Neighborhoods

Innovations Conference 2018: Collaborating for a Healthier Mahoning Valley will take place from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Jan. 18 at the Jewish Community Center.

The event is sponsored by the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley, The William Swanston Charitable Foundation, Western Reserve Health Foundation and The Trumbull Memorial Health Foundation.

The day-long conference is aimed at strengthening skills and identifying steps to create and sustain a healthier Mahoning Valley.

Natalie Burke, president and CEO of CommonHealth Action, will be the featured speaker for the conference. Burke is an advisor for corporate leaders and communities, where she guides people and organizations to a solution. To read the full story from The Business Journal, click here.

The annual holiday parade and Christmas tree lighting in downtown Youngstown has been getting bigger every year, and this year’s event promises to be the best yet.

The five downtown-gateway art projects are the result of the INPLACE project, which was funded by a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and administered by Youngstown State University. Three of the projects have been completed for several weeks. They are a sculpture in front of The Vindicator building; a bus shelter that repurposes a shipping container on East Boardman Street; and a small outdoor stage on North Hazel Street, between Commerce Street and Rayen Avenue. The fourth and fifth projects will make their debut Friday night. A system that will use lighting technology to project messages and art on the south side of the City Hall annex when it’s complete is one. The other is the lighting of the unused concrete railway arch bridge over Mahoning Avenue, just a few blocks west of downtown. The lighting project will use the Stambaugh Building on Central Square as its canvas Friday night. The building is currently being renovated into a Doubletree Hotel. The railroad arch lighting might be the most unusual of the five projects. It was being installed this week. “If all goes well, we’ll have it turned on Friday,” said David Tamulonis, the Boardman native and Youngstown resident who was a principal designer of the project. There will be nine energy-efficient LED lights down the middle of the arch’s ceiling, and continuous LED light strips around both edges, he said. “The lights are amber, dark orange-ish, and will give the effect of a glowing steel furnace,” said Tamulonis, a recent YSU grad who is the marketing coordinator of Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation. Tamulonis was part of a group of YSU and Kent State University students who took part in a design effort put together by the McDonough Museum a few years ago. The goal was to find ways to improve the Mahoning Commons neighborhood and create links between downtown and Mill Creek Park. He based it on similar public lighting projects in other cities. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here. 

Thursday, November 30, 2017

YNDC's limited-repair program for the 2017-2018 grant period is underway.

Thirty-one projects will be completed throughout the City of Youngstown this year, with 8 already complete and 10 underway. The program is funded with CDBG funds from the City of Youngstown. Additionally, YNDC will complete 8 owner-occupied full rehab projects throughout the city, with 5 underway. The program is funded with HOME funds from they City of Youngstown. 

The Raymond John Wean Foundation has awarded grants totaling $2.12 million to four organizations for ongoing work in Mahoning Valley neighborhoods, in line with the foundation’s priorities of community revitalization, economic opportunity and educational opportunity.

Two of the awards, to Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation and Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership, will support the organizations’ role in community revitalization and their work to collectively build community capacity. Policy Matters Ohio was selected for its Making Ohio Policy Work for Mahoning Valley Families work which, in conjunction with Eastern Ohio Education Partnership, will conduct research in education policy and advocate for high-quality, accessible childcare for Valley families. Additionally, YNDC and TNP will work together with Policy Matters on research and policy assistance focused on organizing and predatory land contracts. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here.

Sitting across Mahoning Avenue just outside of downtown Youngstown is a historic archway that has been abandoned for years. 

But now, a local graduate has taken a $20,000 grant to shine a light once again on the Mahoning Avenue Archway. David Tamulonis is a graduate of Boardman High School and Youngstown State University. He now works for the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) as the marketing coordinator. YNDC is a non-profit organization that works to transform neighborhoods into meaningful places once again. While at last year’s YSU/Kent State design hack at the McDonough Museum of Art, Tamulonis came up with an idea that resulted in installing lights on the arch. “The original intent of the project was to connect satellite locations in neighborhoods like Mill Creek Park and the [Youngstown] Playhouse with the developments happening downtown,” he said. Shortly after the design hack, he included a mock-up of the design in a piece he made for the museum’s Visions of Potential exhibition. Now, there are energy efficient LED lights on all sides of the archway, both east and west facing, and underneath the arch. To read more, click here. 

At its December board meeting, The Raymond John Wean Foundation awarded four local organizations grants totaling $2.12 million. 

