Teen athletes chip in for treatment center

By D.A. Wilkinson

Area athletes are showing their character by helping others.

EAST LIVERPOOL — On a beautiful summer day, members of Boardman’s football team were scraping paint on the first floor of the former Elks Club.

Other athletes from school districts in Columbiana and Mahoning counties this week are to take their turns working on the building.

It’s the first step in what Mark E. Altomare of Leetonia, the director of the Lamb’s House Inc., says is a much needed faith-based approach to the drug and alcohol abuse problem in the county.

The Lamb’s House is a private, nonprofit organization, and Altomare said Monday he will know in six months to a year if the project will work.

County leaders have decided to create a comprehensive approach to the county’s growing drug and alcohol problem. Still, federal, state and county efforts haven’t stopped the flow of drugs.

Altomare said he knows what will help: He said he was an alcoholic until Jesus took away his desire to drink on Sept. 23, 1995.

“We’re giving them something to believe in,” he said.

Also, he’s no stranger to crime. His brother, Richard Altomare, was found shot to death near Leetonia in 1999. His murder hasn’t been solved.

Altomare said he hopes to be offering counseling by Aug. 1 and residential treatment by early next year.

The Elks building at 139 W. Fifth St. is in good shape and would lend itself to both. There are large meeting areas on the first and third floors and the basement. The building had been some sort of hotel. There are hotel-like rooms — complete with room numbers and some furniture — on the second and third floors.

Altomare said he has been housing people with drug and alcohol problems in his home. The county’s Family Recovery Center runs a residential facility in Salem.

“This place,” Altomare said of the Elks, “is a huge opportunity.”

Matt Romeo, 17, who will be a senior at Boardman, said the work being done at the building helps build character.

Fellow Boardman senior Rob McBride, 17, said helping out was “a no-brainer.”

“We want to be servants to other people,” he added.

Altomare said that Craig Newbold of Columbiana owns the building and has offered it to the ministry. Newbold has created the New Life Academy of Information Technology and other programs to help train and educate people.

Altomare said that people aren’t going to get or keep a job if they don’t have a spiritual foundation.

X Contributions can be sent to Lamb’s House, P.O. Box 82, Leetonia, OH 44431.