Montour County

BERWICK, Pa. -- A man from Berwick used his retirement to give back to animals in need
Larry Moyer didn't want a party to celebrate his retirement, but he did ask his coworkers for some gifts. Employees at his company banded together to help him make the largest donation of pet food a local shelter has ever seen.
The site manager here at the Pennsylvania SPCA near Danville received a phone call asking if they had room for a large donation.

DANVILLE, MONTOUR COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — A group of students in Montour County is making sure the LGBTQ community has a safe space to go.

They set up a goal in the beginning of the school year and watched their dream come to fruition. The students tell Eyewitness News they’ve been working on this club for months and they’re grateful to finally have it established.

According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, high school students in the LGBTQ community are almost five times as likely to attempt suicide compared to heterosexual students.

DANVILLE, Pa. -- When administrators in the Danville Area School District surveyed students about mental health last year, they kept hearing one thing over and over again. Both students and staff believed the school day was too long.
So administrators did something about it. The school board voted to shorten the school day from seven and a half hours to six hours and 45 minutes starting this fall.
"When we started looking at why, this was one of the topics that came up that we thought would alleviate some of that stress," Danville High School Principal Jeremy Winn said.

DANVILLE, MONTOUR COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — We often see stories about child abuse in the news.

But those media reports don’t even begin to indicate just how prevalent the crime really is. As Eyewitness News Reporter Mark Hiller explains, a noted local pediatrician is calling for action to stop a growing epidemic.

Dr. Frank Maffei encountered a disturbing finding one recent night concerning the majority of child patients at Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

DANVILLE, Pa. -- One of our region's largest employers is hiring and is opening a career center to help with the process. The Geisinger Career Center is scheduled to open next month on Mill Street in Danville.
“We’re really excited about the opportunity to have a street-side career center where anyone can just walk in and learn more about a career at Geisinger,” said Julene Campion, Geisinger vice president of talent management.

UPDATE: PennDot officials released a statement saying all lanes are back open on Interstate 80 Westbound as of 9 p.m.

VALLEY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Drivers in Columbia and Montour Counties are being asked to avoid the area of Interstate 80 Westbound near exit 232.
Just after 3:00 p.m. the Interstate's Westbound lanes were closed West of the Buckhorn exit after a crash involving a tractor trailer.
PennDot says both lanes will remain closed for several hours while they work to clear the vehicles.
No word on any injuries in the crash in Montour County.

Motorists who travel Interstate 80 westbound in Columbia and Montour Counties are advised the highway is closed west of the Exit 232 (Buckhorn) due to a multi-vehicle crash.

MAHONING TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Officials are looking for family members of a World War II veteran who died in 1945.
A Purple Heart belonging to a Navy seaman was discovered a few weeks ago in a storage unit near Elysburg.
Dale Breech took us to the storage unit where he made an unbelievable discovery.
“It was down here towards the end. I think it was 64,” said Breech.
Breech is hired occasionally by the facility's owner to clean out units that are no longer being rented. A few weeks ago, he stumbled upon a military medal in unit 64.

MAHONING TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Nearly 10 years ago, Robert and Katie Moore of Hazleton were preparing for the birth of their triplets at Geisinger Medical Center near Danville.
The children were born weighing just over three pounds each and had to spend five weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or NICU.
Ten years later, Jackson, Olivia, and Patrick are healthy fourth graders. As they approach their 10th birthdays this weekend, the three decided they wanted to do something special to celebrate.

DANVILLE, Pa. -- Every 10 years, the federal government does a population count of the United States and it is almost that time again. The 2020 census is less than three months away and right now there is an effort to recruit census takers.
Around a dozen people came to the Thomas Beaver Free Library in Danville for an information session on census jobs.
"I was just curious to see what's going on and what it involves," Fred Harner said.
"Just to get more information, see if it's something I really want to do. You can always use extra money," Jean Uhl said.