HANCOCK GROUP PROMOTES EDUCATION

Efforts Also Fight Drugs, Poverty

HANCOCK -- For the second year in a row, Sheila Laurie Holbert of Hancock
will receive a grant to help pay for tuition at Messiah College in
Grantham, Pa., where she's studying to be a minister.

"Every little bit helps," said her mother, Sheila Holbert.

The younger Holbert joins 13 Hancock Central School graduates -- and a
dozen students who will receive their diplomas tonight -- in sharing
$40,250 from the Hancock Community Education Foundation. Grant amounts
vary, depending on need.

Funding scholarships is just one of the youth programs the foundation
supports as it battles poverty and drug abuse in a rural area, foundation
Vice President Ronald De Luca said.

"Our hope is that if we get more and more students committing themselves to
good educations, it will give their lives more opportunities and more
possibilities," he said.

One of the poorest communities in the state, Hancock struggles with many
social problems, including drug abuse.

In April, for example, 18-year-old Phillip Conklin and 20-year-old Matthew
Allen used a recipe they found on the Internet to make their own drugs.
Conklin died; Allen survived.

The foundation is working to prevent similar tragedies by emphasizing the
importance of education, De Luca said. Started in 1999, the foundation now
has an annual budget of $160,840 from grants, fund-raisers and donations
from local businesses and residents.

Programs include a children's center, a preschool, an after-school program,
a high school mentor program and a Little Scholar program that grants
elementary students $100 a month for college. The money is put in a trust
fund until the kids are old enough to go to college, De Luca said. All
programs are aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty that drags down
generation after generation.

So far, the program appears to be working based on college enrollment,
which rose from 54 percent of Hancock Central School graduates in 1998 to
76 percent last year, De Luca said. This year's rate is around 60 percent.

The foundation's major goal is to build a community center, which could
include a youth center, to house all the programs under one roof. Another
organization, Kids Unlimited, is helping to push for the youth center, De
Luca said. Foundation members are appealing to state and federal
governments, private foundations and businesses to help raise the estimated
$500,000 cost.

"We need some partners with deep pockets," he said.