Following the lead of the Concerned Citizens Association of Farmingdale (CCAF) - which hosted a gang seminar at its Jan. 22 meeting in response to a recent rise in gang presence in the area - the school district, in association with Project COPE, hosted a similar meeting at its March 8 board meeting to further educate the community and raise awareness on gang involvement prevention.

When Sergio Argueta stood in the front of Howitt Middle School's auditorium last week and greeted the 200-person-audience at 8 p.m. with an enthusiastic: "Good morning," many people looked at him with expressions of confusion.

Argueta, a former gang leader who now runs his own non-profit youth organization and educates about the dangers of gang involvement, explained to the crowd of administrators, parents, police officials and community members that although it was the evening he addressed them with good morning, because he was there to raise issues that "awaken."

"I am not here to give you a sob story," Argueta said. "I'm just here to share my story with you." Argueta, a Hempstead native born to Latino parents, attributed his early gang involvement to the racial divides of his town. "In some places, one single fence separates paradise from the gutter."

After he and some of his fellow Latino friends - who he said were all referred to as Puerto Rican despite of their heritage - were being routinely beaten up in middle school, they decided to join together and take revenge by forming a gang based on the principles of love and brotherhood. Thinking back, he said that it is troubling that a common bond for the group's members wasn't their Latino history, but instead a gang color.

In 1996, after enduring the loss of two close friends as a result of gang-related violence, Argueta, at that point the leader of his gang, decided that he needed to get out. "The only thing that made me give up gang life was my guilty conscience," he said.

Argueta now prides himself on having taken the same negative leadership skills he learned and using them in a positive way. He told the crowd of his return to school at Nassau Community College, where he ironically majored in criminal justice, became the president of his student government and graduated with honors. The real shock to him - the same person who was in handcuffs at age 13 and was told to get used to them - came when he was accepted to Columbia University.

Argueta tells his story because many youngsters who are now in the same position as he once was don't get the chance that he did to turn his life around.

"[Argueta] said some things that really resonated with [the audience]," said Ellen Krammer, administrative director of the school district, and the organizer of the presentation.

"This issue can affect anyone and everyone in this room," Argueta reminded the crowd. But he thinks that Nassau County has finally woken up about the reality of gangs. "The only way we can beat this [gang epidemic] is through education," he said.

As stated on its website, Argueta's organization, S.T.R.O.N.G. Youth, Inc., "is the first youth-driven, multi-ethnic organization in this area, founded in response to the violence in our communities; gang violence in particular. Through cooperative, working relationships, S.T.R.O.N.G. Youth, Inc. plans to serve as a liaison between law enforcement agencies, community organizations, clergy, school administrations and our children."

Argueta mentioned also wanting to begin job development opportunities for young adults who don't feel as if the traditional means of education is the right path for them.

After the presentation, Krammer told the audience about a grant for about $75,000 that was recently applied for by YES Community Counseling - a community-based organization that works on issues in Plainedge, Massapequa and Farmingdale - which, if approved, would help to provide community counseling and mentoring regarding youth violence and gangs.

The audience was also then given the opportunity to meet in classrooms with school social workers and COPE members to have any questions answered on a more individual basis.

CCAF President Mike Grello said he was extremely happy about turnout at the seminar and thinks that "the community is getting a good education."