TAMAQUA — What can a dozen people in a room talking for two hours accomplish to improve their community?
They can pick a direction.
On Thursday, members of the Tamaqua Area Community Partnership held the third in a series of meetings aimed at improving life in the community.
Chaired by Joe Krushinsky, the session at the Scheller Student Center at Lehigh Carbon Community College was meant to answer the questions of communication, creating a sense of working together and getting people involved in the community.
The direction chosen: The group would work on a single project to show the rest of the community what they were trying to accomplish.
That agreed-upon project is the Spirit of Christmas event scheduled for Nov. 30.
Getting people involved is one goal the group wants to achieve.
Leona Rega, of the Tamaqua Area Community Center, said the group has to create positive energy to get people behind the effort.
“Tamaqua has a lot more to offer than what people think,” Rega said. “There is the beauty around us, the education and the improved streetscapes. People don’t take the time to look at the community and build it up because they are too busy tearing it down. We have a challenge before us to push the momentum.”
Krushinsky said the most successful community events happen “when you ask people to do a specific thing.”
He noted that communication is achieved on several levels, depending upon the age group. Young people use computers and the internet, while older people still read their newspaper — so all avenues have to be used.
The consensus opinion was that the best communication technique is face-to-face, one-on-one communication.
“People live in a small community because they like to have interaction with other people,” Ed Noftz, pastor of New Life Assembly of God Church, said.
Another technique the group plans to employ is kindness.
“We are extremely kind to people who come into the arts center,” she said. “We want people to feel they are the most important people in the world. And we always make sure if somebody experiences something they hadn’t before that they know they didn’t have to go to a city for it.”
Getting young people involved so they feel they have a stake in the community is important, she added.
“We need to get the young people now,” Rega said. “We have to get them excited and involved in the community so they stay here.”
Getting them involved is up to the adults, the group agreed. Suggestions were made to engage young people at the high school level via honor societies and other similar organizations.
Aside from getting involved with the Spirit of Christmas event, the group decided to digest what had been discussed at the session before deciding on any other course of action.