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PRINCETON: Corner House counsels at-risk youths

By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
   Aaron Brown wants to be an FBI agent. The 19-year-old Princeton Township resident, who is working towards a criminal justice degree at Mercer County Community College, also wants to be a movie star.
   Were it not for a Corner House counseling center program that targets at-risk youth, however, Mr. Brown said these and other dreams may have been derailed years ago by the siren song of gang life and associated high-risk behaviors.
   After a string of gang-related incidents in Princeton, including shootings and a murder, the Princeton Youth Project was conceived by Corner House leaders in 2005 and implemented in 2006 at the behest of residents and officials. Executive Director Gary De Blasio cites it as one piece of evidence that Corner House has moved beyond its role as a substance abuse counseling center to offer a wider array of services to all of Princeton’s youth.
   The Princeton Youth Project offers kids trips to New York, bowling outings, paintball trips, and similar rewards in return for leadership counseling, participation in an anti-gang curriculum, group discussions, and other activities aimed at short-circuiting the process through which kids end up in gangs and in high-risk situations.
   Kids identify tangible goals and work toward them, with Princeton Youth Project Coordinator Jay Curtis helping them “think about what they want to do with their future,” said Marian Levine, Corner House’s grant and development coordinator.
   Its results are proof of success, says Mr. Curtis, who noted that the program’s first year saw five out of six graduates go on to college, beating the long odds the same kids faced prior to joining the program. The next class experienced similar achievements, said Mr. Curtis, who has helped lead the program since joining Corner House in late 2006.
   He said he brings kids into the program through referrals, recommendations, or sometimes through going out into the streets of his hometown. Sometimes kids even come to him, he said, noting the program has grown to 18 participants this year.
   Mr. Brown, the aspiring FBI agent, echoed those statements with a grim prediction of life, were it not for the Princeton Youth Project.
   ”I don’t think I would have even made it through high school,” said Mr. Brown, who admitted he didn’t listen to his teachers. He said he had “an attitude problem” before Mr. Curtis, a one-time Princeton High School employee, approached him in his junior year about the program.
   A dismal alternative future was evident to Mr. Brown in the lives of friends he knew outside the program, who engaged in gang activity and other high-risk behaviors.
   Mr. Brown and others took a different path under the leadership of Mr. Curtis and Corner House.
   Although the Princeton Youth Project has had an important impact on Princeton’s youth, it represents a small fraction of the lives touched through Corner House, said Ms. Levine, the grant and development coordinator. Total attendance at Corner House events last year exceeded 5,000 students from Princeton High School, the Hun School, Princeton Day School, and Stuart Country Day School, she said.
   Other programs, which fall under the center’s prevention and leadership programs, include Corner House’s Student Board, which is made up of a group of students from the aforementioned high schools and organizes of safe and sober events for students.
   The board helps Corner House “stay connected with the kids,” said Wendy Jolley, a Princeton Township resident and Corner House board member, who also coordinates activities with the students, like a dodge ball tournament that brought out 800 students.
   There is the Teen Advisory Group team, which meets weekly to develop skits on the consequences of substance abuse, and the Project GAIA 1 and GAIA 2 groups, which develop workshops aimed at increasing awareness of the connection between intolerance and substance use/abuse and advancing a Stop Hate-Promote Peace message, according to Corner House documents.
   There’s also the substance abuse prevention and treatment program that Corner House is well-known for, perhaps too much so, according to Mr. De Blasio, who has made it a new focus to feed awareness about Corner House’s impressive array of services.
   ”We’re so much more than that,” said Mr. De Blasio, whose belief is “that kids will always rise to the occasion.”
   Corner House, located at 369 Witherspoon Street, has actually grown to a point where generating interest in its programs is no longer a problem, he said, noting the Teen Advisory Group turned away more than 30 potential participants because it could only accept 22. Rather, funding has become an issue, as programs become limited by the magnitude of Corner House’s community support. Limitations have become more threatening as the economy has begun to hamper the finances of philanthropists and charitable foundations, Mr. De Blasio said.
   Corner House relies on some funding from both Princeton Borough and Princeton Township, but community gift giving and charitable donations are crucial to keep programs going, Mr. De Blasio said.
   The center is honoring its foundation board members and others Thursday at luncheon at the Nassau Club, where speakers will talk of all the programs offered at the counseling center, including the Princeton Youth Project.
   Corner House can be reached at (609) 924-8018.
   The center’s Web site can be found at www.cornerhousenj.org.