Latest news with #Forcey
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Vision Together 2025 hosts career fair for Johnstown middle schoolers
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WTAJ) — Vision Together 2025 is continuing to work with the Greater Johnstown School District to host career fairs. On Wednesday, the organization visited the Greater Johnstown Middle School and brought several companies with them, for the 'A Vision Together' Kids Career Fair. The event was designed to introduce students who are middle school-aged to local career opportunities while connecting parents with employment resources. Rob Forcey, Executive Director of Vision Together 2025, spoke about having a career fair for younger students. 'For some kids, it is too soon. I mean, it's going to take a while, and every kid develops differently and stuff like that. But if you give a kid a dream and you give them a goal at the beginning, how they get to that dream is going to be up to them,' Forcey said. Pennsylvania lawmaker proposes changes to Penn State Board of Trustees Lyric and Milan Cohen are sisters and students at the middle school. They attended Wednesday's career fair. Lyric hopes to go into the Air Force or become a Basketball player. Milani wants to pursue a career in the culinary field. They said the career fair gave them ideas and helped to push them in the right direction. 'I learned that you don't always need to choose one option. You have other options,' Angelo Owens, a fifth grader said. Students were also given bags filled with employment resource packets to take home to their parents. It ensures parents have access to valuable job opportunities and career advancement tools within the local workforce. 'We're trying to make it for all three schools so that students have a better awareness, like what skills and abilities are needed and what jobs are available here in the community, and just try to educate our students so that they are able to make a better decision what they want to do with their life, and what they need to do, to be successful,' Eddie Mikesic, College Career & Military Readiness Coordinator at the Greater Johnstown School District said. Forcey said the organization is working to get funding so they can expand to six other school districts in the area and continue the career fairs. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Vision Together 2025 prepares to plant 400 trees in Johnstown
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WTAJ) — Vision Together 2025 announced it will plant a diverse selection of fruit and shade trees in Johnstown over the next four years. The organization received a private tree grant through the Community Foundation of the Alleghenies, alongside the U.S. Forestry Tree Grant awarded last year to further environmental sustainability and community beautification across the Johnstown region. The private grant totals $28,000 and will be used to put fruit trees in the public housing units and community gardens in the city this Saturday. 'We're going to be planting 28 trees, between Oakhurst Community Housing, the Solomon Run Community Housing and the Coopersdale Community Housing are all going to receive fruit trees. They'll be accessible to the tenants, and they'll be free food that they can utilize and take as they want. And then we'll also be providing some trees for the West End Community Garden and the Women's Health Center,' Rob Forcey, Executive Director for Vision Together 2025, said. NWS survey confirms straight-line wind damage in Cambria County It's designed to enhance green spaces in underserved neighborhoods while promoting health, food security and sustainability. With volunteers, the organization will also plant 25 shade trees on Saturday, using money from the federal grant. More than 300 trees will also be planted in the fall, and dozens of volunteers will be needed. 'The more trees we have in the city, the cooler the city is, the less we have to spend on electricity to cool the homes. You know, it kind of is one of those things where not only is it something that beautifies the area, but it also provides a significant advantage and lowers the temperature of the city,' Forcey said. A total of 20 trees were planted in Cambria City between Tuesday and Wednesday. They vary in species between Elm, Gingko, Honey Locust, Yellowwood, Serviceberry and London Plane. To become a volunteer with Vision Together 2025 or learn more about the tree planting project, email rob@ Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Johnstown fighting against blighted properties to revitalize area
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WTAJ) — Officials are starting up a fight against dilapidated housing in the area. Over 600 city lots face different problems, forcing the city to close down those properties. Broken glass, caved-in roofs and unmaintained grass lots litter each street and city block. 'There's rodents and there's problems, with who stays in, in the building,' Cambria County Commissioner Keith Rager said. 'So it poses a lot of problems.' 'They don't want anybody to get hurt. They don't want anything to happen with that,' Vision Together 2025 Executive Director Robert Forcey said. $800k awarded for historic building project in Philipsburg These problems are present in cities that lie in the Rust Belt of the nation, where steel towns that were prominent for the industry have moved away from. One neighboring city that was affected is Youngstown, Ohio. Johnstown officials took a field trip to Youngstown to see the work they have done to combat dilapidated housing. Their observations of what those officials have done gave them a blueprint of what to do. 'They did one at a time, and they showed us the different places they went,' Rager said. 'Then they moved into where they're at now. They do an entire block remodeling where they'll do three or four houses here, do the sewer and do the entire block.' 'We've devoted $15,000 this year in to making sure that there are lots that are mowed all the way all over the city of Johnstown,' Forcey said. 'The second thing that we're doing is obviously with those 600 vacant lots in the city as we start building houses under the neighborhood partnership program that we've got, that's going to start to activate at least 21 vacant lots in the area at this time.' As each house gets built, the sale will go back toward building a new house in a Fibonacci-esque style. The first home will look to be valued at around $100,000, the same amount as it costs to build the structure. 'After we sell it to the person, put it back into the program,' Forcey added. 'So in essence, the second year I have $200,000 and then $300,000 the third year, $400,000 the fourth year, $500,000 the fifth year, and $600,000 last year.' Action has started to revitalize the area. At the beginning of the month, JWF Industries announced that they were awarding a free house to a veteran who is eligible according to their criteria. READ MORE: JWF Industries offers free housing for Cambria, Somerset County veterans CEO and Chairman Bill Polacek sees how creating one house in the city will create a domino effect for the rest of the area. 'Once you start something, you create an initiative,' Polacek said. 'You create hope and you create people believing in our community. People will start thinking differently.' The idea to fight off the blight is a long and tough road ahead. But Forcey knows that for the area to come alive again, it needs its villages to support it. 'It's going to take every organization working together in the city, coming together and deciding to support this project,' Forcey said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
