A local nonprofit is celebrating a major milestone in the city of Johnstown as it is also gearing up to take on future projects.
At People’s Natural Gas Park, Vision Together 2025 is making preparations to celebrate a decade of work.
“Vision started 10 years ago as a group of for-profits, non-profits, and civic leaders that came together that wanted to get some stuff done,” says executive director Robert Forcey.
Over the last ten years, Forcey says the group has done extensive community work, ranging from small street cleanups to even bringing the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown to downtown.
“Vision’s goal, overall, is to make Johnstown a better place to live, work and play; basically, just make it a city that folks want to come and visit, want to come and work here, want to come and live here, want to go to school here; things like that.”
Organization officials say Vision Together is trying to make the Johnstown community a better place.
Over the last year, they say they’ve done fifty-thousand dollars in recruitment grants to try and bring new business to downtown and fifty-thousand in facade grants to improve current businesses, as well as building the first house within city limits in over a decade for a local veteran.
But where do they plan to go from here?
“That’s a question we’re asking ourselves right now, because we’re moving into strategic planning soon, that’s going to be data-driven, that we can take a look at and say, ‘okay, these are the things that we need to make Johnstown a better place to live.’”
For now, Vision Together is simply looking to reminisce on their past achievements, as well as celebrate the success of the city.
“We’re here to celebrate. Ten years is pretty good for a nonprofit and puts us in the longevity bracket that not many nonprofits make. So, we’re going to be in a position where we’re looking towards the future and at the same time, we’re looking at what we’ve accomplished.”
Vision Together 2025 will celebrate ten years of service on September 25 during a public event, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.