Mon Valley Initiative Partner Network & SPARC Mobile Resource Fair in Homestead | July 24

Mon Valley Initiative Partner Network & SPARC Mobile Resource Fair in Homestead | July 24

Looking for employment opportunities, financial guidance, or community resources? Don’t miss the Mobile Resource Fair hosted by MVI’s Partner Network on Friday, July 24, in Homestead.

Connect with local organizations, discover valuable resources, and explore opportunities to help you and your family succeed at the MVI Partner Network & SPARC Mobile Resource Fair.

Hosted by Mon Valley Initiative (MVI), this free community event brings together providers from across the region offering employment services, financial education, behavioral health resources, family support, re-entry services, banking assistance, and much more. Whether you’re looking for a new career, community resources, or support services, this event is designed to connect you with organizations that can help.

Date: Friday, July 24, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Location: East 7th Avenue (between Ann Street and McClure Street), behind Mon Valley Initiative’s Homestead office

Community organizations and service providers will be available throughout the afternoon to answer questions, provide information, and connect attendees with programs and resources. The event also highlights the work of Mon Valley Initiative’s Southwestern Pennsylvania Re-Entry Coalition (SPARC), which supports successful re-entry and community connections throughout the region.

For additional information, contact Mon Valley Initiative’s Workforce Team at 412-464-4000

serving the region since 1988

The Mon Valley communities — located south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers in Allegheny, Washington, and Westmoreland counties — were deeply damaged more than 30 years ago when the driving forces of the region’s industrial economy moved away or closed.

Mon Valley Initiative, founded in 1988, works to improve the lives of people in the Mon Valley area by helping to rebuild community infrastructure, provide safe and affordable housing, and connect employers to people seeking new jobs and careers.

We do this by delivering quality services to the people of the Mon Valley, including housing counseling, workforce development and financial coaching, real estate development, and community development.

OUR HISTORY

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, U.S. Steel, Westinghouse Electric, WABCO, Union Switch and Signal, and Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel all closed major manufacturing plants in the Monongahela Valley. Some sources indicate that as many as 175,000 jobs were lost in the region when these plants closed.

Major industrial sites occupied hundreds of acres of land and as landowners, the corporations were major taxpayers. Without this tax revenue, communities in the Mon Valley were hard-pressed to provide basic services to their residents. People moved out, and the Valley’s role as the engine of the Pittsburgh region’s economy was lost.

As factories were closing, a number of business and industry leaders representing Pittsburgh’s largest corporations began an aggressive plan to address the problems that arose from the fall of heavy manufacturing.

Through the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, the group focused its work on setting strategic investment strategies for the region to address the devastating economic decline. One of their recommendations included hiring a community organizer to find a way to encourage reinvestment in the Mon Valley.

That organizer, Michael Eichler, and key leaders and funders of the Allegheny Conference sought solutions directly from people who lived and worked in the Valley. They recommended strategies that offered a means to broadly engage local people in implementing economic and community development projects.

In addition to helping to form new grassroots organizations, Eichler also provided support to community development corporations, or CDCs, that were already in existence. Through the Allegheny Conference, the “Mon Valley Development Team” was formed in January 1987.

In April 1988, the representatives of these grassroots CDCs began to discuss the possibility of forming a regional coalition. These discussions led to the incorporation of Mon Valley Initiative in December 1988.