Serving up a lasting impact: McKeesport police join local children for pizza party

By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com
A group of 30 kids who participate in an after-school program in McKeesport got to enjoy a pizza party with city police officers on Monday.
Community Empowerment Association Inc., which runs the after-school program at First United Methodist Church on Cornell Street and a second after-school program in Homewood, held the “Pizza with The Police” party and invited a handful of officers, detectives and McKeesport Police Department leaders to scarf down a couple slices of pie, some nachos and other snacks with kids from the Tube City.
The point of the event, according to Todd Elston, the family intervention prevention specialist who oversees the McKeesport program, was to give its participants, who range from elementary school age through high school age, “a chance to get acquainted with their local police officers and make sure they have a positive first experience with the police.”
Kids and teens in attendance enjoyed pizza and snacks while having what they called “dinner conversation” with Assistant Chief Chris Olinsky, Detectives Shelley Gould, Dan Goughnour, Mark Steele and Sidney Summers, officer Steve Kondrosky, Capt. Chris Halaszynski and Lt. Ralph Johnson.

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