Neighborhoods

Nearly two dozen blighted homes in Youngstown received a clean-up on Friday and all of the work was done my volunteers.

Nearly six hundred people turned out to be a part of the United Way's 17th annual "Day of Caring." Following a kick-off breakfast in the parking lot of the Covelli Centre the volunteers were divided into teams and headed out to tackle their projects.

Arriving on Youngstown's north side the volunteer teams got their marching orders from project managers like Liberty Merrill from the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.

"We've got this house and then the next two" Merrill told one team of volunteers, who then selected a tool and went to work

The volunteers had taken a day off from their jobs and daily routines to spend the day giving back to the community.

"I always wanted to help the community and take part in something this great" said Samantha Vona who volunteered on her day off from her regular job

It's hot work for volunteers like Joe Mashorda of Austintown but he didn't mind at all.

"It's great to be a part of it, I'm sweating a little bit today but it's all worth it" said Mashorda. A group of sixteen students from Boardman High School teamed up on one blighted home.

"It's a good opportunity to show people in the community that we care and we want to help them, and it's a good representation of Boardman and how much we want to help people too" said Boardman High Junior Kristen Fernbert.

Neighbors say they can't keep up the abandoned properties and appreciate seeing so many people who are willing to give of their time to help.

"It's a very good improvement, the neighborhood is looking a lot better now because they've taken charge to try and get some of this down" said Alvin Agard of Lora Avenue.

Other volunteers spent the Day of Caring helping out with projects at 17 different non-profit agencies.

To read the full story from WFMJ, click here. 

The United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley announced a $2.6 million goal this morning for its 2014 campaign, a target the agency is already a quarter of the way toward reaching.

This year’s pacesetter campaign and events such as the pre-party prior to Rod Stewart’s concert last month and the April fundraiser featuring golfers Jack Nicklaus and Annika Sorenstam raised $711,000 toward the goal, the United Way chapter’s president, Bob Hannon, reported. “There’s no place that steps up like the Mahoning Valley,” he said.

Hannon announced the goal and the early results this morning at a breakfast for the 17th annual Day of Caring, which kicks off the annual fundraising campaign.

This year, nearly 600 volunteers representing 52 businesses and organizations are participating in community projects for the event. About half will clean up three neighborhoods on the North Side in a partnership between the United Way chapter, Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. and Green Youngstown and the other half will complete projects at 21 non-profit agencies funded by the United Way.

At his first Day of Caring six years ago, 275 volunteers participated, Hannon recalled. “This is amazing,” he remarked.

This year’s campaign goal is $100,000 higher than the goal reached the past three years. “This year, with the economic climate getting better and with Ed and Chris Muransky chairing the campaign, it was time to extend the goal,” Hannon said. Reaching the goal will be challenging “but we think we have a good opportunity to accomplish that but more importantly the need is there,” he said.

“Even though things are getting better there are still a lot of people that need food, shelter, clothing, so we will continue to fund emergency services,” he added. Also, the agency itself runs programs such as the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which aims to provide books for children through age 5, and the pilot program mentoring young women.

The Muranskys see the goal as too modest.

“We had a big argument with Bob Hannon that he only raised [the goal] by $100,000 and that we live in a great valley,” Ed Muransky, president and CEO of the Muransky Companies, said. It’s the job of him and his wife “to make sure that goal gets met and exceeded,” he continued. “I assure you with the heartbeat of this valley,” the volunteers at the event, participants in the workplace and campaign and corporate givers, “we’re going to beat it,” he said.

Muransky as well as other speakers throughout the kickoff breakfast reflected on the generous spirit of the Mahoning Valley, as evidenced by the volunteers who turned out this morning.

“It’s inspiring to see all of you,” YSU President Jim Tressel said. “You have no idea of the impact you’re making, the confidence you’re giving someone when you go over, whatever it is, and they see you working in an area that is important to them. It just gives them a little bit of faith, a little bit of hope, a little bit of confidence, and it’s exciting to me.”

The volunteers at the kickoff event were enthusiastic as they prepared to embark on their projects.

