Pictured are Keith Martin, Pat Smeraldo, Dan Keefe, Mary Maggio, Persell Middle School volunteers and Lina Scoma, who oversees the Honor Society program at Persell Middle School, during this year’s Holiday Haul. Submitted photo

Patrick Smeraldo is making connections and providing opportunities with his new organization, Collaborative Children’s Solutions.

Smeraldo founded the nonprofit in May of last year to help area children by partnering with service providers, agencies, organizations and school districts in the county on unique projects. Recently, the organization hosted the annual Jamestown Holiday parade, and also hosted a presentation with Chris Herren, former NBA player, at Jamestown High School.

“We collaborate with the agencies, organizations and school districts in Chautauqua County to provide opportunities for kids,” he said. “I’ve been teaching for 25 years, and I’ve also been consulting with The Resource Center, and have been involved with the Children’s Coalition. I just found that with all the agencies I’ve worked with in Western New York, we’d always get to a point where they’d say we need a kid audience, and working in schools, because of cutbacks and things, I would see that we needed to work with agencies. We can’t do what they do. So the goal is to marry all that together so that the kids can have the opportunity to reach their maximum potential, whether it’s professional development or kids camp.”

Smeraldo said the organization worked with various agencies to hold the Kids and Sibs camp over the summer at Camp Onyahsa, which was a great success. Likewise, the group participated in the Holiday Haul

“We were able to steer the collaborative effort with the kids getting involved in their community by holding a contest for food collection within the building,” Smeraldo said. “Keith Martin and Dan Keefe added it to their total and CCS paid for a pizza party for the winners of the contest. Basically, just a bunch of friends for over 25-40 years working with kids to make the community a little better while teaching the kids about community involvement.”

However, the organization isn’t just limited to the south county area; Smeraldo said there are projects he has worked on in the north county area as well.

“The county executive is a friend of mine. … We’re talking about some countywide projects now with some different people,” he said. “I’ve done some professional development in the north.”

The nonprofit doesn’t have an office building and is run out of an office in Smeraldo’s home. He said no one takes a salary — it’s just himself, his wife and Jim MacElrath.

“Those are my board members,” he said. “It’s literally that simple. I’ve done some fundraising here and there, but I’ve just got the three of us. Jim and I are friends — he’s a mentor of mine. My wife and I always said we wished we could do something like this. So one day, we just did it.”

Smeraldo said he is currently working on a fundraiser with the locally owned Tim Horton’s stores to raise funds for Jamestown Public Schools’ prom.

“I think my goal for businesses when I bring them is to try to get them away from, ‘Hey, can you give me a check for my foundation,’ versus ‘Hey, can we make some money together and can you show kids what Tim Hortons is really about?’ It’s trying to get the kids experiences and trying to raise some money, too.”

Smeraldo said he had the same idea when he helped organize the parade — he told the mayor he would do it on the conditions that area students were involved so they were able to have the experiences of organizing the parade. Smeraldo said these types of experiences are incredibly important for youth.

“I think kids just aren’t exposed enough to the opportunities that are here,” he said. “I tell the kids all the time — the mayor of this town was a former student of mine, so is the comptroller and the city attorney. They look at me and I say, ‘Where’s my next mayor? Where’s my next attorney?’ We’re getting old — you’re going to have to take over to continue the legacy of this town.”

Smeraldo said he doesn’t have a specific “goal” in mind other than to help kids. He said he does see the organization expanding going forward.

“I didn’t think it was going to be as popular as it has been,” he said. “We had this speaker here last night from Boston — Chris Herren — who spoke of addiction and there’s an ESPN movie. This morning, I’ve been inundated with calls and text messages from the district and other people from in the schools, saying, ‘Hey, I think we could do this with the kids.’ I just want to help kids I think sometimes we force kids into boxes that they don’t want to be in. Like, if we say we’re going to train everybody to be a factory worker — what if the kids don’t want to be factory workers? What if they want to be a veterinarian? What if he or she wants to cut hair? My goal is: How do we get that kid to cosmetology school? How do we do that — what they want to do, now what we want them to do.”

For more information on the organization or to donate, visit ccsolutions716.com or find them on Facebook under Collaborative Children’s Solutions.