ESSEX COUNTY COMMUNITY SERVICE WORKERS GIVE
LYNN BOYS & GIRLS CLUB A COMPLETE MAKEOVER

Essex County Community Service crews are adding sparkle, shine and color to the three-story Lynn Boys and Girls Club.

The crew is made up of offenders- including probationers, parolees, and inmates who are sentenced to the Essex County Community Corrections Center. Each Community Corrections Center has a community service component where offenders are required to participate in a community service project as part of their sentence.

Two days a week, four hours a day, a team of 10 to 13 offenders scrape and repaint the gymnasium, locker room, bowling alley and walls throughout the Lynn Boys & Girls Club facility. They drain the Olympic-size swimming pool and clean it as well as move furniture. More than 100 offenders have worked on the project which takes place in the morning when the club is closed.

"Our agency provides important and much needed labor to municipalities and social service agencies in communities throughout the Commonwealth - all free of charge. Through this work, offenders learn how to be productive in a positive way," said Kevin Duggan, Statewide Supervisor of the Massachusetts Trial Court Community Service Program, the agency which assigns community service projects.

Statewide, offenders completed 23,000 hours of community service alone during January 2004.

The Lynn Boys & Girls Club is grateful for the free labor, said its executive director Robert Barker.

"We are a non-profit organization. It has been a rough stretch for us - especially this time of year. This is a blessing in disguise," Barker said. "I would venture to guess that this work is saving us from $10,000 to $15,000 in labor if not more.

The Massachusetts Trial Court Community Service Program is part of the Office of Community Corrections, both are under the management of the Office of the Commissioner of Probation who also oversees the Massachusetts Probation Service.

The Massachusetts Probation Service is a department of the Massachusetts Trial Court. There are 14 Superior Court, 62 District Court, eight Boston Municipal Court, and 14 Probate and Family Court probation departments throughout the Commonwealth. Probation's Juvenile Court System includes 11 divisions which represent every country in the state. There are 21 Community Corrections Centers throughout the state.