This website springs from a historic Non Profit summit sponsored
by the Wean Foundation held in October 2007.  Jennie Dennison-Budak
(Interfaith Home Maintenance Service, Inc.) and Brian Corbin (Catholic Charities,
Diocese of Youngstown) facilitated a workshop challenging participants to
begin a process of discussing how we can work together in the Mahoning
Valley to reduce poverty in half by the year 2020.  That workshop invited

participants and others to continue the conversation and action regarding anti-poverty strategies.

Corbin announced that a grant from the Wean Foundation, matched by the

Catholic Campaign for Human Development of the Diocese of Youngstown,

will be used to engage local Mahoning Valley grassroot leaders,

social service clients, non profit agency leaders, public
policy experts and academics in the "PARTICIPATORY LEADERSHIP PROJECT."

The Goal of this project is to bring people together to engage in social
analysis of local, regional, and national poverty and its intersection with race,
in order to identify the factors, structures, and causes of poverty, and to discuss
steps that the community can take to reduce poverty on a systemic level,
always helping specific persons and families break the chain of poverty.

Initial steps for this PROJECT include reading various nationally
recognized resources on poverty and race, hold frank and honest
discussions, and start planning action steps that are long term and
empowering.

Dennison-Budak and Corbin announced at the workshop that they were
investigating the need for a Community Resource Center to help groups and
agencies engage in service transformation that leads to eliminating poverty.


This Project is open to anyone who wants to help reduce poverty by half by
the year 2020 in the Mahoning Valley.  Everyone is needed.