
The floor at the former Seton Catholic gym, Pittston, was filled with bags of toys, bicycles and clothing for the 2024 Christmas campaign.
Submitted photo
PITTSTON — It seems after seven years, the Greater Pittston Santa Squad (GPSS) is hitting their stride.
For the 2024 Christmas campaign the local charity hit another record making 1,651 children from both the Pittston Area and Wyoming Area school districts very happy on Christmas morning.
Anthony Marranca, the founder and president of GPSS, is very pleased with the direction the organization is going and gaining each year. The most remarkable thing about this year’s record is children from 15-years-old to 18-years-old were eliminated from their list and placed with other organizations.
“We trimmed our age down to 14 years old this year, and the kids 14 and over, we sent them to organizations dealing with older children,” Marranca added. “So all the children in need were still taken care of.”
Marranca assured everyone up to 18-year-olds was taken care of by either the GPSS or an outside agency.
“We had, once again, amazing support from our community, we added more volunteers, and the technology grant we received came in extremely handy,” Marranca said. “We were able to run three tablets, three stations for processing and because of this, it’s been our smoothest year to date.”
The grant GPSS received was a $25,000 technology grant from PA State Rep. James Haddock.
The GPSS has been headquartered at the former Seton Catholic gym on William St., Pittston and was in jeopardy of losing the lease, but coming down to the wire, Fr. Elston, St. John the Evangelist pastor, changed his mind allowing GPSS to continue on with the space.
“Father Elston told us we can stay at the gym and I hope to meet with Father at some point in January,” Marranca added. “I think we both have ideas we want to talk about and even growing the Santa Squad even bigger, so we are thankful to him and the Diocese (of Scranton) for letting us stay in the gym, it’s huge for us to stay there in the middle of the city in the heart of Pittston helps us and helps the families.”
As for the rest of the 2025-year, GPSS is mulling around their fundraisers for the year. In the past they held Christmas in July and an annual golf tournament, but Marranca said he and the Board of Directors are re-evaluating for this year.