Grant Awarded for the G.R.E.A.T. City of Linden

It brings me great pleasure to announce to the city of Linden that we have been awarded a federal grant in our efforts to thwart gang activity. Senator Robert Menendez recently informed me that the federal government has awarded the Linden Police Department a grant for $43,102 dollars, in its efforts of combating gang activity within our community. From this grant, the Gang Resistance Education and Training program (G.R.E.A.T.) will look to disarm the growing threat of gang activity within our community.

G.R.E.A.T. is a life-skills competence program designed to provide students with the skills they need to avoid gang pressure and youth violence. G.R.E.A.T.’s violence prevention curricula helps students develop values and practice behaviors that will help them avoid destructive activities. G.R.E.A.T. program staffers will coordinate project activities with federal, regional, state, and local agencies, as well as individuals from community and civic groups. The goal of the program is to train criminal justice professionals to deliver a school-based curriculum that teachers life-skills competencies, gang awareness, and violence-avoidance techniques.

The city of Linden, through the police department, will utilize funding to provide the elementary, middle school, families, and summer components in an effort to establish positive life skills and healthy conflict resolution among youth, and curb recruitment from gangs coming into the community from adjacent towns. Through the grant, approximately 2,300 students and 20 families will receive the G.R.E.A.T. curricula. The elementary program will target all fourth and fifth grade students in the city, while the core, middle school curriculum will be provided to all seventh grade students in the public and parochial middle schools.

In addition, the department, along with the Linden Recreation Department and a community-based organization, will offer the summer program to students entering the sixth grade. The families component will also be offered during the year to parents of all elementary and middle school youth in order to help them become aware of the signs of gang activity.

I am excited about this grant award because this is one of many sorts of initiatives that we as a community look to not only be addressed, but also ACTED upon at the federal level. I would also like to again, thank and congratulate Senator Robert Menendez for the time he devoted in securing this grant for our community. The problem of gang activity is not limited to the city of Linden, but is a national problem. However, with grants like these, which allow us to combat the prevalence of gang activity, we can look to transition, as a COMMUNITY, from Good, to Better, to BEST!!