Nonprofits Archives - Page 14 of 16

When I was growing up in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County’s parks were special places to me. I learned to ski at Boyce Park, and my family had fall picnics at Hartwood Acres. As an adult, I’ve explored them in different ways—mountain biking, rollerblading and going to concerts. And since November, when I became executive director of …

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Environment

Our Endangered River

by Jeffery Fraser

It’s a crisp November morning, some 25 years ago. Bob Ging and Don Gales are hunting on a ridge in Lower Turkeyfoot, Somerset County, where green hemlocks mingle with bare winter hardwoods. “Boy, this is beautiful,” says Ging as sunrise reveals the emerald waters of Laurel Hill Creek in the valley. Gales has a timber …

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Region

Have We Turned the Corner?

by John G. Craig, Jr.

The recession of 2007-2009: I am sticking my neck way out… but I bet that when we look back 10 years from now, the last two years will be seen as the tipping point for the Pittsburgh region, a time when we finally got four decades of negative history behind us. The national recession, which …

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Nonprofits

Beyond the Neighborhood

by Maxwell King

For those of us raising families in the 1970s and 1980s, Fred Rogers was that patient, soft-spoken gentleman who made extraordinary connections to our children on the same TV set that usually carried appallingly bad programming. Fred certainly was that wonderful television teacher, but he was much more. He was the genius behind the most …

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Region

Underlying Problems/Solutions

by John G. Craig, Jr.

The impact of population decline was very much in the news at the end of last year, a reminder that, for all the accolades at the recent G-20 Summit about Pittsburgh having moved beyond its industrial past, painful choices still face the region, particularly its local governments and major service institutions. I have in mind …

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Education

Thank You for the Dance

by PQ Staff

Every Tuesday and Wednesday morning last fall, students in Laurie Collier’s and Maureen Kedzuf’s fifth-grade class lined up in escort position at Arlington Accelerated Academy and headed to the gymnasium to dance. They were among the more than 300 fifth-graders from six elementary schools participating in Dancing Classrooms’ inaugural year in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. …

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Region

Risking Women’s Health

by John G. Craig, Jr.

If I told you that breast cancer kills Pittsburgh women at a higher rate than women in other cities, and that Pittsburgh women die of heart attacks at a higher rate than women in other cities, what would you say? And what if I compounded the negativity by telling you that African American women are …

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Education

I, Teacher

by Chris Allison

Early in Isaac Asimov’s speculative fiction classic “I, Robot,” a little girl named Gloria becomes more attached to a robot named Robbie than to her own parents. Originally wary of Robbie, Gloria’s parents grow to love and respect the tin man after it saves their little munchkin’s life by sweeping her away from the path …

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Region

Pittsburgh’s Stealth Renaissance

by Justin Hopper

When it was announced 12 years ago that Jared Cohon would become president of Carnegie Mellon, he returned to his Yale office to find a bouquet of flowers. The name on the card read Mark Nordenberg, chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. It was the beginning of a relationship between Cohon, Nordenberg and UPMC President …

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Region

Greening the Region

by Dan Onorato

The G-20 Summit provides southwestern Pennsylvania with an unprecedented opportunity to share its compelling story with the world. Ours is the tale of a region dramatically transformed by foresight and innovation, which have led to a remarkable economic and environmental revival. After the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s, our region worked hard …

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Region

You’ve come a long way, city

by John G. Craig, Jr.

The 2009 Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranks Pittsburgh 52nd in the world. This annual report aims at an international business audience and compares 215 cities based on 39 criteria. Among the most important are: Political/economic stability, safety, education, hygiene, recreation and transportation. Each city is indexed against New York (100). The top five cities …

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Nonprofits

Personal Investment

by PQ Staff

As a Pittsburgh police commander, Gwen Elliott knew the struggles of girls in the city’s toughest neighborhoods. When she retired in 2002, she founded Gwen’s Girls, a nonprofit that would look out for them. But from the beginning, Elliott knew it needed to grow. That’s where Pittsburgh Social Venture Partners came in. Operating on the idea …

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Region

Life After (And With) Steel

by John G. Craig, Jr.

With recession upon us and its attendant unease, taking stock is an unavoidable activity for people like me in the information business. The exercise is made more intense because the past 30 years in Pittsburgh have been times of high drama that attracted international attention and visitors coming to see for themselves. They ask about …

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Education

Pittsburgh’s College Corridor

by PQ Staff

What conjures an image of fun and vitality more than the phrase “college town”? And especially clear in an economy like the present one, what industry offers more stability in roiling financial seas than a solid stable of universities? Western Pennsylvania is home to dozens. At their hub is a group of seven, making a …

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Education

Strategy in the Ivory Tower

by Reid R. Frazier

The wrecking ball that has moved through the U.S. economy, taking down investment banks, fitness chains and donut shops, is threatening a group of institutions not usually mentioned on the nightly business report. Colleges and universities across western Pennsylvania and the country are bracing for the impact from unemployment, weak credit and stock markets and …

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Education

All the Comforts of Home — and Then Some

by Jeffery Fraser

In January, The Pennsylvania Board of Education’s Higher Education Council tossed out this idea for a new kind of institution of higher learning: A no-frills, low-cost college where kids could earn a bachelor’s degree sans the on-campus fitness centers, climbing walls, as-comfy-as-home dorm rooms and other expensive amenities found on many campuses today. An emphasis …

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Nonprofits

Going to Town

by Bette McDevitt

When John Stahl-Wert, then pastor of the Mennonite church in Pittsburgh, received a request from the national Church to design a program to strengthen the Mennonite community and impact the city, he knew what was needed. “I went home that evening and wrote on a single piece of paper that we would create a one-year, …

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Education

Making a Promise

by Alecia Dean

Pittsburgh has a way of weaseling itself into one’s heart. My wife, a Midwestern girl raised in Sioux City, and I, an Arab boy born in Lebanon, moved to Pittsburgh in 1984. We brought with us our 3-month-old daughter, youthful idealism, boundless energy and lots of naïve inexperience. Into this mix, one year later, were …

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Region

Global City: The Vietnamese are Here

by Thomas Buell Jr.

Father Dam Nguyen presides over the flock at St. Gabriel’s Church of the Sorrowful Virgin in the South Hills town of Whitehall. Several in the congregation share his Vietnamese heritage, and more often these days he finds himself given the joyful task of presiding at the marriage or baptism of one of their children or …

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Region

50 Years Ago…

by Alecia Dean

To understand the culture of a region, one must consider how its residents view themselves, especially during a milestone event such as a major anniversary celebration. So, as Pittsburgh commemorates its 250th birthday, I decided to look in my library for several brochures from the city’s 1958 bicentennial. On the surface, looking back 50 years …

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Region

A Grand Idea: Pittsburgh 250

by Alecia Dean

It really was George Washington’s “grand idea”—the Potomac River was the true Gateway to the West. Joel Achenbach writes about it in The Grand Idea—connecting the tidewater of the Potomac to the headwaters of the Ohio would secure Virginia’s leadership among the new American states. So, perhaps it’s no surprise that almost 250 years later, …

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Region

Safety in Numbers?

by John G. Craig, Jr.

Pittsburgh is a safe city. Pittsburgh is a safe region. This has long been the case, and the latest data on crime indicate that the shoe still fits. These four statements need to be tempered, however. This is because with public safety what matters is not regional or municipal crime rates as much as whatis …

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