For Good

"Jewish" and "theater" have long gone together, but Tito Braunstein's Jewish Theatre of Pittsburgh has been missing from the local scene for five years.
 
That changed this summer, when That's Life opened to reviews and attendance that pleased the 83-year-old founding artistic director and producer of the local nonprofit venture -- although he admits "re-launching is more difficult than launching. It could have been better. It could always be better."
Now Driving Miss Daisy is set to open on Nov. 7 and will play on Nov. 8, 10, 13, 14 and 15 at 8 p.m. and for Sunday matinees on Nov. 11 and 18 at 2 p.m. at Rodef Shalom in Oakland.
 
During the hiatus, Braunstein says, he heard former audience members ask him, "'When are you going to have your next play? We miss your theater.' My wife finally said, 'If you don't start it again, you may be kicking yourself in the pants for the rest of your life.'"
 
The Jewish Theatre's official mission is to offer theater "that explores ideas of community and humanity from both a Jewish perspective and other perspectives as well."
 
"We try to be welcoming … but we produce plays that have Jewish character, Jewish perspectives and Jewish life," Braunstein says. Still, he adds, "it's not just for Jewish people -- to the contrary." For Driving Miss Daisy, for instance, Braunstein has been trying to get an audience from local African American churches, since the play is about the relationship between black and Jewish characters.
 
"There are a lot of our Jewish people who are not well-informed" about Jewish issues, he says. "We want to provide a stage for new ideas and old standards -- plays that have been held in high esteem through the years."
 
Future seasons depend on how much audience support and financial support the Jewish Theatre receives, of course. As Braunstein says: "I'm willing to give my heart and soul, my passion and life to it."

For Good:
Help the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh aid many causes, locally and nationally, by clicking here.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Tito Braunstein, Jewish Theatre of Pittsburgh

The benefits for families who eat home-cooked meals together and actually talk to each other, with the television off, are clear. According to the national Let’s Move! Campaign to decrease childhood obesity -- including Let's Move! Pittsburgh -- Americans already eat 31 percent more calories than we did in 1970, including 56 percent more fats and oils and 14 percent more sugars or sweeteners. All that fast food is a big contributor to obesity in kids. Eating home-cooked food together, on the other hand, teaches kids what and how to eat.
 
The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (you have their cookbook, don't you?) has found 68 scientific studies that showed “the more a family ate together the less children consumed dietary components thought to be harmful to health."
 
And most home-cooking is simply healthier for you, says Jamie Oliver, famed British chef and television personality. He was in town this month to challenge attendees at the One Young World conference, and the world, to take action on this issue by joining his "Food Revolution." "Inspired by Jamie Oliver," says Liz Fetchin, Let's Move! Pittsburgh created 10,000 Tables, which aims to get 10,000 Pittsburgh families to add one more home-cooked, television-free meal to each week. Fetchin, spokesperson for Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens (whose head, Richard V. Piacentini, directs Let's Move! Pittsburgh), says the group wanted to come up with a reasonable initiative that could be accomplished over the next year.

Other local organizations also joined in. The City of Pittsburgh aims to increase farmers markets, bikeways and trails, and to increase participation in its CityFit Wellness at Work initiative for employees. Whole Foods will work through its school garden grant program, while the Eat'n Park Hospitality Group's LifeSmiles program will continue a $1 million/20,000 volunteer-hour investment in health and wellness initiatives for families. UPMC's Dining Smart program in 2013 will seek to bring healthier meal and vending choices to its more than 50,000 employees and promote it to other employers, and Propel Schools will increase its use of healthy food choices and My Plate Guidelines for its students.
 
"Most families are eating in front of the TV or are eating separately -- it's because they are so busy," Fetchin allows. Let's Move! hopes this movement to cook at home and eat together will encourage families to enjoy the health benefits more often.
 
Is the participation of 10,000 families realistic? "We sure hope so," Fetchin says. "We think that it will really catch on. We hope to do a lot of outreach," including to neighborhoods where fresh food is not as readily available. Let's Move! soon will be handing out recipes and shopping lists at Giant Eagles and other locations throughout the area, and will be offering cooking demonstrations there and elsewhere.
 
