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3 days ago | 
unionprogress.com | Helen Fallon
When Pittsburgh Chief of Emergency Medical Services Amera Gilchrist assumed her position in May 2023 her staff included just 14 emergency medical technicians. Today she has 34, and the increase includes 15 Pittsburgh EMS Freedom House EMT Training Academy graduates. The new program started last year, and both cohorts had a 100% completion rate, according to Geoff Webster, a founder of Pittsburgh Futures Collaborative, a nonprofit that has worked with Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration.
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6 days ago | 
unionprogress.com | Helen Fallon
Improvements and additions to Pittsburgh’s parks have resulted in the city moving up in a national ranking. Pittsburgh rose to 15 in the Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore of the country’s 100 most populous cities released in May. The city’s park system of 176 parks encompassing 3,800 acres moved up two places in the 2025 ranking because of park access, park investment and park amenities, according to a trust news release.
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1 week ago | 
unionprogress.com | Helen Fallon
Kim Patterson has worked her entire career helping people, especially those with serious mental health issues, as a social worker. So she knew how much assistance – for housing, employment, health care and much, much more – they and others need. And she knew how Western Pennsylvania’s nonprofit organizations work to help them lead better lives.
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1 week ago | 
unionprogress.com | Helen Fallon
Pittsburgh filmmaker and activist Mark Dixon has been working on his documentary about air quality issues in the region since 2016. He’s ready now to share a trailer and preview of “Inversion: The Unfinished Business of Pittsburgh’s Air.” It took on additional importance to him with the 2018 U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works fire and the 2022 startup of Shell Polymers Monaca, a cracker plant in Potter, Beaver County.
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3 weeks ago | 
unionprogress.com | Helen Fallon
DTCare’s work in Ukraine has focused on empowerment and uplifting its citizens since the beginning of the Russian invasion. Now it’s expanding its efforts in two areas as that war continues: a scholarship program to help 14 veterans earn master’s degrees in prosthetics and supporting women veterans, too, through its Hero’s Compass program.
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3 weeks ago | 
unionprogress.com | Helen Fallon
Cheryl Redmond has a passion for music and helping others, especially the people of Ukraine. She and her committee held a benefit concert earlier this month in Beaver County that raised $26,000 for DTCare, the Moon-based nonprofit that has been sending humanitarian aid and launching art therapy and veterans programs since Russia invaded Ukraine. The concert at Park Presbyterian Church marked the fourth effort she spearheaded, with the series starting in Sewickley in 2022.
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3 weeks ago | 
unionprogress.com | Helen Fallon
For 22 days last month, the Society to Preserve The Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka labored over figuring out how it could carry on its mission after the Institute of Museum and Library Services terminated the remaining funds in its Save America’s Treasures $471,670 grant. Then on April 30 executive director Anna Doering opened her email to find out the grant had been restored.
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1 month ago | 
unionprogress.com | Helen Fallon
Pittsburgh-area residents can learn how to protect migratory bird populations with simple, everyday actions that create more bird-friendly communities within the region this Saturday at the Frick Environmental Center. The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy has worked with partners for several months on World Migratory Bird Day at the Frick Environmental Center and created the free family friendly event as part of that global initiative.
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1 month ago | 
unionprogress.com | Helen Fallon
The winner is … Ocho! That name choice bested five other contenders in a fundraising contest to name USS 8, the 5-week-old U.S. Steel Mon Valley Irvin Works bald eaglet. Steel City Eagles made the announcement Thursday on the group’s Facebook page. Plant Manager Don German confirmed that 121 supporters entered the contest and contributed $5,719.
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1 month ago | 
unionprogress.com | Helen Fallon
It’s May and the Pennsylvania Resources Council has released its spring schedule of household chemical collections and hard-to-recycle collections. North Park will be the setting for the first of each in Allegheny County. Household chemicals will be collected this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The hard-to-recycle collection is set for May 17 there with the same time frame. Both require pre-registration, according to a PRC news release.
