Organizations Chosen for This Year’s Holiday Lights Campaign
Here is information about each of the 18 non-profits that have been chosen for the WRTA Holiday Lights campaign. We urge you to support these organizations and the good work they do in the Valley.
Animal Charity
Animal Charity is Mahoning County’s humane society, providing a humane agent to protect animals from abuse neglect and abandonment. After providing medical care to the animals we rescue they are placed up for adoption in to loving homes. We also provide affordable veterinary services to the public through the Jean Kelty Vet Clinic.
Buster’s Brigade
Buster’s Brigade is a 501(c)3 organization committed to providing financial and material assistance for the basic and emergency needs of dogs and cats in Mahoning County and surrounding areas. Our goal is to work with our community to help families keep their pets healthy and at home.
- Our Pet Food Pantry focuses on making sure families who need temporary pet food receive help, through the local approved food pantries.
- Buster’s Brigade works with families who can no longer keep their pets due to illness, age or financial constraints.
- We work in conjunction with the YSU Pre Veterinary Society to provide a low-cost vaccine clinic twice a year. These clinics includes free wellness exams, plus low- cost tests and vaccines to the community. Our 2019 clinics serviced 235 pets.
- Buster’s Brigade continues to help pay vetting bills for pets whose owners cannot afford the treatments necessary to bring their pets back to health. In 2020 we have provided over $12,000 in vetting to area pets.
Cadence Care Network
Cadence Care Network is a non-profit agency focusing on the emotional well-being of children, teenagers and adults, as well as the treatment and placement of youth in compassionate, qualified foster homes in the Mahoning Valley. Cadence Care Network serves 1,400 children and their families annually in their own home, community, or through office-based treatment.
Compass Family and Community Services
COMPASS helps individuals and families build better lives and a stronger community. Our core values are to:
- Treat everyone with Dignity and Respect
- Be Ethical, Honest and have Integrity
- Be Team-Oriented with a Commitment to Excellence
- Be Engaged, Supportive, and Resilient
- Be Accountable and Responsible to persons served, COMPASS and Community
COMPASS’ core services consist of a variety of programs with established purposes and goals that tie directly back to the Agency’s mission statement and values. These core services include Behavioral Health Services, Social Services and Workforce Development.
The Down Syndrome Association of the Valley
The Down Syndrome Association of the Valley, a local 501(c)3, nonprofit organization serving eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, is committed to providing individuals with Down syndrome and their families the resources needed to lead successful, productive lives. DSAV provides enriching experiences, programs and grants to members, which foster that personal growth and pride in accomplishment. Membership is free.
Emmanuel Community Care Center
Emmanuel Community Care Center (ECCC), a program of Humility of Mary Housing, provides three programs to assist persons in need:
- Outreach Services: ECCC provides food, clothing and holiday assistance to individuals/families in need residing in Girard, Liberty, Mineral Ridge and McDonald.
- Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Assistance: ECCC provides assistance to qualified individuals/families residing in Trumbull County who are homeless or at immanent risk of homelessness to help them obtain or maintain housing.
- Permanent Supportive Housing: ECCC, in collaboration with Coleman Professional Services, provides permanent supportive housing to homeless individuals/families with a disability in need of supportive housing.
Mercy Health Resource Mothers Program
Resource Mothers program website
The Mercy Health Resource Mothers Program plays a critical role in helping underserved, high-risk pregnant and new mothers to access health care, resources, information and social support needed to have a healthy pregnancy, birth and lifestyle.
Meridian HealthCare
Meridian HealthCare is a non-profit 501(c)(3), CARF accredited, integrated behavioral and primary healthcare organization with over 45 years of high-quality service delivery in the Mahoning Valley.
Since 1974, Meridian’s mission has been to eliminate addiction by working with individuals and their families through recognition, prevention, consultation, healthcare, communication, support, and treatment in a manner that is person-centered and respects the dignity of every person.
Meridian offers a comprehensive approach to addiction that includes prevention, treatment, recovery support, housing, primary care, mental health, criminal justice services and much more.
Potential Development
Potential Development is a pre-K through grade 12 school for students with autism. Our mission is to provide children with autism a safe, structured education that empowers them with the skills to reach their fullest potential in life. Our comprehensive program provides individualized instruction by a team of experts to ensure all students have a safe and educational environment to thrive in. We focus on structured teaching, highly visual planning and organization strategies, and predictable environments to help learners on the autism spectrum to become more independent.
At the same time, our school exposes the student to the Common Core Academic Standards for language arts, math, science and social studies. Report cards are issued quarterly to reflect student progress in each subject area. In addition to academic instruction, we help students develop social, communication, adaptive and life skills, and we offer physical, occupational and speech therapy for students who qualify.
The Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County
The Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County, incorporated as the Reuben McMillan Free Library Association, serves all citizens of Mahoning County, Ohio. We connect people and communities to reliable resources that inspire learning and foster enrichment.
We operate 15 branches in Mahoning County as well as Special Delivery for homebound residents.
