Press Coverage


Taft Promise Neighborhood is launching free community programs at Taft Elementary School, 730 E. Avondale Ave., this fall.

Welcome fellow YSU Penguins! It is our third complete week of school, and hopefully, you have had a chance to get a taste of what our university has to offer. Maybe you went to the Duquesne game, climbed the rock wall or attempted to fight off the existential dread of not knowing what life is because you sat in on a Philosophy Club meeting.

“I like helping the community and butterflies,” said Sha’lamar Vaughn, who was one of about a dozen young people, age 11-13, who worked this summer to transform two adjoining vacant lots into a nature park for people and a way station for monarch butterflies on their annual trek from Canada to Mexico.

After a breakfast Friday at the Covelli Centre, some 600 volunteers from organizations, businesses and schools split into groups to work tirelessly for the 19th annual United Way Day of Caring.

Early Friday, Dorothy Smith, 65, site coordinator
for a special painting and landscaping project at 702 E. Lucius Ave., gave out
water, juice and apples to children walking to Taft Elementary School on the
city’s South Side.