Forest City Our Neighboring Community
By John Kameen
Forest City has a population of 1,788, a far cry from the 6,000 souls who populated the town back in the 1920's, in the heyday of the mining industry. Vandling's population is 677, while Clinton Township, containing Browndale, has 1,697.
Many changes have occured since then in Browndale Mountain. Last year we saw the construction of the forty seven- unit wind farm owned by Florida Power and Light Company. The 300ft towers, frowned upon by some in the area, have become a tourist attraction in addition to providing enough environmentally-friendly electricity to light 30,000 homes a year.
One of the main annual events, Forest City Old Home Week, is held the first week of August each year. This year's event celebrated its 25th year. Old Home Week has become a major fundraiser for the Association, raising as much as $15,000 and drawing as many as 8,000 people to town the day of the parade. Commercial Association Secretary, Patricia Striefsky, editor of the Forest City News, says "The reason Forest City has such a successful, long-term business promotion program, is because of the total cooperation of the merchants."
A comment often heard by local residents from people in Northeastern PA is-
"Forest City, I hear that is a nice community!"
The Carbondale Kiwanis
By Tom Fontanna
The Carbondale Kiwanis Club is a member of the international Kiwanis and the Pennsylvania Kiwania Organization.
The primarty mission of the Kiwanis is meeting the needs of children. On an international scale, Kiwanis has sponsored projects such as promoting a delivery system to supply iodine to children in underprivledged countries.
In Carbondale, the Kiwanis purpose is two-fold: 1) to sponsor and enable the funding of projects that benefit all children of our community and 2) to also fund special medical or physical needs of individual, as well as groups of children, as those needs arise.
Annual events sponsored by the Carbondale Kiwanis are the January Mayor's Prayer Breakfast, to begin each year by brining community groups and individuals together for a spiritual expression of their hopes for the children and families in the community; an annual Seniors Honors Banquet in May to recognize top senior students from local high schools; the Kiwanis Golf Tournament in May as a fundraiser; Kiddies Day at Russel Park in August, with contests, lunch and prizes for all children in the community; and the annual Kiwanis Talent Contest, a fundraiser to help maintain holiday street lighting in downtown Carbondale.