The Library’s Vision
- Provide excellence in customer service
- Be the best source for knowledge, exploration of ideas, and leisure learning in Mahoning County
- Provide reliable information and answers for those that seek them
- Be adaptable, dynamic, and innovative by being responsive to both the community and the changing library industry
- Assure equitable access to library services and materials throughout Mahoning County
- Create welcoming environments and spaces that enrich the communities they service
- Connect people to the community and world they live in
Rich Center for Autism
The Rich Center for Autism was established in 1995 through the collaborative efforts of the Kosar, Rich (Ricchiuti), and Rubino families who have a shared interest in autism. In collaboration with Youngstown State University, The Rich Center for Autism’s mission is to improve education experiences and outcomes for individuals with autism and their families through teaching, research and community engagement.
SCOPE Senior Services
SCOPE stands for “Senior Citizens Opportunity for Personal Endeavors.” We’re a private not-for-profit organization whose main goal and objective is to assist older persons (50+) in maintaining their independence and being part of the community.
SCOPE Senior Services serves 3,800 citizens per year with over 800 members, making it the largest senior citizen organization in Trumbull County.
We operate eight centers in Warren, Howland, Niles, Champion, Cortland, Lordstown, Ravenna and Hartville serving adults with recreational, fitness, educational, and socialization programming.
SCOPE also has a Supportive Services division, whose focus is to support the individual with information and referral, Medicare/Medicaid assistance, protective services, prescription assistance, financial, housing assistance. SCOPE also serves as a Representative Payee for 20 clients.
In 2015, SCOPE began delivering free groceries to homebound seniors and disabled residents. Starting in 2018, SCOPE began its SOS (Support Our Seniors) project where SCOPE staff visit seniors in the homes or apartments to check up on them.
Second Harvest Food Bank
www.mahoningvalleysecondharvest.org
Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley, a member of Feeding America, provides food to those in need in the tri-county area through 160 programs provided by hunger-relief organizations, which include church pantries, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, shelters for battered women, and after-school programs.
In 2019, the Food Bank distributed more than 11.5 million pounds of food, including 3.4 million pounds of produce.
Sight for All United
Sight for All United (SFAU) was established in August 2016 as a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization that is driven to help all people achieve their best vision. Founded by two caring and concerned citizens, Karen Segesto and Sergul Erzurum, Sight for All United seeks to increase access by decreasing financial barriers and helping individuals navigate through the complex medical system.
The SFAU mission statement is to HEAL: Help every person reach his/her visual potential; Educate the community on impact of poor eyesight; Awareness of eye health and vision issues; and Lift barriers for access to care.
SFAU is also active in patient and community outreach through Sight for All United’s Doctors for Sight, a network of over 43 local ophthalmologists and optometrists; Women for Sight, our community fundraising group; and two partner student organizations at the Northeast Ohio Medical University and at the Youngstown State University.
Sight for All United to date has had 222 patients who completed applications that were assisted in receiving vision/surgical services.
Someplace Safe
Someplace Safe is Trumbull County’s only domestic violence service provider. We have been offering services to our community for over 41 years, and over those years we have expanded the services we have available in order to best meet the needs of those we serve.
Someplace Safe offers emergency shelter, case management, educational/support groups, housing advocacy, outreach, legal advocacy, youth services, community education, an intimate partner violence support group (in-house and within the community), a transitional housing program, and a 24-hour support and information crisis line or web-based chat.
The comprehensive intervention program includes a shelter with around-the-clock intake and crisis intervention, outreach and advocacy services for victims and children, aftercare services, housing assistance, ongoing support, education and follow-up. As specialists in the area of Intimate Partner and Family Violence, Someplace Safe’s staff educates the community with the overall goal of preventing and ending violence within families.
Ursuline Sisters HIV/AIDS Ministry
The Ursuline Sisters HIV/AIDS Ministry has been serving men, women, and children in the Mahoning Valley living with and affected by HIV/AIDS for nearly 30 years. Our services for those living with HIV/AIDS include medical care, housing, food, children’s programming, and a monthly support group.
The HIV/AIDS Ministry is a program of the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown, which has been meeting the spiritual, emotional, educational, and health needs of the community since 1874.
Western Reserve Independent Living Center
Western Reserve Independent Living Center gives people with disabilities the option to live in and choose their own level of community inclusion. We are a comprehensive disabilities information and resource center for the Mahoning Valley, serving Ashtabula, Columbiana, Mahoning, and Trumbull Counties with five core services:
- Information and referral networking
- Peer support
- Advocacy, both individual and systemic
- Independent living skills training
- Transitioning of youth from school to the community (Pre-Ets) and nursing home transition back into the community
We also provide emergency preparedness and fair housing education, as well as computer classes and awareness of available resources in the community.
Youngstown Community Food Center/Gleaners Food Bank
www.youngstowncommunityfoodcenter.org
Youngstown Community Food Center and Gleaners Food Bank, located near downtown Youngstown, feeds families each Tuesday morning, 52 weeks a year. We are a non-profit, no-fee organization that has been in existence since 1986 — supplying food and non-food items to the less fortunate at no cost to them.
We distribute goods weekly to individual families and currently on a monthly basis supply 110+ church food pantries, women’s crisis shelters, veterans centers, schools, minority organizations, elderly housing complexes, those on a fixed income — in short, the less-fortunate families here in our several-county sphere of operation. We are currently providing for over 7,590 families a month with food and non-food items, and that number continues to grow. We provide all of our goods without any fees or cost.
