Latest news with #VisionTogether2025
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
EXCLUSIVE: Cambria County Veteran will receive brand-new home for free
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WTAJ) — After interviewing five candidates on Saturday at the War Memorial Arena, a panel of representatives selected the veteran who would receive a new home, free of charge. WTAJ received an exclusive interview with the candidate on Sunday. Darren Hill served in the U.S. Navy from 1987 to 1994 after graduating from high school. In 2006, he moved back to Johnstown, where he started to get involved in the community and his local church. Hill was selected as the recipient of a brand-new free house through the Polacek Veteran Home Initiative, Vision Together 2025 and Hosanna Industries. He will live in the home with his family. 'I wasn't confident that someone like me would win something like this,' Hill said. The home will be constructed on Somerset Street in Johnstown and gifted by the Polacek Veteran Home Initiative, led by JWF Industries President William Polacek. 'Truly deserving veteran, who was in need of a home. And we're happy to be able to provide him with one. So it's been great from beginning to this point. And, it's gone so well that the plan is to continue to do this. This is going to be the first of hopefully many, many veteran homes in the Johnstown community. So it's been great,' The newly constructed home will be built with the latest in sustainable and accessible design to provide comfort and security for the future. 'I feel blessed, I feel like a long time coming because I really need a home that's going to be brand new, and I don't have to worry about all the maintenance and having to fix something up. So I feel really blessed,' Hill said. It will be a 864-square-foot, three-bedroom ranch house built by Hosanna Industries. 'Building new opportunities in Johnstown, not only for Mr. Hill and his daughter and his aunt, but the community at large, is very, very rewarding. Johnstown is such a special town, and we were starting to see a lot of really great energy come to the town,' Brian Hetzer, Construction Services Supervisor for Hosanna Industries, said. Volunteers will begin construction for the new home in July, and it is estimated to take four days. Hetzer said the blitz build is a four-day process of organized chaos. On the first day, there are between 50 and 100 volunteers. The foundation will already be in the ground with the walls waiting to be erected. By the end of the first day, there's a complete structure with siding on it, windows and doors installed. The roof is on, and all of the electrical, plumbing, and heating systems are completely done and inspected. The second day, insulation, drywall and mudding are also completed. By the evening of the second day, the house is painted on the inside. On the third day, volunteers start installing the flooring, doors and trim, as well as the cabinetry and work on the outside decks. On the last day, all of the furnishings are moved in, and the house is dedicated. If you would like to volunteer your time or services, visit the Hosanna Industries website, or call the office at (724)-770-0262 and ask to speak with the Volunteer Coordinator. Hetzer said volunteers of all types are needed, including plumbers, electricians, carpenters and masons. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Veteran selected for new home to be 'blitz' built in Johnstown; recipient to be introduced later
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – A veteran has been selected to be the recipient of a brand-new free house through a collaborative project of the Polacek Veteran Home Initiative, Vision Together 2025 and Hosanna Industries. A panel of representatives from local veterans organizations made the pick after privately interviewing five finalists on Saturday. The application process was open to honorably discharged veterans from Cambria and Somerset counties with dependents, who met other criteria regarding military service, community involvement and personal finances. The home, which will be constructed on Somerset Street in Johnstown, will be gifted by the Polacek Veteran Home Initiative, led by JWF Industries CEO and Chairman Bill Polacek. 'Bill has a very respectful understanding of veterans and service members because a good portion of his business is involved in that,' said retired Army Col. Jeff Pounding, who helped organize the application and selection process. 'And he has a very good sense of honor.' Pounding said the groups will now figure out when to introduce the recipient to the community. The entire process is expected to move quickly. Vision is currently undergoing the legal steps to acquire the property and prepare it for construction. Allegheny County-based Hosanna Industries is expected to do a blitz build from July 14-17. A foundation will be established before that time. Then, over four days, volunteers plan to construct an entirely new home that will be ready to move into, with flowers on the table and towels in the bathroom, on the 17th. It will be a 1,000-square-foot, three-bedroom ranch house. 'We've done this several hundred times, but it's always a leap of faith,' Johnstown area native Rev. Donn Ed, founder of Hosanna Industries, said. 'We always hope and pray that it's all going to work well, and it always has. "I don't want to minimize the effort. It's a monumental effort on the part of hundreds of people to make all those pieces fit together properly in the right sequence at the right time. This blitz building procedure that Hosanna has kind of invented, it's extremely time-critical. 'From Day 1 until the very end, every moment is accounted for. There can't be any slop in the gears because there's not enough allowance of time to permit it. Everything's got to be right on.' About 150 volunteers are needed. Even people without construction skills can help in other ways, such as cooking or donating landscaping materials. Anybody interested in participating can contact Hosanna Industries at 724-770-0262. 'People who know nothing about home construction are welcome to volunteer, because their energies will be properly channeled into productive results by the Hosanna team,' Ed said. 'Skilled volunteers are also needed: block layers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, drywall mechanics, all of these are very much needed and invited to join in this unique community building venture.' This is the first home in Vision's plan to construct 21 new houses throughout Johnstown, using revolving funds provided by community organizations through the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development's Neighborhood Partnership Program tax credit initiative. The other houses will be sold to people, unlike the first home, which is free to the selected veteran. 'The ones going forward are for anybody,' Vision Together 2025 Executive Director Robert Forcey said. 'In fact, that's kind of a misconstrued assumption that a lot of people have been making that these are only for low-income families. We made them affordable enough for somebody that they should be able to afford it on low- to middle-income. But for these houses we've had applicants all the way from a first-year graduate from UPJ (the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown) all the way to a couple that's been renting for 30 years and they want to move into their first house for the first time.' Forcey said one of the goals of the first free house is to 'show everybody that it's a viable project and it's going to move forward.'
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.
