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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; The Students for Justice Club of Penn State Wilkes-Barre brought Christmas a little early to dozens of area families with help from the Wilkes-Barre City Police Department and some 17 other local law enforcement agencies.</p><p>The club donated care packages filled with food and toys to local families registered to methadone clinics to help foster a closer bond between the police and the community in the fight against the opioid epidemic.</p><p>Chancellor and Chief Academic Officer of Penn State Wilkes-Barre Dale Jones helped the club bring in the car loads of care packages.</p><p>&#8220;This is a wonderful program put on by our students,&#8221; Jones commented. &#8220;The club is of students primarily majoring in Administration of Justice, Rehabilitation and Human Services degrees. This is the second annual program. It&#8217;s an effort put fourth by the faculty working very close with the students. We operate as a team, as a family. It&#8217;s a community effort.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s important because college students today are going to be the leaders of tomorrow.&#8221;</p><p>Officer Robert Collins helped organize the drive from the perspective of the Wilkes-Barre City Police Department.</p><p>&#8220;Our involvement is to get together with the students of Penn State and other municipalities to show the community outreach that these students have put together. We try to identify families that could need these care packages and deliver them to the families, so they can hopefully have a brighter Christmas,&#8221; Collins explained.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s an unlimited number of people that could use this kind of care package, and I think it&#8217;s a good thing. People today don&#8217;t understand that the police care about them and that the police are here for them, and I think that&#8217;s not known like it was in the past. We want to bring that to the forefront, that we do care about the citizens, and we do care about these types of projects.&#8221;</p><p>Collins said the families are always happy to receive one of the packages.</p><p>&#8220;I noticed last year when we deliver the packages that people had smiles on their faces. These people were very appreciative of the efforts that these students took to give these packages. The difference between this year and last year is that there&#8217;s a lot more packages this year, a lot more,&#8221; Collins added.</p><p>&#8220;The main reason for the drive was to help effect positive relations between police and the community, especially people that have dealt with the police in a more negative way in the past,&#8221; said Matthew Caines, the philanthropy chair of Students for Justice Club. &#8220;In particular, the people who have young children and are recovering addicts and so the children have good interactions with the police and the police have good interactions with them. It creates a brighter future for both parties.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Penn State students filled a room inside of the Wilkes-Barre police headquarters Friday with donated grocery items to be given to area residents who are overcoming drug addiction. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/web1_TTL121617CarePackage3.jpg</photo0><caption0>Penn State students filled a room inside of the Wilkes-Barre police headquarters Friday with donated grocery items to be given to area residents who are overcoming drug addiction. </caption0><photoCredit0>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Katie Pugh</p><p>For Times Leader</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach the Times Leader newsroom at 570-829-7242 or on Twitter @TLNews.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Penn State Wilkes-Barre students donate food, toys for local families