Preparing to head to Potential Development to paint in its classrooms and gym, Tim Shaffer, vice president and director of commercial lending and private client services at Farmers National Bank, Canfield, said the bank is committed to community outreach. “This absolutely fits what we would like to do as an organization, and that’s support our community and volunteer our time and just be good corporate citizens,” he remarked.

Allison Oltmann, marketing director for Compco Industries in Columbiana, also characterized community involvement as a cornerstone of her company. She was among the half of volunteers who were volunteering on the North Side cleanup. “We believe in helping others and striving to help Youngstown become more beautiful, and the community as a whole,” she said.

“We’ve got a deep tradition of support here in the community and it means a lot to all of our employees,” said Stephen Notar Donato, the new plant manager at General Motors Corp.’s Lordstown Complex. “This is home for them and it’s important for us to support where their home is and where their activities are and where their interests are, not only for the 4,500 people in our plant but the rest of the community as part of who we are.”

“There’s a lot of need in Youngstown,” said Angelique McKowan, project coordinator with VEC Inc. in Girard, who, like Oltmann and Notar Donato, was taking part in the North Side project. The people who live in those neighborhoods “need to be able to look out their window or walk out their door and be encouraged when they leave the house every morning,” she said. “We’re going to clean up the neighborhoods and make everything look nice for the people who live there.”

To read the full story form The Business Journal, click here. 

“The downfall of Youngstown’s South Side is one of the greatest tragedies in American urban history. It’s hard to imagine how the city as whole can survive in any meaningful way without a stabilized South Side.”

Let that harsh but realistic assessment, written on Rustwire.com last year by freelance writer and photographer Sean Posey, serve as a wake-up call and a challenge to those who dream of a renewed era of vibrant commerce along one of the city’s major population and commercial centers.

Fortunately for the future of the South Side, a group of business owners has taken up the challenge to bring new life to the long-decaying South Avenue corridor of Youngstown.

Fourteen business owners and others met late last month at a South Avenue church with Mayor John A. McNally and other city leaders to lay the groundwork for reviving the long dormant South Avenue Merchants Association. We commend the organizers of the effort and wish it success in its goals of uniting business leaders to clean up properties, clear out abandoned eyesores and build new commerce and energy along the heavily traveled thoroughfare.

Its task, however, clearly is monumental. Over the past five decades, tens of thousands of South Side residents have fled the city, leaving behind a decrepit patchwork of abandoned housing and blighted businesses. South Avenue sadly has become the poster child of desertion and decline.

Despite a domino-effect tumbling of businesses — Girves Brown Derby, the Coconut Grove, Boomba’s pirogi palace, Isaly’s Busy Bee, Krakusy Hall, the Splendid Cafe and many others — along South Avenue over the past 20 years, a core group of believers in the potential viability and renewed vitality of the corridor has stuck it out. Today, these visionaries stand as the best hope for halting the corridor’s further decline and for clearing a path for rejuvenation.

B.J. Duckworth, manager of Coca-Cola Bottling’s Youngstown plant in the corridor, said such a group is “the first step in a process to unite the businesses together to show we support the area. We’d be able to leverage resources and manpower for all the businesses to work together and be more successful.”

DRAFT AGENDA FOR ACTION

Toward that end, we urge the budding merchants’ group start with aggressive planning and meticulous organization. Recruit as many members as possible. Do the necessary paperwork to ensure proper status for grant eligibility. Draft a detailed mission statement. Plan for regular meeting dates, places and times. Organize visible and inclusive community events.

The group already has organized a large community cleanup Friday. From noon to 2 p.m., businesses along the South Avenue corridor will get down and dirty in the association’s Neighborhood Clean Sweep from noon to 2 p.m.

The association is asking business owners to sweep sidewalks, clean properties and clear nearby vacant lots of debris. We’re certain those businesses would appreciate any and all help from supporters of their mission from the South Side and all sides of the city and its suburbs.

Such sustained teamwork will make a difference in the long-term stability and potential achievements of the group. Therefore, the association should work cooperatively to strengthen its public-private sector partnership with city leaders, reach out to community groups such as the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp., and gather valuable advice from other business associations.