Jamie Oliver has not announced plans to come back to Pittsburgh yet, but, says Fetchin, Let's Move! hopes 10,000 Tables will be so successful that Oliver will be inspired to return to celebrate his Food Revolution again in Pittsburgh.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Liz Fetchin, Let's Move! Pittsburgh

Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference (TRETC) has always been about the best ways to teach kids using the latest tech innovations. But this year organizers are aiming to get even more kids and more people outside the teaching profession involved.
 
Students from Winchester Thurston School and the South Fayette School District will lead pre-conference workshops on app development and the computer language Scratch, while pre-conference keynoter Brian Waniewski, from the Institute of Play in New York City, will talk about its model for learning.
 
According to TRETC organizer Justin Driscoll of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, last year the conference attracted representatives of 100 school districts, while this year the event hopes to add more attendees from nonprofits and higher education institutions.
 
"TRETC showcases the best of the region and pulls in national presenters as well," says Norton Gusky, another TRETC organizers, allowing participants to see "what are some of the great things that are happening in our region -- the innovations that at the same time reflect national and global trends." The 2012 conference is set for Nov. 13-14 at The Regional Learning Alliance in Marshall Township.
 
Collaborations with other local groups will bring to TRETC such new features as the Spark Creativity Zone, highlighting some of the local projects at the intersection of the arts and technology supported by The Sprout Fund's Spark program. Other TRETC collaborative partners include the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the Senator John Heinz History Center and Carnegie Science Center.

The keynote address by internationally renowned educator Gary Stager, says Gusky, "will force people to think about what it means to integrate technology into education. We need to think about what doesn't work. We need to challenge ourselves, and Gary does that."
 
Colorado teacher Aaron Sams, who is now living in Pittsburgh, will present his work creating Flipping the Classroom, a movement to have students do homework as part of classroom instruction and save the traditional class activities, such as listening to lectures, for their homework.
 
TRETC's Digital Playground will include a specially designed MAKEshop from the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. "It will let people play with new technologies," says Gusky, "so people can see this whole world of building, making and tinkering and see what this has to do with learning: How do you engage learners and give them the tools … to make something new?"
 
He adds that, without existing efforts in Pittsburgh to combine arts, teaching and technology, TRETC would not be possible.
 
"Part of why this is happening is because of what the Kids + Creativity movement started," Gusky concludes. "Without the Kids + Creativity movement, we wouldn't see the kinds of collaborations we're seeing today."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Sources: Norton Gusky and Justin Driscoll, TRETC

From Pittsburgh park habitués to people who wouldn't know an Oval from a Blue Slide, everyone wants the same things once they go deeper into city parks and hit the trails: a trail map and the locations of bathrooms and water fountains. They also want a schedule of park activities and some way to report a park issue to authorities, a recent Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy survey found.
 
So it's high time for a Pittsburgh Parks app, says Conservancy Vice President Mike Sexauer. "There are psychological barriers to people walking on a heavily wooded trail," he notes -- especially in Frick Park, where there are no interior roads. "Once people take a few steps down a trail and can no longer see where they're parked, [they] sometimes need extra reassurance that they can find their way back."
 
The app is being funded by UPMC Health Plan -- "a natural partner," Sexauer says, given that the app will try to "get more people into the parks for the mental and physical health benefits" -- and designed by Deeplocal for smart phones. It will cover Schenley, Frick, Highland, Riverview and Emerald View parks.
 
"There is a place for technology in the natural world, especially with the implication that technology can enhance someone's experience in our parks," he says, adding, "we'll put some surprises in." For instance, park officials are currently rating trails for stroller and wheelchair accessibility, and noting natural sites and the best views. They are also planning to use the 311 system to let park-goers email a photo of problem areas.
 
The app still doesn't have a name, however, so the Conservancy has set up a Facebook page where people can vote for the moniker. Names the Conservancy suggests: PGH UrbanParks, PGH ParkScout, PGH Parks, ParksBurgh, MyPGHParks or PGH Park Pal. Concludes Sexauer: "We're looking for write-in votes …"


Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Mike Sexauer, Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy

"We made a lot of great friendships with other writers," says Women Read/Women Write Book Festival co-founder Gwyn Cready, about last year's event. "I'd say we built a kind of sisterhood among the writers and a lot of the attendees -- but there were a lot of men, too."
 
