Spreading awareness, offering help

HUGHESTOWN — Our Brothers Keepers Foundation will sponsor its 4th annual Alcoholism and Addiction family event at the Robert Yaple Memorial Park at 1p.m. Saturday, May 17.

The nonprofit organization helps people with addictionsand their families find resources and information so they have a better chance at recovery. Local businesses and the community are volunteering to support their cause through this free event.

The alumni from the Salvation Army Adult Recovery Center will grill hot dogs and hamburgers. Kaylene Chaump, owner of Whimsy Wonders Body Art, will volunteer painting faces. A bounce house will be donated by local business Ashley Machine & Tool. Raffle baskets will be gifts from the community. Restaurants will donate gift cards for the baskets. Mental health facilities will put together baskets as well. There will also be 50/50 tickets. Rachel Wydra of the PA Department of Health will bring boxes of narcan and will make a presentation about how and when narcan should be administered.

Our Brothers Keepers Foundation was started by Hughestown resident Katrina Gentner in March 2022. Her brother, Chris Gentner, passed away form a drug overdose in January 2022. Katrina is currently recovering from using drugs. She has been clean for 10 years running. This inspired her to help people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol.

“I decided that we needed to try to help these people and get the community to understand what addiction actually is and that there is help out there,” she said.

Volunteer Robert Moyer has been Katrina’s go-to person for this endeavor. Our Brothers Keepers Foundation recently had its annual bowling fundraiser called Strike Out Addiction. Rehab centers brought clients for them to bowl at this event.

This year, the organization raised its personal best of $1,400. At the end of the year, any money raised from the bowling event and the family event is used for buying Christmas presents and drop them off to rehab centers so parents can send them to their children. Katrina believes in giving hope to people in rehab so they can build a strong foundation for them to continue their recovery for when they get to leave their facility.

“That is our whole purpose throughout the year,” said Katrina, who witnesses firsthand the broken residents of her workplace Clearbrook Treatment Center. “Any kind of hope and love I can bring to other people struggling, I feel that’s my purpose and that’s why God allowed me to get sober.”

Katrina looks forward to the family event.

“The support that we get from the community is amazing,” she said. “It’s a beautiful thing to watch people come together for this type of a cause.”