Pottstown CARES to Host a Community Day Oct. 19

Volunteers coming from the Pottstown School District, the Borough of Pottstown and The Hill School, plan to make tangible their Pottstown pride and commitment with events on two days in the borough, Saturday, Oct. 19 and Friday, Oct. 25, according to a release from the school district.

The combined CARES (Community, Awareness, Responsibility, Empowerment, and Sustainability) effort had its impetus in the conversations amongst Borough Manager Mark Flanders, Hill School Headmaster Zachary Lehman and Pottstown School Superintendent Jeff Sparagan. They wanted to create a collaborative effort to tidy up part of Pottstown’s core and spread Pottstown pride.    

“It is my hope that this is the beginning of something bigger, and that, as time goes on, Pottstown CARES is a way of life for the residents of Pottstown – rather than a scheduled event,” Flanders said, in the release.

The first session of the effort, a community day, will take place on Oct. 19 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It will be held at The Hill School under the old hockey rink off of Beech Street near the school’s arts center. The GPS location is 860 Beech Street in Pottstown. Participants can park in the arts center parking lot.

Not-for-profits and other Pottstown-centric organizations, from the Montgomery County Health Department to recreational organizations will provide information about their programs and help educate visitors. Some of the participating organizations include:

-The Miller-Keystone Blood Center Bloodmobile: they will accept walk-in donations.

-The Pottstown Cluster of Religious Communities: they will accept food and clothing donations, a well as donations of laundry detergent, cleaning supplies and personal hygiene items.

-Chester County Pet Food Pantry: they will accept pet food donations.

-An e-waste collector will accept old items that used to have electricity running through them.

Some of the additional activities include The Hill School providing two free screenings of “The Power of One,” an inspirational movie about a young boxer starring Morgan Freeman and Stephen Dorff, at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The movie is PG-13. 

The first session of the effort, a clean-up, will take place on Friday, Oct. 25 from Hanover Street east to Edgewood Street, and from High Street north to Beech Street. The rain date is Oct. 28. Students and staff from Pottstown High School and The Hill School, as well as borough officials and workers will tidy up those areas by picking up trash, weeding, and more. Volunteers will also tidy up Edgewood Cemetery. Seven-hundred people are estimated to attend.

The volunteers will assemble under The Hill School’s former hockey rink roof at 8:30 a.m. for instructions. They will work until 12:30 p.m., when they will return to Hill for a picnic lunch provided by Sodexo, the school’s food service provider.  Sodexo will donate the food for all Hill students and employees, as well as the Pottstown School District and borough volunteers.

The Pottstown School District will run a blood drive form 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Pottstown High School. Those who wish to make a donation should contact faculty member Mark Agnew at magnew@pottstownsd.org or 610-970-6707.

Those who wish to donate work tools, gloves, and trash or leaf bags for this CARES event and future projects can take their items to be donated to Borough Hall at 100 E. High Street in Pottstown.