Cready and fellow organizer Meredith Mileti have even higher expectations for the second annual free festival, this year to be held Oct. 27 at the Galleria in Mt. Lebanon. More than 35 authors are expected -- mostly women, and mostly local -- for four panels this year. They include: "Fifty Shades of Blush: The Reverberations of Fifty Shades of Grey in Bedrooms, Book Clubs and Mainstream Fiction"; "Hermoine vs Lisbeth: Brains, Brawn and the Modern Heroine"; "Mining Your Life" (about turning our lives into fiction and memoir) and a repeat of last year's very popular "Getting Published, Staying Published."
 
"Most readers are women," Cready says. "They are the heart and soul of the literary world …"
 
Although the focus is women's writing, the authors in attendance range across many genres, from memoir and mystery to romance, literary fiction, young adult and children's books, self-help and historical fiction.
 
"What genres of the book world don't women read?" says Cready. "Maybe military suspense. We're pretty open."
 
"Women's fiction?" adds Mileti, pondering what defines her own genre. "Often there is an element of romance, but really the focus of the story is the difficulties of the heroine as she faces personal challenges." The Harry Potter vs. Millennium Trilogy panel is intended to assess the place of the heroine in today's fiction.
 
"We intend to keep on doing this," concludes Cready. "We would love to see it grow and grow and draw more and more authors and more and more attendees from other states."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Sources: Gwyn Cready and Meredith Mileti, Women Read/Women Write Book Festival

"There's a lot of negativity displayed in the media toward the Hill District youth, and I wanted to give Hill District youth a chance to be better than the stereotype," says 17-year-old Dynae Shaw, leader of a group of 12 high-school students who together form the first Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPI).
 
YPI participants, ages 13-18, come from the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation’s School 2 Career Program and are looking for young entrepreneurs to support in the Hill, Uptown and West Oakland. The group raised $614 this summer and program co-sponsor McAuley Ministries, part of the Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, matched it 5 to 1.
 
"When I found out about the money I was really excited," says Shaw, a Garfield resident and senior at Pittsburgh Obama, "because I really wanted to help the Hill District. Youth should be decision makers. We wanted to make sure it was for bettering the Hill District, so we want little projects that can turn into something big." She envisions youth with artistic talent teaching classes in inexpensive or donated spaces, "or a lawn business to make the Hill District look more appealing," she says.
 
Grants of $500 or $1,000 will be given to applicants, who must attend a two-hour workshop on Oct. 27, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Hill House Association. The workshop, run by Hill-based UrbanInnovation21, will help hopefuls devise their business plans and learn to run a thriving business. Applications will be due on Nov. 19 at 5 p.m. via the POISE Foundation.
 
YPI members spent the summer getting acquainted with the grant-making process and are learning now how to evaluate applicants' presentations.
 
"I hope that it will inspire other youth to stand up and follow their dreams," Shaw says about the YPI program. "This will give them not only the chance to do something they haven't been able to do without the money, but to tell them that people care about their community." Shaw hopes YPI will be done again in the future, and that perhaps it will expand to East Liberty and other neighborhoods.
 
"We're not looking at overnight change," she adds, "but we hope people will look at the businesses and say, 'I can do that.' We hope they will look for other grants or say they can volunteer in their community. We also hope to inspire other businesses and other foundations to give youth a chance."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Dynae Shaw, Youth Philanthropy Initiative

Back when there wasn't quite as much science to popularize, Francesco Algarotti was the popular science writer of his day -- the 1700s -- and Isaac Newton was the guy whose theories he was intent on making accessible to the masses. His book, despite its title -- Newtonianism for Ladies -- wasn't just for women either.
 
"He wanted women to be a part of the [readership], but the intent was to make a book that was accessible to a wide, regular audience," says James Lennox, professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. In fact, Lennox says, that's also the intent of a new lecture series and publishing endeavor about to be undertaken with help from a $600,000 grant from the A.W. Mellon Foundation.
 
Lennox and the department's fellow faculty are ranked fifth in the U.S. by the prestigious Philosophical Gourmet report, tied with Harvard and right behind NYU, Rutgers, Princeton and Michigan. The Mellon grant is intended to help Pitt bring greater attention to its strongest academic offerings. It will fund fellowships in the department and Pitt's World History Center, in addition to the new lecture series chronicling how Algarotti popularized Newton's theories, which will be the basis for new University of Pittsburgh Press publications. Paula Findlen, a professor of Italian history at Stanford, will give the first three free lectures Oct. 22-25.
 
