Youth Partnership

Our Vision

We believe that all children in Sto-Rox should be happy, healthy, and safe – supported by loved ones in a broader community that offers the necessary education, training, and opportunity for a bright future.

Our Mission

The Sto-Rox Youth Partnership is a platform for youth program leaders, school employees, businesses and other community members to collaborate, in order to improve the lives and futures of our children. By identifying existing resources and coordinating our efforts, we systematically address issues that adversely affect the wellbeing of Sto-Rox youth, using data-driven metrics to guide our progress. Together, we are better equipped to confront and improve the pervasive problems of poverty, crime, and disenfranchisement that too frequently affect the lives of our kids.

Place

McKees Rocks and Stowe Township (Sto-Rox) are a community of roughly 13,000 residents just three miles from the Ohio River. Once a thriving industrial community, five decades of decline have left the area with concentrated poverty and a decimated commercial core. This pervasive poverty and liabilities that accompany it, are the greatest contributors to an overall lack of vitality and reduced quality of life. These factors are also the greatest obstacles to the community as it continues to reinvent itself through attracting new economic vitality around several planning efforts.

Problem

The Sto-Rox community is blessed with a number of amenities for our young people, such as the Father Ryan Arts Center and the First Tee of Pittsburgh at Pleasant Ridge. Similarly, Sto-Rox has a number of youth-serving organizations, both large and small, that provide a wide array of programs and services.

What has become evident, however, is that there is not a coordinated effort between these organizations to strategically leverage their resources and amenities existing in the Sto-Rox community.

The result is that we hear routinely from parents, educators, and other stakeholders (including children themselves) that our young people need more enriching activities and learning experiences. These become even more critical in a community where the home environment often times lacks stability.

Project

Through existing relationships and networks, McKees Rocks Community Development Corporation (MRCDC) is seeking to first convene potential partners throughout Sto-Rox to discuss the roles and function of existing entities and solicit feedback as to individual (and collective) needs, challenges, and opportunities.

MRCDC can explore potential new collaborative ideas and projects that are suggested and facilitate connections between youth partners through its Neighborhood Stabilization function.

In short, this community doesn’t have to build new places or organizations, just better utilize what already exists within Sto-Rox and what is offered in the Pittsburgh region.

Partners