Doin’ Dunmore: Boy Scout Troop 66 & Volunteers Lend Hand to Borough Cleanup

Posted on July 6, 2022 by The Dunmorean

By Steve Svetovich

Dunmore’s Joanne Gaetano had an idea last year.

And it worked with flying colors.

Thanks to Gaetano’s efforts and with the help of Dunmore Boy Scout Troop 66 and scoutmaster Dominic Pace, there will be a second annual Great Bucktown Litter Cleanup on Saturday, July 30, beginning at 9 a.m, at Dunmore Community Center.

“It was a big success last year,” said Chris Tigue, owner of KJ Tigue Painting, L.L.C. “Joanne Gaetano had the initial idea and wanted to do it again this year. She spearheaded it and started this whole thing. We will clean up some debris in sections of the borough and also the weeds at the army tank on Blakely Street.

“We will hit St. Joseph’s Center in the back and also the Bunker Hill section of Dunmore. We will clean up the area around Nina’s Pizza on Adams Avenue. We will clean up all the weeds and litter. The cleanup will go from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. throughout the borough.”

Tigue said the Dunmore Boy Scout Troop 66 once again will volunteer and do the bulk of the work.

Tigue said Mike Judge, Dunmore DPW director, will provide the use of DPW trucks for the cleanup work.

Jay Cali, owner and operator of Don Tomaso’s Pizza, Dunmore, will provide the scouts with pizza for their efforts.

District Magistrate Paul Ware is donating trash bags for the day-long cleanup.

The scouts will do most of the weeding and cleanup work at the army tank where extra war memorials are expected to be erected in the future.

There will be a Dunmore police escort from East Mountain to Bunker Hill. Dunmore Police Chief Sal Marchese approved the police escort.

Cleanup work will be done on Mill Street and in the area around Riccardo’s Market.

Tigue said the group will meet at the Dunmore Community Center before starting the cleanup work.

“These kids did a great job last year,” said Tigue. “They are all good kids. It’s a real scavenger hunt. Mike Judge is a big help with the DPW trucks. And Paul Ware is helping us with the trash bags.”

Former Dunmore Councilman Paul Nardozzi donated garbage bags during the first annual cleanup.

“Joanne Gaetano came up with the initial idea and Dominic Pace and the scouts volunteered,” said Tigue. “It went extremely well the first time, so Joanne wanted to do this again. Some dads and sisters of the scouts also volunteer. They work really hard too.

“All of these kids are polite and respectful. I thank all of them for their efforts. We thank Dominic Pace for volunteering his scouts. I am sure they will do a great job like last year. They really made the army tank look amazing.

“They make picking up garbage and weeding enjoyable.”

Dunmore’s Forgione Uses Speed, Bat, Glove on Diamond

Posted on July 6, 2022 by The Dunmorean

By Steve Svetovich

Dunmore shortstop-center fielder Max Forgione utilized his speed, bat and glove in a big way as a freshman this past season.

Son of Derek and Autumn Forgione, Dunmore, Max, 15, hit .481 as a freshman. He had a .632 on base percentage, one homer, 12 stolen bases, 17 runs, five doubles, 13 hits and a .777 slugging percentage. He also had a 3.63 ERA as a pitcher.

A noted speedster, Max talked about what it takes to be a solid hitter in high school baseball. “You need to focus on what you are doing in the moment,” he said. “You need to be able to hit a line drive up the middle or in the gaps.”

Confident by nature, Max said he has learned a lot from Dunmore veteran baseball coach Sid Hallinan. “He played shortstop too, so I learned a lot about infield mechanics from him. He also wants to win. I like that.”

Max said his parents teach him a lot. “They teach me to be humble,” he said. “They tell me hard work always pays off.”

The scrappy Forgione said he is trying to build on his natural speed. “I practice sprints on the football field all the time,” he said. “It helps.”

The hard hitter said he is playing summer travel ball for Baseball U. He enjoys listening to music in his spare time and would like to see Macklemore in concert.

Multi-talented, Max is a guard on the Dunmore basketball team.

He talked about his future goals.

The slick fielding shortstop talked about his freshman season for Dunmore. “I thought it was a good one,” he said. “We started slow, but then we had a really good stretch and started to roll. I started slow as well, but improved with the team. We definitely got better as a team as the season went along.”

“I want to play Division I college baseball. I’m not sure what I want to major in yet. I am thinking about colleges like St. Joseph’s University, James Madison, University of Virginia and Boston College. They are all good baseball schools.”

