Police Award to GC Anti-Drug Worker

PRESS RELEASE
May 24, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO
Frank Smith’s youthful indiscretion with drugs cost him a fall from a tree and life in a wheelchair, and led to a job convincing more than 44,000 Gloucester County kids not to make the same mistake.

In recognition of his 22-year career as a field specialist in narcotics education with the Gloucester County Department of Human Services, the county’s Police Awards Committee today presented him its annual Civilian Service Award.

“His inspirational story is a powerful prevention tool, shared with sincerity and humor,” said committee member and Glassboro Police Lt. Ed Alicea. Smith was nominated by Sgt. Danielle LoRusso of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office Gangs, Guns and Narcotics Task Force. “You really changed a lot of people’s lives,” LoRusso told Smith, who she partners with in his Project Aware program.

Prosecutor Sean F. Dalton said he still recalls the first time he saw Smith’s presentation 16 years ago. “It had me trembling in my seat, as far as the power of his message and the importance of his message,” Dalton said.

“You turned a disability around into something really positive,” added GCPO Chief of Detectives Fred Suter.

“You know how I speak. I get down to kids’ level,” said Smith, a 1990 Gloucester County College graduate.