One such group, the Downtown Business Alliance of Youngstown, has witnessed considerable progress in reinventing and re-energizing downtown. Ten years ago, the central business was almost left for dead. Today, dozens of new businesses, industries, restaurants and specialty stores keep the downtown buzzing with activity weekdays and pulsating with thousands of diners, nightclubbers and concert goers most weekends.

A similar transformation can happen for South Avenue. Let that metamorphosis begin Friday with maximum participation and eye-turning results in the Clean Sweep.

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here. 

Friday, September 12, 2014

On Friday, September 5th, nearly 300 volunteers took to the streets to board up and clean up 21 vacant and severely blighted homes in a three block area of Youngstown's north side.

This STAND UP, FIGHT BLIGHT volunteer workday project was the centerpiece of the United Way Day of Caring regional volunteer service event and was the largest community workday event in the history of YNDC.

The project was facilitated through a partnership between United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, Green Youngstown (Youngstown Litter Control and Recycling), Lowe's Heroes (both Niles and Boardman stores were represented), Youngstown Street Department, Crandall Park Neighbors, Interfaith Home Maintenance, Marucci and Gaffney Excavating, Drop N' Chop LLC, Third Ward Councilman Nate Pinkard, Cobbin Office Tower, Keep America Beautiful, YNDC, and over 20 agencies and businesses who contributed volunteers to the event.

Volunteers boarded and secured 21 wide open vacant homes, removed 380 cubic yards of garbage and construction debris, cut down 250 cubic yards of brush and overgrowth, removed over 150 tires from illegal dumping sites, and demolished three failing and unsafe garage structures from behind the homes.

Those looking to improve their small business, start their own enterprise or learn about neighborhood development may want to attend the North Flint Reinvestment Corporation’s economic empowerment summit.

The fourth annual summit takes place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sept. 27 at Foss Avenue Baptist Church, 1159 E. Foss Ave.

Cost for the event is $25 and features breakfast, lunch, workshop materials and a gift bag.

The theme for the summit is the “Empowering families and neighborhoods through micro business enterprise and resident engagement” and will feature Ian Beriston of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation.

Reginald Flynn, president of the North Flint Reinvestment Corp. and pastor at Foss Avenue Baptist, said he visited Youngstown a couple of months ago during a trip with a contingent of Flint officials.

“They’re going into very distressed areas and having success,” Flynn said of Youngstown’s development staff. “I see a lot of similarities with Youngstown and the city of Flint.

“(Beriston) has a level of expertise in neighborhood development that is phenomenal and we’re looking to replicate that.”

Flynn hopes to attract 300 people to the event.

There will be seven different workshops available and the one hosted by FirstMerit Bank’s Lysa Davis on the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 should be especially useful to black and Hispanic business owners and entrepreneurs, Flynn said.

The act, he said, ensure that financial institutions provide capital and financial services to low-income communities where they operate.

“This year’s summit is extremely important, with so many residents desiring to see our neighborhoods developed,” Flynn said. “What we’re excited about is what transpired in Civic Park and we’re hoping to see similar developments in other neighborhoods.”

Flynn was referring to last week’s announcement that $2.6 million in federal funds will be used to knock down 225 blighted homes in one of the nation’s first subdivisions.

Call 787-9019 or visit northflintreinvestmentcorp.com for more information.

To read the full story from Bay City Times, click here. 

Tuesday, September 15, 2014

On Monday, September 15th, the YNDC Board of Directors adopted YNDC's Strategic Plan Update for 2014 through 2016.

The Strategic Plan Update reviews YNDC's mission, goals, and accomplishments since its inception. Most importantly the plan outlines YNDC's programmatic, organizational, and resource development to guide the organization through 2016.

A full copy of the plan can be downloaded below. REVITALIZE.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

YNDC is pleased to announce the winners of the 2014 Lots of Green 2.0 project competition.

All projects will be completed in early fall.