Max said he has been playing travel baseball since age eight and continues to hone his skills this summer at Baseball U.

The stalwart shortstop said he expects to pitch more for Dunmore in the future. “I definitely would like to improve my pitching and help more on the mound.”

He enjoyed his freshman year at Dunmore. “I really had a lot of fun. I had some great times with all of my teammates. The seniors on the team pushed us to be the best. I am looking forward to my next three years at Dunmore.”

Longo Earns Italian American Honor

Posted on July 6, 2022 by The Dunmorean

Stephanie Longo of Dunmore was recently named “Donna Distinta” by the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations. This award is presented to women of Italian origin in order to spotlight their contributions to the Italian American community.

Growing up in Northeastern Pennsylvania, an area with a vibrant Italian-American community, Stephanie Longo first became intrigued by her heritage when she was five years old when her mother took her to Dino and Francesco’s restaurant in Clarks Summit, which had a large map of Italy on their placemat.

While they were there, her mother, Ann Marie, took Stephanie’s hand and traced her fingers across her ancestral homeland, showing her where her grandfather, Joseph Anthony Longo was born – the town of Guardia Lombardi, in the Province of Avellino. Joe passed away in 1973, eight years before Stephanie was born.

From that day on, Stephanie always carried a great passion for her Italian heritage in her heart. She majored in Italian at the University of Scranton, with the goal of mastering the language, and understanding the land of her ancestors.

Stephanie also descends from immigrants who lived in the town of Nicastro, now Lamezia Terme, Province of Catanzaro, Calabria.

Following her graduation, she had the fortune to become acquainted with Dominic Candeloro and Jerry Krase, who encouraged her to start writing about the Italian community in her region, a story which deeply needed to be told. This would lead to three books, Italians of Northeastern Pennsylvania (2004), Dunmore (2012), and Italians of Lackawanna County (2018). Italians of Lackawanna County received the Gold Award from the Nonfiction Writers Association.

Researching and writing about the Italian-American community has become her career, and she has stayed active in local, regional, and national Italian-American circles, always volunteering and helping where she could.

These activities culminated in her being named the Associate Producer of the Italian American Podcast in 2020. This job has completely changed her life, allowing her to encounter Italian-Americans from all over the country and getting the chance to take on additional leadership positions in the community, including work with the National Columbus Education Foundation (NCEF) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO). It is through COPOMIAO that Stephanie is the national co-chair of the Reconnecting with our Youth Committee, along with John Viola.

Recognizing the need to bring Italian-American culture into the digital age, Stephanie enrolled in the Doctor of Strategic Communications program at Regent University in 2021. Her goal with this degree is to assist Italian- American organizations with increasing and enhancing their digital presence. Her expected graduation date is May 2024.

Stephanie is an award-winning journalist on the state and national level for her work with The Scranton Times-Tribune/Times-Shamrock Communications and other regional news outlets. She has used this experience to create a blog, Irpinia Stories, which seeks to educate people about the Province of Avellino, including its heritage, culture, history, and diaspora. Irpinia Stories has won several state and national awards and is the only English-language blog about that section of Italy.

Stephanie is also very active in preserving and promoting Guardiese culture. She was named an honorary citizen of Guardia Lombardi in 2005 and was also named an honorary associate of the Guardiesi si Nasce Society in 2021 for her work in creating a sister city relationship between the city of Scranton, the borough of Dunmore, and Guardia Lombardi, as well as having a street between the two American towns given the honorary designation of Guardia Lombardi Way. She is currently working on a website designed to further unite the American Guardiese community with its hometown. All of this is done in honor of her grandfather, who was proud of his hometown despite never having the opportunity to return.

A dual citizen of the United States and Italy, Stephanie has spoken both regionally and nationally on the subject of Italian immigration to the United States, including at the Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum, the Lackawanna Historical Society, the Dunmore Historical Society,, the Forest City Historical Society, I AM Books (Boston), the IDEA Boston festival (Cambridge, MA) and the History of Italian Immigration Museum (Philadelphia). She has also been a panelist on Italian-American culture for Pennsylvania’s Mining Heritage Month. Her works are also part of the Biblioteca del Senato “Giovanni Spadolini” in Rome, Italy.

She currently resides in Dunmore, with her mother, Ann Marie, and her rescue Maremma Abruzzese sheepdog, Duke. She is engaged to Sean Brennan, a professor of history at the University of Scranton. They are planning an October 2023 wedding.