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It’s been years since I’ve seen anything like it, but it was a welcome sight last Saturday evening in West Scranton.
Residents of various ages – some with children, some with dogs, and others by themselves – gathered at the edge of a skateboard park for a screening of “Despicable Me.”
The Universal Pictures animated feature was shown by the West Scranton-Hyde Park Neighborhood Watch at the Jackson Street facility as the first of hopefully many more events.
It’s also the first time in recent memory I can recall gathering with strangers for an event that wasn’t a church picnic, let alone the first time I have attended something without the intent of writing about it.
But what happened June 18 can’t be ignored.
To me, it’s a sure sign of the positive impact a concerned group of citizens can have on the neighborhood they call home.
It’s one of the reasons Scranton Police Chief Dan Duffy has cited Watch President Karin Foster as the inspiration for his “Be Part of the Solution” campaign that works to foster public-private partnerships between the residents who give a damn about the city and the officers sworn to protect it.
And it’s why I’m proud to call myself a West Sider.
Not many years ago, I rode my bike down the hill on 15th Street that we all considered deadly. It was almost a rite of passage to make it to the bottom and stop before careening into Luzerne Street.
I walked to each of the schools I attended – Lincoln-Jackson Elementary and West Scranton Intermediate and Senior High schools. That’s a feat many can’t say nowadays, either.
People like Foster, who I consider an incredible friend of this paper, and those involved with the watch have helped reclaim their corner of West Scranton.
Unfortunately, in years past, it has become a corner of the city known for drug activity in the parking lots of pharmacies, the sale of once legal bath salts and more criminal acts in general.
There’s a hope that a crime watch full of resilient residents paired with a proactive police department with a lead-by-example sort of chief can reverse that.
A glimmer of that hope existed on a makeshift movie screen and reflected in the eyes of those who came out to be a part of their community last weekend.