First Posted: 1/9/2015
PITTSTON — It’s always great to receive help when it’s needed. Just ask Ron Faraday.
Faraday, president of the Greater Pittston Historical Society, will be receiving help from members of Leadership Wilkes-Barre in moving memorabilia he had stored in his house to the basement of the Pittston Memorial Library within the coming months.
According to Leadership Wilkes-Barre Executive Director Lori Nocito, the idea to help Faraday came from Diana Collins. Collins, a Pittston native who works for herself as an attorney, is a member of the Leadership Wilkes-Barre program class of 2015.
“(Diana’s) family is from here, they live here, I’m not quite sure how she knew Faraday needed help,” said Nocito.
The answer to that question comes from Collins’ aunt Virginia Augello, who is a volunteer member of the Pittston Memorial Library and a Leadership Wilkes-Barre graduate.
Leadership Wilkes-Barre is a non-profit community organization that teaches its program members leadership skills. Nocito said the program focuses on community awareness, networking and leadership skills. Participants must attend one daylong program a month for nine months. In addition, members also divide into six teams and particpate in community impact projects.
Anne Hogya, the Pittston Memorial Library Director, said she was already in the works to help Faraday out.
“When I started planning the expansion, Ron was coming in and holding meetings here and said he would love to get space in here,” said Hogya. “I said if you can ever do that we will try and get it done. We managed to find a way to get it done with Leadership Wilkes-Barre.”
Augello relayed the message to Collins about the need to help Faraday and Collins said she estactic help out.
“One of the reasons why I was passionate about the historical society is because I follow them on Facebook,” said Collins. “I know they have many followers and I was always really impressed and excited about how they post photos every day, so people in the community get so excited. My grandfather is 95 years old and he’s lived in Pittston all his life, so I would try to show him photos and he would know people in the photos, so I thought it was really nice. As a group I thought it was really nice to try and help them preserve the history.”
Collins sent Faraday a message via Facebook explaining how she and her group wished to help him.
“I sent him a Facebook message because it was the week of Christmas and I didn’t want to call and bother him,” said Collins. “I wanted him to know immediately I thought it would be exciting for them, that we were interested, as a group, in helping them.”
Collins said the deadline to finish their project to help Faraday move his memorabilia into storage space in the library has to be completed by May, so right now everybody — her group, Faraday and the library — are in the planning stages.
“As a group we want to help get the space ready,” said Collins. “We want to help get the space physically ready, so whatever that entails, we’ll help. We also want to help them outfit the space with whatever they need, so we asked them to send us a wish list and we’re going to do everything in our power to see what we can help them with and how we can help them.”
Faraday said the memorabilia he has in his house includes an estimated 50,000 Sunday Dispatch negative photos, 300 maps, computer files and more.
Collins said the moving process itself will not begin until some time in the spring, as they are also planning a fundraiser to try and raise money for anything Faraday needs, which may include shelves, workstations, computer software to help store certain photos and items digitally and anything else he may need.
The fundraiser, Collins said, will be the big thing her group does prior to the actual movement of the memorabilia items.
“We want to help kick start the organization and get people involved,” said Collins. “We want to see if other people in Pittston have photos and see how we can connect them to the group as well. We don’t have the date yet, but we’re going to have a themed fundraiser.”
With months of planning ahead, Faraday said he is very thankful for the help he is about to receive from the Leadership Wilkes-Barre members.
Being a graduate himself, he knows full well the potential to come out the program, calling the fact that current members are helping him, a former member, as “coming full circle.”
“It hasn’t hit me yet, I don’t think,” joked Faraday. “Leadership Wilkes-Barre is one of the premium educational programs in the valley. Their integrity is impeccable. It’s great, it really is. I don’t know what to say about it. It’s fantastic.”