Algarotti's era, Lennox says, "was only 100 years or so after people were becoming educated enough that scientific [books] were written in the vernacular rather than Latin," which had reached only the elite. And although his department's focus may sound daunting to some, the department's undergrad courses regularly pack them in, Lennox reports. Thus, echoing Algarotti's hopes, he says, what the department desires for these and future lectures in the series is to reach the widest possible audience.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: James Lennox, University of Pittsburgh Department of History and Philosophy of Science

One Young World has concluded, but the impact will be felt for a long time -- not only by the local delegates but by the local youth reporters who covered the gathering at Pittsburgh Youth Media. As previously reported by Pop City, the  Pittsburgh Youth Media project recruited 32 local high-schoolers from 26 districts to cover the One Young World Summit and to give a youth perspective to other future events in Pittsburgh.
 
Following a boot-camp training on journalism earlier this month, the students converged on the summit, meeting in their own press room at the David L Lawrence Convention Center. For four days they reported on a range of stories, from speakers such as Bob Geldof and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to the 50 breakout sessions held through Pittsburgh for the 1300 delegates attending from around the world.
 
Want to know what One Young World was like from a young person's perspective? The more than 80 stories at Pittsburgh Youth Media tell the tale from a multitude of angles:
 
An Experience of a Lifetime by Prem Rajgopal, Grade 12, Fox Chapel Area High School.
 
Inspired Delegates Have Hopes For Future Conference, by Sophie Belch, Junior, Riverview High School.
 
Nutrition and Education in Schools, by LaTionna Russell, Pittsburgh Obama 6-12.
 
Youth Summit Delegates Propose Behavior Changes, by Daly Trimble, Freshman, Fox Chapel Area High School.
 
An Apple for an Angel, by Brana' Hill, Senior, Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 and Kendre Blue, Junior, Pittsburgh Milliones University Preparatory School.
 
Best of 2012 Summit, by Elianna Paljug, 10th Grade, Fox Chapel Area High School.
 
Successful Failures: Geldof Shares His Vision at One Young World Summit; article by Megan Fair, Senior, Hempfield High School; photo by Christian Snyder, Sophomore, Riverview Junior/Senior High School.
 
Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, by LaTionna Russell, Pittsburgh Obama 6-12.
 
Op-Ed: Lessons Learned on the Roberto Clemente Bridge: One Young World Bridge Party, by Lily Zhang, Senior, North Allegheny.
 
Opening Ceremony Electrifies the One Young World Summit, by Lily Zhang, Senior, North Allegheny High School. 

Writer: Marty Levine

"We have kids who graduate from high school with no plans," says Mary Kay Babyak, director of initiatives for The Consortium for Public Education in McKeesport. "They wake up the day after graduation with no idea what they are going to do," or with incomplete, or completely unrealistic, plans. "We found that a lot of kids didn't know that their grades counted. They'd get to junior/senior years and they hadn't taken the right courses. And they hadn't had adult support along the way."
 
Getting a C- in science in your junior year is bad enough if you're a kid hoping for a career in medicine, she notes. Rather than thinking, at that point, "What else can I do with my life?" wouldn't it be better if, as a freshman, this student had been coached to ask, "How am I going to change my study habits so I can achieve what I want?"
 
To help kids create a smart plan for college and/or career attainment, the Consortium has just unveiled a new program called MAPS (My Action Plan for Success) being piloted this school year by eight local school districts.
 
Through MAPS, says Babyak, students will be able to create a viable post-secondary plan. MAPS connects each student with adult mentors -- teachers, guidance counselors, school administrators and of course their own family members -- who help devise a realistic and achievable course of action. And it introduces planning software -- eMAPS -- that helps kids lay out the various facets of their plans: How do my skills fit my college and career plans? How about my clubs? My community activities? What specific efforts do I need to make to get better results?
 
Babyak witnessed several students speaking to their schools' Freshman Academy recently. One of the kids hoped to be a surgeon. Only after using MAPS, she says, had he realized it would be useful to look at specific colleges' entrance requirements so that he could know what to take in high school. Plus, he hadn't before realized that his extra-curricular activity -- drawing -- could be anything other than a hobby. She recalls him commenting, "'I didn't really think about some of those things, beyond listing them on my college application. I didn't think, what am I learning from them?'"
 
