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EAST LIVERPOOL - The multipurpose Goodwill Center in East Liverpool is estimated to be open and operational by mid-November at the earliest and early January at the latest.
The Goodwill Center, which will house a Goodwill retail store and place for donations on the first floor and 21 offices for social services and training organizations on the second, will be located at 115 W. Fifth St., which Goodwill will be leasing from owner Kimpres Real Estate LLC, whose president is Erik Liber, Lisbon.
This will be the location of the main campus for Goodwill services in the area, but there will also be satellite hubs.
Renovation work on the building is being completed by HSH Contractors, a construction company owned by Liber.
Carol Holmes-Chambers, vice-president, Community Workforce Development for Youngstown Area Goodwill Industries, said the retail location will be a traditional Goodwill store, but the second-floor offices will be shared among community partners which provide social services support or workforce development training that will allow people who come in wanting upward mobility to having training and education access for the sector they want to be employed while having social service support to ensure they not only get the job but stay in it.
"A lot of times, what we are seeing after doing a community needs assessment that showed the work force participation rate is so low compared to the state and national average, it is due to people not having those supports, having poor transportation, dealing with behavioral health issues or not having access to a services that can keep them healthy," Homes-Chambers said. She also noted that if they can get the person receiving services thriving, then they will become a thriving employee.
"What we are trying to create on that second floor is an eco-system for people to feel not only as part of the community, but also feel supported, and I think they will just lend to a thriving East Liverpool, because then maybe some of the resources that are harder to come by in the town, we can hopefully partner with other industries to bring those very resources downtown," Homes-Chambers said.
She also said that a similar model located in Canton is doing very well and there is a brand new one being built in Cleveland.
Homes-Chambers noted that often resources can be fragmented throughout communities, so having an opportunity to bring more resources together in one building can lead to communicating differently. One of the systems she said she wants to see at the center is a referral system that will provide communications to be sent electronically to people and have the ability to see if the referral was accepted or rejected and see what the gaps in services are.
The new center will have the physical space to provide services along with an electronic system to make sure that people have easier access to the services that can be provided.
Homes-Chambers said HSH Contractors is helping with a lot of the renovations for the building with a large percent of the funding coming through the in-kind donations provided by HSH. The rest of the funding is coming from Goodwill Industries and grant funding that they have received or are in the process of requesting.
"That is one of the other reasons we are having the store," Homes-Chambers said. "A lot of our modules for these hubs, we want to be sure that we can be sustainable so the bottom of the store is really just a revenue generator so that we can help support along all the other funding we are trying to get, Goodwill services. A lot of times other non-profits, if it is just grant funded, it is not sustainable, but because we are a social enterprise, 85 cents of every dollar we make goes back to the community, either by employing people who are finding it hard to get employed or through our community services and programs."
The East Liverpool Goodwill Center will not impact the Calcutta Goodwill store. Both locations are operated by the same agencies and will remain open.
A process for accepting donations is currently developed and there is discussion on utilizing donation bins and possible locations for them also.
Carol-Homes is inviting anyone who is interested in providing programming and services at the new Goodwill Center or anyone interested in providing, training, education or social support and are interested in collaborating to reach out to Goodwill Industries by emailing her atc.chambers@goodwillyoungstown.org.
"We are excited. We have already talked to people about collaborating on programming, and met with the schools," Homes-Chambers said. She also noted that the Goodwill Center will be having a community stakeholder event for people who might want to partner. The event is by invite only, with invites being sent to those who have expressed an interest in providing services in collaboration with the Goodwill Center.
Currently they have about eight to 10 organizations that have expressed interest in providing services or training.