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Coughlin football gets to .500 with win over Wyoming Area

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Beyond the Byline: Dealing with ‘that dreadful night’

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; The Diversity People&#8217;s Picnic, hosted by the Wilkes-Barre NAACP, celebrated its 19th year Saturday with a theme of unity and getting along &#8212; two things many agreed are sorely lacking in today&#8217;s society.</p><p>The Kirby Park event started small but has grown in leaps and bounds over the last two decades, NAACP president and spokesperson Guerline Laurore said.</p><p>&#8220;We started having all these sponsors and people wanting to get involved, people wanting to help, and it just turned into this huge event where we&#8217;re able to feed up to 2,000 people at no cost to them,&#8221; she said.</p><p>The food not only fills bellies. It helps create an atmosphere where people get to know each other.</p><p>&#8220;The goal of the picnic is to bring together everyone from diverse backgrounds in a more recreational setting, so that we can have fun together, enjoy food &#8230; and meet people that we otherwise wouldn&#8217;t meet,&#8221; Laurore explained. &#8220;We don&#8217;t all travel the same circles &#8230; bringing everyone together in the diversity picnic is going to help us bridge that gap and have fun.&#8221;</p><p>The event featured standard barbecue fare &#8212; chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad and more &#8212; thanks to a long list of sponsors that it has accrued over the years.</p><p>Wegmans, Bimbo Bakeries, Price Chopper, Schiel&#8217;s, Wilkes University, Misericordia University, Luzerne County Community College, Mondelez, McDonald&#8217;s, Mohegan Sun, the Black, Hispanic and LGBT Advisory Councils, and others helped make the event what it was on Saturday, Laurore said.</p><p>Robert Harris, past master of Golden Rule Lodge 15, said he and his organization have volunteered at the picnic every year since its debut.</p><p>&#8220;We come out and volunteer to help the NAACP. They borrowed my grills and all my equipment. It&#8217;s to help the community. This is a swell thing they&#8217;re doing,&#8221; Harris said.</p><p>&#8220;You get people here who have probably never seen each other, and they&#8217;re sitting down enjoying each other&#8217;s company. Instead of being out there fighting somebody or doing drugs, you got people sitting and talking to each other,&#8221; he added.</p><p>The event was also meant to be family friendly, Laurore said. The NAACP Youth Council made it so, with outdoor games and prizes for children.</p><p>&#8220;We have prizes for them if they can win the games, but they all get prizes anyway,&#8221; Youth Council adviser Peggy Felton said, smiling.</p><p>Mary Claire and Ronald Voverif, who are part of the Pittston Senior Citizens Center, have been attending the picnic for the past three years.</p><p>&#8220;We come down for the food, number one. Number two, they play bingo, and it&#8217;s a chance to get out and meet and greet with other people,&#8221; Mary Claire said.</p><p>&#8220;At one time, 20 of us (from the senior center) were coming down here together. Now they&#8217;re getting up in age, and it&#8217;s hard to find a parking place,&#8221; Mary Claire laughed.</p><p>&#8220;I love the people. Everybody&#8217;s so friendly,&#8221; added Ronald. &#8220;It&#8217;s a chance to get together, and these are happy times &#8230; in today&#8217;s culture, that&#8217;s what you want is happiness, and this is a place to find it. It would be nice if the world would get along just like this. I wish they had it more than once a year.&#8221;</p><p>Not much was different about this year&#8217;s picnic, Laurore said, other than what she described as a changing attitude toward diversity.</p><p>&#8220;There is so much hatred going around, and there has been so much contention, that I think people realize more than ever the importance of coming together,&#8221; she said.</p><p>&#8220;They are more aware of the situation when it comes to lack of diversity, racism &#8230; there is a great group of people in Luzerne County who do not stand for that, who want to see things change and get better.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Aiden Thomas, 10, of Wilkes-Barre, plays a football-toss game during the Diversity People&#8217;s Picnic at Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_ttl091717diversity-2-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Aiden Thomas, 10, of Wilkes-Barre, plays a football-toss game during the Diversity People&#8217;s Picnic at Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_ttl091717diversity-3-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Jenlianie Toucet, 5, of Hanover Township, plays in a tunnel during the picnic at Kirby Park.
Amanda Hrycyna | For Times Leader</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_ttl091717diversity-3-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Jenlianie Toucet, 5, of Hanover Township, plays in a tunnel during the picnic at Kirby Park.
Amanda Hrycyna | For Times Leader</caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_ttl091717diversity-5-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Volunteer Mark Washingston, of Kingston, serves food to Nikki Giles, of Wilkes-Barre, during the Diversity People's Picnic on Saturday afternoon. 
Amanda Hrycyna | For Times Leader</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_ttl091717diversity-5-1.jpg</photo2><caption2>Volunteer Mark Washingston, of Kingston, serves food to Nikki Giles, of Wilkes-Barre, during the Diversity People's Picnic on Saturday afternoon. 
Amanda Hrycyna | For Times Leader</caption2><photoCredit2></photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_ttl091717diversity-1-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Disabled Army veteran John Walton Jr., of Bear Creek, speaks during the Diversity People&#8217;s Picnic on Saturday at Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre. Walton reminded people about the importance of voting and being a good father. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_ttl091717diversity-1-1.jpg</photo3><caption3>Disabled Army veteran John Walton Jr., of Bear Creek, speaks during the Diversity People&#8217;s Picnic on Saturday at Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre. Walton reminded people about the importance of voting and being a good father. </caption3><photoCredit3></photoCredit3></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Diversity event serves up to 2,000 meals</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Toni Ann Pennello</p><p>tpennello@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div>

Diversity People’s Picnic helps ‘bridge that gap’