PORT JERVIS—With a federal grant in place and a new, full-time coordinator, the community group Operation Port Jervis PRIDE Coalition is now positioned to begin battling substance abuse in the city in earnest.
Lindsay Carroll, who is a Port Jervis native, took up the position the beginning of February and says she’s glad to be working for positive change in the community she calls home.
The 26-year-old studied psychology at University at Albany-SUNY then came back to Port Jervis in 2011 and worked as a service coordinator at New Hope Community, an independent living facility for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Loch Sheldrake.
She now has the task of working with over 30 community members and groups to lower the city’s substance abuse, with a focus on lowering the use of alcohol, marijuana, and opioids among youth.
Right now she is in the planning stages and working with the coalition and her advisor, Dawn Wilkin the assistant director of prevention services at Catholic Charities, the grant’s fiscal agent, on long and short term plans for her position.