After the pilot program, MAPS will be refined and expanded over the following four years.
 
"The dropout rate of four-year colleges is even higher than the failure-to-matriculate rate in high schools," says Consortium spokesperson Pamela Gaynor. MAPS, she says, will "potentially help kids have a sound enough plan that they won't need remediation on a subject in college. It's about saying, 'How do I get there? What do I need to do?'"
 
Babyak laughs at the memory of her own daughter, who switched college majors after she had already completed three years of another program. "I wish my daughter had had this eight years ago," Babyak says. "It would have saved $100,000."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Sources: Mary Kay Babyak, Pamela Gaynor, the Consortium for Public Education

When it comes to the annual TechNow conference for nonprofits, headed for its 9th incarnation on Oct. 25, "Every year is different, because tech changes so fast," says Cindy Leonard, technology services manager for the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University, which runs the conference. "Tech isn't something you get good at and then you're done. There are always new tools out there, new hardware, new software and new techniques."
 
And new reasons to go, she says. This year's keynote address features Rosetta Thurman, Cleveland-based co-author of How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar, 50 Ways to Accelerate Your Career, who will speak on “Social Media for Thought Leadership,” including how to create a social-media mission statement and which social-media tools work best.
 
The day includes sessions on leadership, IT management, communications and fundraising, presented by:
 

• Andre Bouchard, Co-Editor in Chief for www.technologyinthearts.org at CMU
• John Carman, owner of Avenue Design Studios
• Kelly Carter Uzzo, Marketing Communications Manager for Pace School
• Tim Cook, founder and director of The Saxifrage School
• Joe Glackin, Information Systems Manager at Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force
• Scott Hollander, Executive Director of KidsVoice
• Tom Joseph, Chief Executive Officer of Bookminders
• Ashli Molinero, Assistant Professor, Pitt's Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology
• Donna J. Myers, director of TowerCare Technologies
• Lindsay O’ Leary, web content editor, Carlow University
• Dan Rossi, Chief Executive Officer, Animal Rescue League of Western PA
• Sandy Sturgulewski, Technology Systems Manager at Family Resources
• Sherri Titus, account management team leader, Visvero
• Ray Wolfe, Chief Operating Officer, Pittsburgh Mercy Health System

Also new this year is a larger location, at the airport's Holiday Inn, as well as lunch discussions and a final dessert reception.
 
"The biggest value" of TechNow, says Leonard, "is that it gives [attendees] the opportunity to network with their peers at other nonprofits who are interested in leveraging technology to meet their missions."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Cindy Leonard, Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management

At last year's international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition, one group of college students entered the contest with a bit of synthetic biology that broke down glutens into sugars in the stomach, potentially defeating their harm to the gluten-intolerant. Then the project came to the attention of a pharmaceutical company.
 
"They looked at the students' project and decided it was better than the product they had spent millions of dollars developing," reports Tom Richard; the students' project has since become part of the company's research protocol.
 
That's the great potential of these synthetic biology creations, says Richard, a Penn State professor of biological engineering who led a team, and helped organize, the eastern North American regionals of iGEM at Duquesne University on Oct. 13 and 14. Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pennsylvania and more than 35 other teams with 275 undergraduate students from Canada and the U.S. also competed.
 
Richard has seen undergraduate team projects with practical applications in medicine, nutrition, energy and the environment, plus games and puzzles. Biological mechanisms can map the most efficient route among stores for deliveries more easily than can computer programs. His PSU team developed a test device that signals whether the body's normal response to oxygen shortage -- creation of more lactic acid -- had started properly or not.
 
Ideally, more projects will turn into ideas businesses can use, he adds. iGEM has just started an entrepreneurial division to match venture capital with students' projects.
 
"The biology is something that has taken our civilization a long time to figure out," says Richard, "but once we figured it out, it's not so complicated." In fact, iGEM has also just begun a high-school division. About 40 high-school students from seven high schools in the Pittsburgh region and across the state attended the competition.
 