Two of the grants were made to Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. and Trumbull Neighborhood Partnershipto support the organizations’ community revitalization efforts. “From partnering on issues important to residents to lifting the resident voice in various capacities, our strategic partnership with YNDC and TNP has shifted siloed work into a collaborative effort in support of community revitalization in the Valley,” said Wean Foundation President Jennifer Roller in a release. A grant was also awarded to Policy Matters Ohio to support its Making Ohio Policy Work for Mahoning Valley Families program. Alongside the Eastern Ohio Education Partnership, the program conducts research on education policy and advocates for accessible childcare. To read the full story from The Business Journal, click here.

The impact of home ownership on a community is hard to overstate. 

Kids who grow up in a house their parents own are more likely to stay in school until 17, score higher in math and reading and are twice as likely to enroll in college. A 2014 study found that homeowners are 2.5% more likely to have good health than renters, a number that jumps to 3.1% when adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic and housing characteristics. Being a homeowner increases one’s sense of control, reducing the risk of mental health issues. In areas with higher rates of homeownership, crime rates drop. A 2010 study found that between 2002 and 2007, a 1% increase in foreclosure rates resulted in an expected increase in burglaries of 10%. “There are studies that show how it affects educational achievement, work achievement, general family stability,” says Tiffany Sokol, chief lending officer for Revitalize Home Mortgage. “Because of that, it impacts so many other things in the lives of the people we serve,” she says. “Home-ownership is one of the most important things we do and it plays a key role in the revitalization of the neighborhoods.” Sokol also serves as housing director for Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. In the 2015 American Community survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, 55.9% of houses in Youngstown were owner-occupied, with 44.1% occupied by renters. “It stabilizes the community,” says June Johnson, the Community Reinvestment Act compliance assistant coordinator for Home Savings Bank and a member of the YNDC board. “Renters don’t have the equity in the home. Homeowners are going to take care of that property. They’re going to keep up with payments. They’ll stay in a property for the long term.” Because of those figures, the community development corporation is launching Revitalize Home Mortgage, offering home loans to those who don’t meet traditional banks’ criteria. RHM is a separate organization from YNDC, Sokol notes. Revitalize Home Mortgage has roots in a program YNDC ran in 2012 to provide mortgages to first-time homebuyers. Supported by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, Home Savings Bank, the Raymond John Wean Foundation and the city of Youngstown, the program provided 24 mortgages that year, Sokol says. To read the full story from The Business Journal, click here. 

On Friday, December 8, 2017

The Raymond John Wean Foundation awarded a two year general operating grant to YNDC for $1,050,000.

The grant will fund YNDC operations, programmatic activity, and neighborhood organizing throughout 2018 and 2019. The Raymond John Wean Foundation is a family foundation established in 1949, in Warren, Ohio, which awards grants to a variety of nonprofit organizations in support of its vision to empower residents to create a healthy, vibrant, equitable and economically stable Mahoning Valley. YNDC is sincerely grateful for the ongoing support of The Raymond John Wean Foundation. YNDC could not do its work without this support and partnership. REVITALIZE.

Monday, December 18, 2017

On Monday, December 11, The Western Reserve Health Foundation awarded YNDC a $100,000 grant to make improvements at four city parks.

The project seeks to increase physical activity and improve health outcomes in Youngstown’s neighborhoods through strategic investments in the built environment and fitness programming at four city parks including: Homestead, John White, Glenwood, and Crandall, that serve the highest numbers of children in the city. The improvements will make physical activity easier, more attractive, and more accessible to the city’s most vulnerable youth populations. Many thanks to The Western Reserve Health Foundation!

The Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley is operated exclusively for charitable, educational, and scientific purposes which effectively assist and promote the well-being of residents of Mahoning and Trumbull Counties. Information can be found at www.cfmv.org.

If Act I was about reorganizing and rearranging old props and Act II centered on making aesthetic improvements, then you could safely say the show’s main themes were community improvement and strengthening partnerships.

“We see the [Youngstown] Playhouse as a tremendous anchor in the community,” said Jack Daugherty, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.’s neighborhood stabilization director. “We want to help the Playhouse realize its full potential to Youngstown’s neighborhoods.”

Daugherty spent time in a warehouse on the property carefully hoisting a series of antique wooden chairs to a narrow loft that also contained old desks, bureaus and cabinets, then carefully organizing the furniture. Both duties were the main parts of volunteer work he performed during a neighborhood cleanup effort Saturday at the Playhouse, off Glenwood Avenue just south of downtown.

A primary aim of the cleanup, which was the latest of YNDC’s monthly workdays, was to fight blight as part of an effort to beautify the city’s Idora Neighborhood. Inclement weather prevented outdoor work from being done, however.

Twenty-five to 30 volunteers, including Youngstown State University students, were in the warehouse and backstage organizing or discarding numerous large and small props that had been used as stage sets. A primary goal was to make everything easier to find, noted John Cox, Playhouse board president. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here.