• Helping Hands - Superior St. Gardens
• Kimberly Tritt - Pointview Children and Families Garden
• Foursquare Block Watch - Project New Beginning
• Oak Hill Collaborative - Woodland Park
• DLZ Block Watch - DLZ Pocket Park
• Martin Luther Lutheran - Hope for the Newport Community Garden
• Kathryn Hawks-Haney - Give the Children a Chance
• Aline Taylor - Veggie Lane

In addition, YNDC was able to help several applicants who were not awarded projects do basic cleanup projects on their lots. Lots of Green 2.0 is a yearly vacant land reuse competition, generally announced in early summer. Please contact Liberty Merrill at (330)480-0423 with questions about this program.

Monday, September 22, 2014

On Saturday, September 20th, volunteers from Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Idora Neighborhood Association, YNDC, and Youngstown State University worked to enhance and beautify Glenwood Community Park.

Volunteers water-sealed the fence around the park, cleaned up the sidewalks, picked up trash, and mulched and re-planted the flower beds around the park sign and adjacent property where the neighborhood farmer's market is held. Materials for the project were contributed by the Youngstown Department of Parks and Recreation. This event was part of an ongoing commitment between the Parks Department and the community to make Glenwood Community Park a true asset to the surrounding neighborhoods.

The next neighborhood workday is schedule for Saturday, October 4th from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm in the Powerstown Neighborhood. Volunteers should meet at 3458 Powers Way, Youngstown, OH 44502.

For more information about the next workday or to get involved in other neighborhood revitalization efforts, please contact Jack Daugherty via email at jdaugherty@yndc.org or via phone at 330.480.0423.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Three murals have been completed this year along Glenwood Avenue--one on the Park Inn building, one on the LaFrance Cleaners building, and one near the Youngstown Playhouse.

The Park Inn mural, called “Face the Future,” was painted by Tommy Morgan, who is originally from Boardman, Ohio. The LaFrance Cleaners mural, called “Create a Better Tomorrow,” was painted by Jeremy Jarvis. The Youngstown Playhouse mural was completed by Christian Mrosko.

The Park Inn and LaFrance Cleaners murals were made possible through a grant to YNDC from the Ohio Capital Improvement Corporation. The artists were chosen by a mural selection committee, made up of local residents and artists. In the “Create a Better Tomorrow” mural, neighborhood residents are featured in the mural design itself. Residents were also given the opportunity to submit ideas for the theme of the mural through an online survey or at a public meeting, and youth were invited to sketch their own concepts for the mural at the YSU Summer Festival of the Arts. The Youngstown Playhouse mural project was funded through a Success Grant from the Raymond John Wean Foundation and managed by the Youngstown Playhouse. REVITALIZE.

Friday, September 26, 2014

YNDC has selected 10 AmeriCorps members to serve as part of its AmeriCorps REVITALIZE Project, an initiative aimed at bringing YNDC’s blight fighting efforts to neighborhoods across the city.

These AmeriCorps community service members, representing all ages and walks of life, are Youngstown residents with an interest in improving our neighborhoods and gaining basic construction and landscaping experience and training that will help them to further their career goals. They will serve at YNDC for a period of one year and focus on cleaning up, securing, and rehabilitating vacant homes and lots in strategic areas across the City in alignment with publicly-adopted Neighborhood Action Plans and Asset-Based Micro Plans.

The team started in early September and has been working on basic cleanup projects on the east and south sides in order to complete “basic training” on vacant property board-ups, vacant lot cleanups, and minor owner-occupied repair projects to prepare for their work. They began work on their first neighborhood-scale project during the week of September 22nd in the Lincoln Knolls neighborhood on the city’s east side and will proceed to the Newport and Oak Hill neighborhoods within the coming months.

The AmeriCorps REVITALIZE Project is supported through a partnership with ServeOhio, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the City of Youngstown, and The Raymond John Wean Foundation.

AmeriCorps Members serving as part of the AmeriCorps REVITALIZE Project include: Connor Johnquest, Anttwon Dent, Elena Rapone, Alvin Robinson, Olonzo Johnson, Jeff Black, Brittany Dunlap, Deon Shuler, Delante Simms , and Steven Bunetta.