"Hopefully some of these schools will have teams competing next spring," he says. "It's a fantastic hands-on science and engineering project for high school students. Most high schools don't teach engineering. Engineering is about design and making things. We're really excited to be able to push science into high schools. We know that in our society, to be successful over the next 100 years, we have to create more people excited by science, technology, engineering and math subjects."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Tom Richard, international Genetically Engineered Machine Competition

The newly minted Pittsburgh Youth Media project has recruited 32 local high-schoolers from 26 districts to report on this month's international young leadership conference -- One Young World, Oct. 18-22 -- and to give a youth perspective to other future events in Pittsburgh.
 
The project began with the formation of the Pittsburgh Youth Media Advocacy Project (YMAP) at Carlow University a year ago. Deciding to focus on One Young World as their first reporting effort, YMAP recruited nearly three-dozen young journalists for a boot-camp training at the studios of SLB Radio Productions, Inc. on Oct. 4 and 5.
 
Larry Berger, SLB executive director, says the experience was "amazing -- just great kids, eager to get started." Lessons focused on everything from effective storytelling to how to meet a deadline, fact versus opinion, and how to secure and conduct a good interview.

The group practiced their interview techniques first on Post-Gazette writer Tony Norman, who was aiding in the training and the overall effort, along with representatives from Carlow, SLB, the Consortium for Public Education, World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, Allegheny Conference on Community Development, Pittsburgh Community Television and WQED Multimedia. The stories the kids produced next, about preparations for One Young World, are already on the Pittsburgh Youth Media Website (pghyouthmedia.com) in audio, video and print formats.
 
"They were given technical mentors, [although] the kids had plenty of expertise already," Berger notes. At One Young World, the young scribes will have their own press room and plan to gather on its first morning to devise their assignments and take off into the field, "more or less given free rein to cover what they want to cover," he adds.
 
Pittsburgh Youth Media project already plans to help guide the group organizing next year's One Young World, in Johannesburg, South Africa, to form their own student media corps. But Berger says the Pittsburgh Youth Media project will continue long after the 1,500 reps from 190 countries have left Pittsburgh, and will be great Burgh ambassadors themselves. "Next year there will be another international convention here," Berger says. "The eyes of the world will be on Pittsburgh. Our kids will become a story for someone."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Larry Berger, SLB Radio Productions, Inc.

Creating new young leaders, particularly for the nonprofit community, is what Public Allies in Pittsburgh is all about. Four years ago, that prompted the organization to start the RISE ChangeMaker Awards.
 
"The RISE ChangeMaker Awards are really to honor the community -- and are chosen by the community," says the Allies' Site Director Misti McKeehen. "It's the opportunity for us to celebrate who the community sees as the change makers here in Pittsburgh -- especially those who may not always receive the thanks or the recognition that they are certainly deserving of." Both organizations and individuals were nominated, and voting lasts Oct. 10-24 online. The awards will be given Nov. 13 at the New Hazlett Theater on the North Side. Pop City is a media sponsor of the event.
 
Among the community organizations nominated for this year's awards:
 

• Girls on the Run of Magee Women’s Hospital
• Special Olympics
• North Hills Community Outreach
• Three Rivers Community Foundation
• Best Buddies
• Get Involved!
• Alliance for Police Accountability                 
• MGR Foundation                  
• Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse
• Saxifrage School

 
The individual awards will be chosen from among:
 

• Matt Arch: UPMC Center for Inclusion
• John Cheatwood: Cheatcodes Tutoring Service LLC
• Kristina Elias: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh
• Nicole Domanov: St. Margaret Foundation
• Haeshah Cooper: New Hill District Business Association
• Raeann Olander: Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania
• Erin Baker: Corporate and Institutional Banking Development Program, PNC
• Seth Corbin: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh
• Michael Bodis, Department of Veterans Affairs
• Aimee LeFevers, United Way of Allegheny County            
• John Hagan: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh
• Alecia Shipman, August Wilson Center for African American Culture

 
Several veterans of Public Allies' program, which partners here with Coro Pittsburgh, are up for Alumni Award as well.
 
Last year's winners were Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Pittsburgh; New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice; Tom Baker (of BBBS) and alumna Bekezela Mguni. "They've been doing wonderful things in Pittsburgh," McKeehen says of the past winners.
 
