NeighborWorks, along with several volunteer groups, hosted Paint the Town recently. Paint the Town provides volunteers the opportunity to assist older adults in northeastern Pennsylvania to be able to continue residing in their homes and communities safely and with dignity.

Seven older adult-headed households throughout Lackawanna County were provided small home repair services, exterior painting, and yard maintenance. We want to thank our amazing volunteers, including MTF Biologics, PS Bank, Scranton Preparatory School, GEO Reentry Services, among others.

In just under one year the hard work and dedication of Rodney and Latisha made their dream of homeownership finally come true! This past month, they completed all the requirements set for homeownership by the Monroe County Habitat for Humanity by completing 250 hours of sweat equity, receiving financial and homeownership counseling, improving their credit scores, and contributing a minimum downpayment for their new home.

At NeighborWorks, we were privileged to assist Rodney and Latisha on their homeownership journey by providing financial and homeownership counseling. Through working with NeighborWorks they were able to improve their finances and credit so they could meet Habitat's financing requirements.

They are our very first clients to close on a home with Monroe County Habitat for Humanity! We are so honored to support a great community organization like theirs.

Please join us in celebrating their dream coming true!

You can learn more about our homeownership programs on our website.

NeighborWorks is pleased to welcome three new faces to our staff in Yolanda Battaglia, Sean McDonough, and Shalinn Starkey.

Yolanda is our Aging in Place Specialist, where she will be coordinating resources, conducting assessments, and providing advocacy for necessary services for older adults in Luzerne County. Yolanda will also collaborate with social service organizations in the area and ensure the delivery of Aging in Place services to seniors in the region.

Sean is our Project Manager, where he will be managing multiple community project initiatives for our Aging in Place programs and within the West Scranton Neighborhood Plan. He is a Veteran of the United States Marine Corps with a long background in the trades and he is a Licensed Master Social Worker in the state of Pennsylvania.

Shalinn is our HomeOwnership Assistant, where she manages intake for all programs (credit and budget, pre-purchase, post-purchase, and foreclosure intervention), schedules clients, is the primary on the phones and maintains client files. She has a background in film and media and healthcare, and plans to pursue further education at Marywood in 2024.

Please join us in welcoming them to the team!

A BIG thank you to our partners at United Neighborhood Centers of Northeastern Pennsylvania for working with us to host our latest session of the Scranton Neighborhood Leaders Forum at Nay Aug Park! Presentations from UNC, The Scranton Parks and Recreation Department, Valley in Motion and more were featured as part of the program!

The Neighborhood Leaders Forum's purpose is to bring together community leaders from across the city to learn, network, and share resources to help us make our neighborhoods better. For information on future sessions of the Neighborhood Leaders Forum, please contact Gerard Hetman at 570-558-2490, or ghetman@nwnepa.org.

Our Board of Directors motto is "Work Hard, Roll Up Your Sleeves, and Have Fun." This was definitely on display at our recent Strategic Planning Retreat. Our board and staff got together at the Teresa Maxis Conference Center to assess our strategic plan. Thanks for hosting us Marywood University! A special shout-out to Jessica David, our rockstar strategic planning consultant, for being the driver behind the fun and engaging agenda for the day

We were very thankful to be joined by a guest panel, with Paul Macknosky, Regional Director of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development; Lori Chaffers, Executive Director of Outreach Center for Community Resources; and Bob Durkin, President & CEO of The Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce in attendance.