Three years ago Heritage Community Initiatives started a Day of Service to thank its constituents and invite them to share its passion for helping others. On Wednesday the 42-year-old nonprofit continued the tradition, waiving fees for the education, transportation and meal services it provides. It asked clients and supporters to contribute to a food and supply drive for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, Animal Friends and Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh.
This year it just won’t stop there. Tuesday it announced it will offer three-month courtesy cards exclusively for clients of nonprofits, schools, and government-affiliated organizations. The nonprofit organization targeted 500 of those with an email blast about it, and it hopes to reach more through media coverage.
“Through this program, your organization can receive rider cards that provide clients with unlimited free rides on Heritage Community Transportation buses for three months,” according to the email blast. “Whether your clients need access to jobs, health care, education or essential services, we’ve got them covered.”
The nonprofit tried this with 1,000 courtesy card trial runs, distributing them through the food bank and WIC, Auberle, Catholic Charities Diocese of Pittsburgh, PA CareerLink and UPMC a few years prior. The email blast stated it helped their clients overcome transportation barriers.
CEO Paula McWilliams said the usage two years ago just through the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank was “unbelievable.” With that successful trial, she and the nonprofit’s board decided it was significant enough to reach out to other agencies and organizations. It has resulted in this broader call to help people as the region keeps recovering from the pandemic and faces other economic realities.
McWilliams said her board and 50-person staff know “service is what we do.” The day of service began when Heritage Community Initiatives celebrated its 40th anniversary.
It is the only nonprofit dedicated to three essential elements of socioeconomic mobility: transportation, education and nutrition, according to its website and a news release on the event. It serves more than 80 communities throughout eastern Allegheny County.
Those transportation services comprise two divisions, Heritage Community Transportation and Heritage Transportation Solutions. Riders often use Heritage to connect to Pittsburgh Regional Transit, according to its website. For more than 25 years, HCT has provided over 1.5 million rides for residents in 16 eastern Allegheny County communities, including East Pittsburgh, McKeesport and Monroeville. HTS offers customized transportation services that help businesses provide safe, reliable and cost-effective transport of clients, employees and customers. Its rides cost just 25 cents.
The deadline to submit applications for the three-month courtesy cards is Aug. 4. Complete instruction and eligibility requirements are on its website. Recipients will be announced in September, and the nonprofit does not have a specific number of those in mind. It wants to reach as many in need as possible, McWilliams explained.
The program will begin in October after the successful applicants attend training and a summit in September, according to the organization’s website.
Its own day of service generated 658 pounds of donations to the food bank, a record for the event by more than 100 pounds, according to Jeff Worden, its media contact.
McWilliams stressed during the service day that the nonprofit and its mission are truly more than all those numbers. To begin, it is unique: Heritage is the only nonprofit in Pennsylvania designated as a provider of public transportation.
How did all this start and grow? Because the nonprofit runs like a business, McWilliams said. It avoids offering redundant services and works with other organizations – such as the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank and the Allegheny Intermediate Unit – to ensure its programs complement theirs and serve residents when and where they need it the most.
She’s led the organization for 12 years, coming to it from AT&T Wireless where she held a number of positions in mergers and acquisitions, government relations, marketing and more for 16 years prior. “I made the leap and never looked back,” McWilliams said.
The 50-person staff is small but nimble and moves between the buildings the nonprofit occupies currently on Braddock and Jones avenues. McWilliams points out that 1½ people oversee the transportation program and its routes. Five people work in a tiny kitchen at the Jones Street building creating 2,792 meals a day for the children in its education programs – 65% of which are scratch cooked fresh and nutritious meals – and it collaborates with like-minded organizations to feed at-risk children and seniors at 17 sites throughout Allegheny County. Fifty to 70% of that staff are educators who work in the classrooms or behind the scenes in administrative positions.
The Heritage 4Kids Early Learning Center’s preschoolers and Heritage Out of School Time children eat breakfast, lunch and a snack during the summer. During the regular school year, the school-age children are fed before and after school in the latter program. Their summer program runs for 11 weeks.
Its vans distribute meals to those 17 sites four times a day. All that adds up to planning, preparing and serving more than 200,000 meals each year, according to its website.
Back to those efficiencies, Heritage Community Initiatives does not run food pantries, leaving that to the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank, which McWilliams lauds and notes that it is “right down the road” in Duquesne.
Her organization came to that organization’s aid last year when it could not find any provider to take meals to Greene County. So three times a week its vans traveled there, a three-hour round trip, to deliver 600 meals a day.
It can do that because “we’re the transportation experts,” McWilliams said. The cost for others to run such services is too high, mainly because of the liability involved.
That running a nonprofit like a business extends to its nutrition programs. The website states its rigorous compliance and quality standards adhere to the guidelines set forth by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Child and Adult Care Food Program and Summer Food Service Program.
She said the nonprofit has doubled in size in the past five years. The need for services has grown that much. That growth prompted it last year to purchase the Cuda Building on the main street in Braddock and start work on clearing it out before embarking on renovation and construction.
That projected work will include a new $1.2 million commercial kitchen, which received a great boost with grants from the Hillman and Eden Hall foundations. McWilliams is grateful for the support and added that a new facility is needed because “We are turning away business here.”
And just as she and her staff worked toward that relocation and building project, another possibility arose: Woodland Hills School District has decided to move its administrative offices from the Jones Street building it shares with Heritage Community Initiatives. Would Heritage Community Initiatives consider purchasing it?
McWilliams said to make that decision, her nonprofit has signed a 90-day letter of intent and will explore what it would take to renovate that building. She explained that inspections and review of the building and property is just “due diligence,” which will include structural viability, any lead contamination and much more.
That much more would include the feasibility and expense of a completely new HVAC system, something the building sorely needs. On the day of service there last week, Heritage Community Initiatives had to bring in massive fans to keep everyone – including three therapy dogs the children laid some love on that day – as cool as possible.
The final decision on what path to take will be made in the fall. Then fundraising for the project will begin in earnest.
McWilliams said the nonprofit is fortunate that it has little funding tied directly to the federal government, although the potential cuts and claw backs of money already awarded by it is something to watch because of the funding pass-throughs it receives for its programs. And she also is watching the state budget impasse in Harrisburg.
She said she and her board will have to ensure that it has enough money to stay afloat and is thankful it is in a good financial position and can seek temporary funds to keep operating during such uncertain times.
“My role is that to ensure that we remain fiscally stable and relevant. If we’re both of these things and running efficiently, we have a good start,” McWilliams explained. Its lasting power, she added, is that the organization has been able to adjust to the changing workplace.
“We’re very pragmatic at Heritage,” the executive director said. “We’re providing services we can see and measure every day. Our mission statement is more than words.”
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.