Neighborhoods

The SNAP benefit Double Up Food Bucks program is starting at Sparkle Market on Parkman Road in Warren.

For every $5 spent using SNAP benefits on fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, the customer gets a matching $5 produce perks voucher. The voucher allows them to get another $5 worth of fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables for free.

Eating healthy is something organizers of this program say is very important for all people. To read the full story from WKBN, click here.

An initiative to redevelop a property on Glenwood Avenue in Youngstown and put it back into use moved forward Wednesday, when the Western Reserve Port Authority board approved the property’s sale to the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.

The authority had agreed earlier this year to buy the former Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley warehouse and office building at 2246 Glenwood Ave., lease it to YNDC for 18 months, then sell it to YNDC. Thanks in part to a $150,000 award from the Wells Fargo/U.S. Conference of Mayors CommunityWINS grant program, YNDC was able to buy the building sooner than planned, YNDC executive director Ian Beniston said. Beniston said YNDC will improve the property, then seek out three to five businesses to rent office space there. “We’re making a series of basic improvements as well as enhancing the quality of the space and the aesthetics of it, then we’ll be working with local businesses, some city and minority-owned businesses, that need move-in-ready office space,” he said. He said the goal is to have the building fixed up sometime this fall. Although no final agreements have been signed, Beniston said YNDC has some prospective tenants interested in renting there. “We think it’s going to be a productive facility and an asset to the neighborhood once the improvements have been made” and YNDC attract businesses, he said. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here.

Thursday, August 16, 2018

On Thursday, August 16, the Finance Fund awarded a $25,000 predevelopment grant to YNDC for a new construction project to create affordable housing in Youngstown.

Please stay tuned for more information as this exciting project progresses. Many thanks to the Finance Fund for the support!

Friday, August 17, 2018

On Friday, August 17, 2018, the First Place Fund of the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley awarded YNDC with a $2,500 grant for Corridor Improvement Corps.

The Corridor Improvement Corps is a comprehensive revitalization strategy aimed at improving public health, safety, and quality of life for residents by leveraging AmeriCorps members and community volunteers to complete physical improvements to Youngstown’s neighborhood corridors. The improvements will include 1) cleaning up and painting blighted walls and facades of vacant buildings, 2) cleaning up and clearing overgrowth from vacant lots littered with debris, 3) planting hearty urban trees, 4) installing split rail fencing along vacant lots, 5) replacing broken and unsafe sidewalks, 6) installing covered benches at public spaces and bus stops, and 7) improving corridor lighting and signage around public spaces and corridor businesses. When applied systematically, these improvements will restore a basic sense of order to Youngstown’s corridors and will result in sustainable improvements to the safety and quality of life for Youngstown’s residents. Many thanks to the First Place Fund of the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley for their support!

The City Club of the Mahoning Valley will have a free community panel discussion with three national experts from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 11 at the Youngstown Playhouse called “Revitalizing Youngstown: A Candid Conversation About Challenge & Opportunity.”

Ian Beniston, executive director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp., will moderate the discussion and panelists will be Evelyn Burnett, co-founder and partner of ThirdSpace Action Lab and ThirdSpace Cafe, who was raised on Youngstown’s East Side; Presley L. Gillespie, president of Neighborhood Allies, who has spend most of his adult life living and working in Youngstown; and Alan Mallach, a national expert on urban development who has advised several revitalization efforts in Youngstown over the past 10 years and written a new book, “The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America.”

The panel will build on the ideas and strategies highlighted in Mallach’s book and discussion will focus on what Youngstown must do to continue and strengthen revitalization efforts to improve the quality of life for all residents. Topics may include continued improvement in the school system, dealing with the city’s looming financial deficit and reduction of poverty and will integrate lessons from Cleveland and Pittsburgh. For the full story from The Vindicator, click here. 

Monday, August 20, 2018

On Saturday, August 18, 13 volunteers worked to clean up
vacant lots on High Street near Glenwood Avenue at the Idora Neighborhood
Workday.

Volunteers from the Four Square Block Watch, Freedom Church, Hope for
Renewal/Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and YSU Honors College reclaimed
432 linear feet of sidewalks and removed 30 cubic yards of brush. We’d like to
thank the volunteers who dedicated their time to help revitalize Youngstown!

Monday, August 20, 2018

On Friday, August 17, 100 volunteers from Grove City College worked to clean up vacant lots on High Street near Glenwood Avenue.

Volunteers reclaimed 865 linear feet of sidewalks and removed 20 cubic yards of brush, 7 cubic yards of debris, and 39 illegally-dumped tires. We’d like to thank the resident assistants and resident directors of Grove City College who dedicated their time to help revitalize Youngstown!

Monday, August 27, 2018

On Tuesday, August 21, the Home Savings Charitable Foundation awarded a $15,000 grant to YNDC for the creation of the Glenwood Business Center. 

The grant award funds will be used to renovate 2246 Glenwood Avenue, a vacant commercial building that will attract businesses to the Greater Glenwood Avenue Corridor on the south side of Youngstown. Many thanks to the Home Savings Charitable Foundation!

Victoria Allen was multitasking.

Allen, founder and president of the ICU Block Watch on the city’s South Side, was helping a pair of volunteers lay out taco toppings on a plastic table while simultaneously signing delivery invoices and directing a large truck hauling a room filled with video games to a nearby parking space.

Rain clouds had opened up above the parking lot of Pleasant Grove Presbyterian Church on Southern Boulevard, forcing Allen to huddle under a canopy with a pair of volunteers from the block watch. Despite the weather, they were determined to ensure the 10th “Southside Summer Experience” of the season — featuring free food, music and games for neighborhood children — would be ready to go for any families willing to brave the rain.

This wasn’t Allen’s first or fifth or 10th community organizing event; she founded the ICU Block Watch in 2010, hoping that open communication and monthly meetings might be a catalyst for an improvement in her neighborhood. To read the full story from The Vindicator, click here. 

Monday, August 27, 2018

On Saturday, August 25, forty-three volunteers from the YSU Honors College helped to clean out 1720 Glenwood Avenue.

The volunteers removed 4 tires and 60 cubic yards of brush and debris from the inside and outside of the property. We would like to thank the YSU Honors College for their hard work and dedication!