A dairy good day

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WILKES-BARRE — NEPA’s Day Downtown was hosted Saturday on Public Square by the youth volunteers of the Pittston-based organization NEPA’s Summer in the City.

The group has been organizing local community events since its founding in 2022, but this was the first time they’ve held an event on Public Square.

During the truncated planning process of Saturday’s event, the organizers faced a number of challenges, from navigating downtown parking to organizing a map that would suit each of the event’s vendors.

Despite these bumps in the road, the city has been supportive of the group and its ambition.

“Everyone has been fabulous with this,” said Faith Stoshak, sponsorship director of NEPA’s Summer in the City, about the city government and businesses that have supported NEPA’s Day Downtown. She continued, “We just have to keep more eyes on the space compared to Duryea.”

The first few events run by NEPA’s Summer in the City were concentrated to the northeast corner of Luzerne County. Recent high school graduates like Stoshak and Paul Stevenson, one of NEPA’s Summer in the City’s lead organizers, have dispensed the planning duties to the high school students following in their footsteps.

“We started this program when we were in high school as a way to have some fun, plan some events for the community,” said Stevenson. “Now that we’re in college, we’re keeping the spirit of a high school organization by having these leadership development training sessions, and then putting the high school students to work on these festivals and showing them how to tackle different aspects of it.”

NEPA’s Summer in the City facilitates fundraising for local nonprofits, almost all of which are connected to youth-related concerns. Saturday’s event was held in support of Hillside Farms’ Care Farming Services, a program which helps children process trauma and grief.

“They say they’re an education center first, especially dealing with vulnerable youth in our area, and then they’re a dairy farm and ice cream shop second,” said Stevenson about Hillside Farms.

The Lands at Hillside Farms is described on its website as a nonprofit “428-acre educational dairy farm.”

The farm had a presence at NEPA’s Day Downtown along with many local businesses. Through social media and in-person outreach, Stoshak was able to recruit dozens of vendors.

NEPA’s Summer in the City’s tactics for building relationships with potential vendors and sponsors were widespread. In particular, Stoshak pulled from her fundraising experiences at Wyoming Seminary, specifically the school’s Dance Marathon, to attract attention to Saturday’s event.

“I’ve been able to get a sense for what local businesses look forward to from different events,” Stoshak said of her observations in the fundraising world.

Stevenson noted that one of the ways in which his group has spread the word about its events is by talking about the beneficiary of the profits. In the case of Saturday’s event, the focus remained on Hillside Farms’ therapeutic and educational efforts.

While he was buzzing around Public Square, ensuring that the event was running smoothly, Stevenson made sure to praise the volunteers, most of whom are still teenagers.

“I have 20 to 30 friends doing this with me, and I’m very lucky to have them, because I could not ask for crazier people to do it with me.”