Public Allies' main activity in Pittsburgh is an Americorps program that places young people, mostly 18-30, in a 10-month apprenticeship with local nonprofits. Overall, McKeehen says, the group hopes to help build the pool of talent in Pittsburgh through new Americorps participants: "We want them to stay, and we want them to be leaders in this community."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Misti McKeehen, Public Allies Pittsburgh

"We want to make a point that solar energy isn't just in California, but that it's all over Western Pennsylvania, in great quantities," says Evan Endres, project coordinator in PennFuture's local office. "Whatever neighborhood you're in, there's solar."
 
That's the reason PennFuture -- Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future -- has created the Pittsburgh Solar Tour on Oct. 13, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., guiding those interested in installing solar themselves, or simply in seeing creative uses, through homes and businesses in Allegheny County and beyond. A $5 ticket available online covers all the self-guided stops and the same tour Website has a full-color guide, map and smartphone app. The Solar Tour highlights 30 of the approximately 300 solar sites in the 10-county region.

"We could have put the most spectacular green homes on the tour, but that's not the experience most Pittsburghers are likely to have," says Endres. Instead, for most people, he hopes the tour lets them see homes that make them think, "'This is [like] my house. I want to go talk to the person and see how they did it.'"
 
Those homes may include houses featured in Mt. Lebanon and the South Hills, a first-time homeowner using solar in Point Breeze, and a South Side house turned solar -- although like two others on the tour, the residents of this small classic Pittsburgh dwelling also use their personal grid to power an electric car.
 
Of course, there are more elaborate and involved solar uses featured on the tour as well. Those include stops at:

• A solar installer’s own solar house in Regent Square, which eliminates 100 percent of his electricity bill
• A Squirrel Hill green house that features other sustainability solutions and holds monthly Sustainability Salons
• A North Side loft that is completely green, using reclaimed materials. "That's a real standout and represents the renaissance that Pittsburgh is going through," says Endres.
• The EECO Center (Environment and Energy Community Outreach) in the East End that offers advice on greening homes and businesses
• A Friendship Victorian restored on the outside and retrofitted with sustainable technologies on the inside
• An Aliquippa home honey-maker gone solar
• Frankferd Farms Foods Inc. in Saxonburg and the Ferderber Farm and Frankferd Farms Milling in Valencia, an organic farm featuring a solar-powered milling operation, and
• A ground-mounted solar array used for a home in Rochester

Whether you're contemplating solar for the money or planet savings, says Endres, "an event like this helps people who made this investment talk to future solar owners in the area."
           
Do Good: Ready to go solar yourself? Find a guide at Three Rivers Solar Source.  
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Evan Endres, PennFuture

Picture the Cannes Film Festival coming to Pittsburgh -- then imagine a Cannes all about kids' educational television.
 
That's about the level of excitement over at WQED, which is presenting what their Executive Director of Educational Partnerships Jennifer Stancil calls a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" -- a French festival called the Prix Jeunesse, or "Youth Prize," making its first-ever stop in Pittsburgh on Oct. 12-13. The free event, with the help of The Fred Rogers Center and the Toonseum, offers both workshops for kids' media professionals and for parents, as well as screenings of many award-winning children's television shows from around the world. (Click here if you want to attend one of the three Oct. 13 screenings for different age groups -- registration is required, due to limited seating.)
 
The family workshop, on Oct. 13 at WQED, lets you try your hand at cartooning and animation with the Toonseum's Joe Wos and the Schmutz Company, the local self-styled "performance and visual arts spectacle and arts education partnership." The Oct. 12 workshop for educational and other kids' learning pros delves into the essence and effects of quality kids' TV programming worldwide, and features presenters Sharon Carver (director of the Children's School at Carnegie Mellon University), Michelle Figlar (head of the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children), Jim Martin (children's television director and puppeteer), and Kevin Morrison and Michael Robb (The Fred Rogers Company's COO and director of education and research, respectively).
 
The workshops are run, and the festival is curated, by David Kleeman, president of the American Center for Children and Media. The selections include everything from game shows to serials and animation, and come from Brazil, Mongolia, Netherlands, Iran, Lebanon, Japan -- 15 different countries altogether.
 
Kleeman, says WQED's Stancil, "has done a super job of making sure that the world is represented. We're drawing from all the world's reaches and all of the storytelling that is done around the world," but with a selection chosen only for Pittsburgh, she adds. "It's really an exercise in learning. The kids and parents are not just watching, we're learning how television is a reflection of different cultures and different relationships."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Jennifer Stancil, WQED