SAUGUS-The Police Department has proven that there is strength and dollars in numbers.To gain additional funds for the department Lt. Michael Annese said the department banded together with other area communities to go after the Shannon Community Safety Initiative and it worked.Rep. Mark Falzone announced the department would receive $15,050.27 from the Shannon Community Safety Initiative as its split of grant divided among nine communities.”Lynn is large enough and has its own gang unit so it can go after the grant on its own,” Annese said. “The smaller communities have to band together. The only way to do it is regionally.”Annese said last year when it applied for the grant there were seven communities including Saugus in on the deal and this year it jumped to 10.”Saugus, Salem, Peabody, Danvers, Swampscott, Marblehead and Beverly were in on the grant,” Annese said. “This year it included Melrose, Gloucester and Essex. There are a lot of malls in all of these communities.”Annese said $10,000 of the award would go toward anti-gang initiatives and $5,000 would go toward school programs aimed at drug prevention. While the School Department doesn’t have a resource officer, Annese said the grant would pay for an officer to go into the schools and speak to kids.”It’s been a good thing,” Annese said of the grant. “Lt. (Dominic) DiMella heads up the gang unit with Detective Jim Donovan and Drug Detective Sean Monahan and officer David Gecoya is involved too.”The Shannon Initiative is a competitive grant program designed to avert youth violence and drug abuse and administered by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety. Under this program, experts and community groups communicate with each other and jointly implement new community safety solutions to combat youth violence and drug abuse. Annese said that communication has also helped out in the department’s attempts to squelch the drug and gang violence trade.”It’s created some good communications,” he said. “We have information on kids now and we work with Lynn and Revere. It’s something we never had before.”Annese said he believes work funded through the grant has actually slowed drug and gang activity and has definitely taken guns off the street.”I strongly support funding for the Shannon grants and am very pleased that this money is going to Saugus,” Falzone said. “This grant will provide needed resources to the community to combat the troubling rise in youth violence and substance abuse.”Rep. Kathi-Ann Reinstein echoed Falzone’s comments.”I feel that with the funds appropriated, the Saugus Police Department, as well as many local school officials and parents will have the tools and understanding necessary to deal with the tragic spike in youth violence and substance abuse that we have witnessed over the last few years,” she said.Annese said he feels the programs enacted through the grant money will continue to be successful.”We’ve made some good arrests, the detectives have done a fantastic job,” he said.