JENKINTOWN — The Communication Solutions Group celebrated its 100th intern by catching up with former interns to see how the experience has impacted their professional lives. Many former interns have found success after their internships at the agency, and the agency prides itself on the experience it offers interns. The agency’s passion for helping young people by way of internships stems from its president, Leza Raffel. Raffel had a series of dismal internships during her …

The last few years haven’t done wonders for the reputation of the Coatesville Area School District, where headlines over school fights went viral on social media, the former superintendent and athletic director were caught sending racist and sexist texts, and about 100 teachers have left. With hundreds of students abandoning the Chester County district for nearby charter schools, officials have turned to a strategy that’s more typically associated with McDonald’s or Oldsmobile.The Coatesville Area School …

When her paychecks kept bouncing while working as the director of communications at a firm on theMain Line, Leza Raffel, 46, decided to leave her job and take matters into her own hands. At 24 years old she started her own communications company — The Communications Solutions GroupInc., a Jenkintown-based full-service marketing and public relations company — and brought with her three clients from her former agency. “This was a business created out of necessity …

Bucks County is a large and diverse region. It has people from all walks of life, everysocioeconomic class. But, across the board, from top to bottom, there’s one thing everymunicipality has in common: a shortage of volunteer firefighters. To address this challenge, the Bucks County Fire Chiefs and Firefighters Association has recently launched several new recruiting initiatives including a new website, www.bucksfire.org. “The need for volunteer firefighters in a countywide issue,” said Rob Kay, Co-Chair …

JENKINTOWN — Like a lot of businesses, Communications Solutions Group came out of a bad period in the economy — with one larger company foundering, and employees leaving to start new ones. In this case, Leza Raffel started Communications Solutions in 1992, when it was clear the advertising agency where she was working might not weather the early-1990s recession. “The first sign was the paychecks could bounce. Then they had a state-ofthe- company meeting. They …