
Capitol Pavilion.
Seminar topics
cover a broad spectrum of subjects.
Speakers might talk about prison life and how
they survived it, families and childhood backgrounds
and the choices and consequences (good and bad) that
they have made. One female
resident especially touched a group of teenagers
when she spoke about her own early teenage pregnancy
and not being able to be a mom to her own children
due to her incarceration.
It’s not
exactly “Scared Straight” however, the students seem
to be captivated by what the Capitol Pavilion
residents have had to say. They
ask a lot of questions and comment intelligently on
what was discussed. The students’
view regarding prison life has been glamorized by
what they have seen on television and in the movies.
It is apparent that the students who have
participated in this program have a better
perspective on what prison life is really like and
the dire and sometimes tragic results of making bad
choices. Hopefully our residents
will be instrumental in leading them to make better
decisions for themselves and want to strive to be
the best they can be.
Advisory
Boards – Coming Together with a Purpose
A Community
Advisory Board without a clear purpose flounders.
In 2005, the late Anna Gonzalez, Program
Manager at Capitol Pavilion, took over the Advisory
Board as part of her job responsibilities.
One of Anna’s most valuable traits was her
ability to network with people in the community and
show them that it would be beneficial to attend the
Advisory Board meetings at Capitol Pavilion.
At
the first meetings, members learned about Capitol
Pavilion and its mission. Capitol
Pavilion, one of Firetree’s Community Reentry
Centers and provides assistance to residents with
life skills, employment, housing and a host of other
issues. The population consists
of individuals in pre-release and parole status.
As the members of the Board learned more
about the facility, they began to see how their
agencies could be of assistance to the residents.
As everyone shared information, a partnership
was forged between Capitol Pavilion and the
Community Advisory Board members that would benefit
the residents by providing additional community
support and services.
The
Community Advisory Board at Capitol Pavilion
continues to flourish and grow under Rayna Tirado,
Program Manager. The success of
the Board shows what can happen when initiative and
drive meet cooperation and a desire to effect
positive change in people’s lives.
Conewago Place - Our Neighborhood
Click Here for
Virtual Tour
Conewago Place
is located in Hummelstown Pennsylvania in an upscale
neighborhood near the Hershey Medical Center.
As it is a residential drug & alcohol
treatment program, clients do not participate in
outside community service projects as frequently as
those in community reentry centers.
However they do participate in area clean up
projects as well as occasionally volunteer to speak
to youth groups about the realties of addiction.
Guest speakers from the community come into Conewago Place to conduct religious services and share personal experiences. Conewago Place staff are actively involved in prevention activities in the area.
Return to
Conewago Place
Education:
The Gift That Keeps On Giving
There are many
ways that Firetree’s facilities contribute to the
communities in which they are located.
One very important way to give back is
through education. Brian Hofsass,
Clinical Director, Conewago Place, is involved in a
variety of educational opportunities with a diverse
group of individuals from the surrounding community.
Recently Melody
Lovelidge, Pennsylvania Youth Apprenticeship
Supervisor at Lower Dauphin High School, brought a
group of students to Conewago Place for a tour and a
primer on how addiction can affect an individual’s
life. Brian acted as tour guide
and teacher for the day, giving the students an
overview of substance abuse and the treatment
available in Firetree’s facilities.
Ms. Lovelidge noted that this type of
education would not normally be taught in a
classroom and that it was an eye-opening experience
for the participants. One of the
students noted on an evaluation form for the day, “I
thought it was really good to see all of these
things because I think people our age should know
what we’re dealing with and how to stay away from
drugs.”
Brian and the
Conewago Place staff are also involved with the
Nursing Program at Penn State Hershey Medical
Center. Each semester, pairs of
nursing students arrive at Conewago Place and visit
two days a week for six weeks as part of their field
experience prior to graduation.
The prospective nurses observe groups, counseling
sessions and the day to day operations of the
facility. This activity gives
them a real-life look into the disease of addiction
that they would not normally get in a typical
hospital setting.
Brian is also involved in another educational project that aims to deter teens from substance abuse. On a regular and ongoing basis, Brian takes a small group of clients to speak to the Youth Group at the First Church of God, Middletown, PA. The group is separated into males and females in order to address the specific needs of each gender. The clients relate the
stories of
their lives and how they came to be in their current
situation in order to help the teens see how vitally
important it is to make good choices while they are
young so they can avoid a life of struggling with
addiction. Brian notes that the
program has been very well received by the youth
group and has been a reality check for the teens who
participate.
Education is
one of the most important gifts that can be given to
someone. Firetree is hopeful that
this gift given by Brian and the Conewago Place
family to the people who have accepted it will be
enduring and valuable to them.
Think Spring! Cleaning That is...
What do you
think of when you hear the words “spring cleaning?”
While “spring
cleaning” can be two very dirty little words (pun
intended), around the Firetree family of facilities
those words translate to “community”, volunteerism”
and “neighborhoods.” This Spring,
Conewago Place and Lycoming House were presented
with unique opportunities to turn those words into
actions.
On April 17,
2008, 16 clients and four staff members from
Conewago Place in Hummelstown took part in the Great
PA Cleanup. The group from the
facility spent the day removing trash and sprucing
up the areas of Shank Park and Bullfrog Road in
Derry Township. This is the first
year that Conewago Place has lent a hand in the
local cleanup efforts and plans to make their
participation an annual event.
Residents and
staff of Lycoming House in Philadelphia helped out
with the Philly spring Cleanup that was held on
April 5, 2008 and was sponsored by Mayor Michael
Nutter’s office. The work crew from the facility
joined with the South Philadelphia crew and cleaned
up several city blocks as well as local playgrounds.
The Mayor’s Office set a goal of 10,000
volunteers to clean up 1 million pounds of trash.
Instead, 15,000 volunteers cleaned up 2.56
million pounds of trash* which is a true testament
to what people can do when they take the time to get
involved.
Each of the
participants from Conewago Place and Lycoming house
worked very hard and were able to see the fruits of
their labor almost immediately.
They should be proud of what they accomplished and
how their actions helped to improve the quality of
life for many people.
*Source: www.phillycleanup.com