Projects

Below is a quick list of some of our ongoing projects. We can always use more hands, so if you’re interested please take a moment to ‘contact us’ by clicking the tab at the upper left or the last button on the right in the upper menu on this page. 

• “Our Town” Project in conjunction with the WVIA TV series– Thanks to the community and several volunteers, we have been actively gathering material of Pittston and it’s history for the WVIA production team to add Pittston to the “Our Town” series. The community was invited to take part in this and has been a great support in this project. The segment is scheduled to air in February 2017. SEE  our Event page for details of the meetings and dates as this is presently an on-going project. THERE IS STILL TIME TO JOIN THIS!
• Moving into our new home – Thanks to the efforts of several individuals and to Leadership Wilkes-barre for getting the ball rolling, we were able to partner with the Pittston Memorial Library and co-habitat in some space in their lower level. The agreement was signed for a 10 year lease. Mid- to late May we started moving things in. We are working on organizing all our files & artifacts and continue to look for storage solutions. Our volunteers are working hard towards a grand opening to the public. (If you’re interested in assisting in this project, please send us an email. )
• Internships – In 2015 we partnered with Misericordia University who set up a summer work program with us. 6 Interns were assigned to go through several thousand digital files of scanned negatives and enter them into our Past Perfect museum software archives. They also assisted in transcribing some of the Oral history digital files we have. This endeavor paved the way for future programs we’ll be partnering on in the fall semester. We are excited for such opportunity!
• Our Community Presence: We had the opportunity to display vintage photographs during the 2nd Fridays Project in 2013. It was great meeting people on Pittston’s Main Street during this time and we have something new and fresh planned for the 2014 season!
  We were also fortunate to have a presence at the annual Pittston Tomato Festival in 2013. Thanks to Rose Randazzo for allowing us to set up a display outside her office the first two days. Special thanks to Lori Nocito, Mike Lombardo, Janet Lombardo and the Tomato Festival Committee for allowing us to set up a booth on the festival grounds the last two days. We look forward to participating in the 2014 Tomato Festival. We hope to see you there too!

• Negative Transfer Project: The Sunday Dispatch donated their entire negative collection to the Greater Pittston Historical Society and as of January 2014 over 6,000 negatives have been transferred into image files, a portion of which are enjoyed by thousands on our facebook page. This project has been hugely successful because of the volunteers, particularly the hard work of Mr. Duane Morris.  As we continue to collect photos and negatives from various sources, we will always need more volunteers to assist in this on-going, ever growing preservation effort.

• Pittston City Historical Records Project: Pittston City has given the Society access to their historical records and we are in the process of digitizing them. It’s an ENORMOUS undertaking. Currently our volunteer Tom Weeks has done a tremendous job scanning over 10,000 pages. We will be taking on the older, more fragile, and handwritten volumes by using digital photography to document them. For this purpose, a book scanner is being built by Main Technologies of Old Forge, PA. We thank them for their generosity in donating this to the Historical Society!
  Please note: We will soon be in need of typists who would like to help transcribe some of the handwritten books. Please contact us if you’re interested.
• Pittston Cemetery Burial Records Project: As many as 25 volunteers in 6 different states are working simultaneously to manually type information on the nearly 8,000 burial records. We hope to have this project completed for the Spring; just in time to start the NEXT project involving the Pittston Cemetery – updating the burial map! YES, we will need additional volunteers for this huge undertaking!
• Pittston Cemetery Cleanup: In October of 2013, with the help of the Naval Reserve Center at Avoca and over 100 volunteers the older section of the cemetery underwent a major clean up. The appreciative outpour from the community was priceless. On November 9th, 2013 a moving and beautiful rededication ceremony took place.

Check out the Pittston Cemetery Cleanup videos here!

Some others we’d like to thank:

The City of Pittston’s Department of Public Works

The American Legion post 477

Naval Reservists

Donnie Evans, Roof Cleaning Pro’s

Jake’s Lawn Care

Endless mountains Landscapes

Savo’s Pizza

Domino’s Pizza

(more to be added shortly)

Pittston Cemetery Cleanup videos

****  Please note these images are ©Greater Pittston Historical Society – DO NOT COPY or take and repost ANY of these photos without explicit written permission AND and active link to our site!