Hazleton Area Business Citizen March 2014 | Page 11

Promoting a free market in the Greater Hazleton Area

HABC: Operating a business today is very
time consuming. But in spite of this, business
people still find time to be civically active.
You have been active in scouting for a number of years. How did you become involved in
Boy Scouts?
Dave DeLessio: I started in Scouts when my son
was six, so that was in 1990. My son was a Tiger cub
and I got involved just as a parent. In 1993, the cub
master at the time was Gail Bartosevich, someone
who was a great inspiration to me because she had a
very rare lung disease that unfortunately claimed her
life at a young age. I remember her saying that the
cub pack needed help – she said “it’s only an hour a
week!’ Now that’s the running joke - every time I ask
someone to help with scouting, I tell them “it’s just an
hour a week.” Really the commitment is much more,
but I’m still active and I’m still involved. In scouting
you can never truly measure what impact you have
on other people’s lives, but once in a while you get a
glimpse.
HABC: How do you see active community involvement, such as scouting, impacting on
the business climate in our area?
Dave DeLessio: This is our community. And our
community has undergone radical changes in the past
fifteen years. I think as business people, we really need
to be involved in our community in any way that we
can so as to make the Hazleton Area a better place.
I don’t know if ten years from now being involved
in scouts is going to make a difference, but I would
much rather have kids be in the Boy Scout gang than
in the Bloods or Crips. Does it help? Again, very rarely, do we get to see glimpses of how we change things
but I’m hoping it does. I feel that if we don’t get in-

HABC

March 1, 2014

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