Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Conference planned

PLAINS TWP. – The 16th Annual Grandparents Raising Grandchildren (GRG) Conference is slated for Friday, Oct. 18, at the Woodlands Inn, and for Howard Grossman, awareness of the event is never too early to put on the calendar.

Grossman, the event organizer, said he would like to get the conference back to the numbers they saw pre-pandemic.

“I’m looking forward to a very successful conference,” Grossman said. “We want to get back to were we were before the pandemic with 200 attendees and 40 resource tables.”

Last year, 110 attendees and 25 resource tables participated in the conference.

GRG of Northeastern Pennsylvania is a non-profit organization dedicated to offering both information and support to grandparents and other kinship caregivers and their families.

Conceived in 2004, there organizations of Luzerne Co. Human Services Dept., The Area Agency of Aging for Luzerne/Wyoming Counties, and Jewish Family Service of Greater Wilkes-Barre band together to form the GRG Coalition.

Even though it is early to start advertising the conference, Grossman said the effort to put the event together is a nine-month process for him.

The key for Grossman is sponsorships to cover the cost of lunch for grandparents, who get to attend the conference for free. Attendees will receive a hot lunch and snacks.

According to Grossman, the conference is broken up into a morning and afternoon sessions.

“We will have 15 or 16 speakers between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.” Grossman said. “We have legal representatives available in the afternoon and the morning panel will have different specialists and this year we will have two grandparents on the panel.”

The event-featured speaker is Pennsylvania State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski.

“Eddie Day, last year, tried to get new legislation and prior to that, three-years-ago, he did get legislation, there was money attached to it, now he’s trying to get new legislation with money behind it,” Grossman explained how Pashinski has been working to get grandparents raising grandchildren help that is needed.

To register for the conference, contact Susan Harding at 570-822-1158 or susan.harding@luzernecounty.org.

For information on GRG or the upcoming conference, visit grgnepa.org or contact Howard Grossman at 570-262-3443.