Sitemap"I live in Youngstown. I live in this community. So whenever we do work here it's not just, you know, it's not just coming in and helping somebody but it's actually impacting my neighbors and impacting my life by impacting those neighbors," Sokol said.
Sokol is the housing director at Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, which works to transform blighted neighborhoods into areas where people and businesses will invest.
"Our mission is to improve the quality of life in the city of Youngstown. Specifically, the city's neighborhoods," she said.
Sokol and a few of her colleagues are featured in a documentary airing this month called "The Place That Makes Us." It was filmed over three years by PBS and explores how Sokol and others choose to stay in their hometown and help rebuild it rather than relocate.
The idea actually started with a joke from Sokol to one of the directors.
"I was taking her around to different houses and I joked with her that I always thought that we should have our own HGTV show because I think that what we do is really important and I think that our product is really beautiful. And I think our homes are just as nice as what you see on those shows but it's also for a much deeper cause," Sokol said. "And so I thought it would be a really cool thing. And I was just kind of just dreaming a little bit and joking with her and she looked at me real seriously and said, 'Well, why would it have to be HGTV? Why not PBS?"
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