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Whereas, Saleem Ghubril, a Presbyterian minister, founded The Pittsburgh Project in 1985 as a church summer project to keep youths busy fixing homes - or, as their website puts it, “25 years ago, a ragtag group of visionaries and risk-takers put down roots on Pittsburgh's North Side, their offer to neighbors: 'Put us to work however you like'”; and
Whereas, The Pittsburgh Project became nondenominational and expanded to a year-round program that last year repaired 240 homes, that runs day camps and an after-school program to help young people with homework, and that provides leadership training and preparation for college and the workplace; and
Whereas, in these 25 years, The Pittsburgh Project has repaired over 1,500 homes for some of the most needy, isolated, and vulnerable among us; has engaged two generations of young persons in afterschool programs and summer camps; has sent scores of young leaders to college; and has transformed an abandoned baseball field in to a beautiful farm; and
WHEREAS, in the last three years, The Pittsburgh Project has launched and expanded an Urban Farming Initiative in which staff, neighbors, and students are reclaiming vacant land for garden space, seeing young people getting trained in ecology, nutrition, and environmental stewardship, and establishing a Farmer's Market, the first of its kind in the Perry Hilltop area; and
Whereas, The Pittsburgh Project employs a year-round staff of 57, serving 450 urban young persons in its progressive series of afterschool and summer programs; The Pittsburgh Project deploys over 2,800 people annually to perform free home repairs for Pittsburgh's in-need elderly homeowners; and The Pittsburgh Project spearheads economic development and job training efforts here in Pittsburgh;
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NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Council of the City of Pittsburgh, does hereby congratulate The Pittsburgh Project on 25 years of serving the public and contributing to the greater...
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