Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato charged the new county Parks Foundation with repairing and maximizing the potential of 12,014 acres of park land.

"I'm glad that we're finally here at this point," Onorato told board members Wednesday at the nonprofit's first meeting. "We are talking about rethinking the whole park system."

The foundation, formed in September to help clean up county parks while privatizing some operations, includes a dozen members representing regional groups and businesses -- from the University of Pittsburgh and the Eat'n Park Hospitality Group to Mascaro Construction Co. and U.S. Steel.

Onorato budgeted $1 million to get the group running and find its executive director. An additional $10 million is available as matching dollars for projects and deferred maintenance the county has neglected for the better part of 30 years.

"It's a huge number," Onorato said. "We'll start picking it off project by project."

The board's first projects will address North Park's boat house, the stables at Hartwood Acres, the South Park fairgrounds and Boyce Park's activity center, Onorato has said.

The idea of forming a park foundation dates back to at least 1998, and was endorsed by then-Chief Executive Jim Roddey and County Council around 2002.

Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, a city entity similar to what Onorato has created for the county, has tended to Schenley, Frick, Highland and Riverview parks for several years.

North Park, at 3,000 acres, is the county's largest park and nearly seven times larger than Schenley Park.

Justin Vellucci can be reached at jvellucci@tribweb.com or 412-320-7847.

A Hill District group filed an appeal Wednesday seeking to overturn the Pittsburgh Planning Commission's approval of the Penguins' new $290 million arena.

The One Hill Community Benefits Coalition hopes the appeal filed in Common Pleas Court, and the specter of possible construction delays, will pressure city and county officials to approve an agreement that provides development around Mellon Arena's replacement.

Many One Hill members weren't given a chance to speak during a Jan. 14 commission meeting about the arena, and commissioner Todd Reidbord missed most of the public testimony when he left the meeting to attend a University of Pittsburgh basketball game, the appeal states.

He returned in time to cast a vote in favor the arena plan, which passed 5-3.

"(Reidbord) failed to hear, and therefore could not consider, most of the testimony," the lawsuit says.

Attorney Paul Ellis said One Hill wants a judge to overturn the commission's decision and hold a new hearing.

"We're filing mainly to preserve our legal rights and keep our options open," Ellis said. "We're asking the court to reverse the decision ... so that the community's input can be fully vetted."

One Hill alleges the 18,500-seat arena won't have adequate parking because 2,400 current parking spaces near Mellon Arena are being eliminated and plans call for adding only a 500-space parking garage and a 150-space surface lot. The new arena will have 2,000 more seats than the current one.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl criticized the court challenge.

"I think it's unfortunate, and I don't necessarily think it's productive," he said. "I'm not sure what they feel their actions will achieve. To me, it was something that wasn't necessary. I think the Planning Commission acted appropriately, and I believe the court will find the same."

Planning Commission Chairwoman Wrenna Watson said One Hill members had adequate time to speak. She downplayed Reidbord's absence, saying the testimony he missed mirrored comments he had heard earlier.

One Hill is in talks with city and county officials to establish an agreement that would provide development money to build cut-rate housing, preserve historic buildings and increase green space.

The group wants guaranteed arena jobs for Hill District residents and new social services.

Representatives from both sides met yesterday to continue working on an agreement.

One Hill Chairman Carl Redwood said the group wants work on the arena to stop until an agreement is in place.

"Besides the appeal, the One Hill Coalition has been very clear from the beginning that we'll do everything we can to stop the construction until we have a community benefits agreement," he said.

Penguins spokesman Tom McMillan declined to comment on the lawsuit; however, he said site preparation for the arena is proceeding as scheduled. The building is scheduled to open in time for the team's 2010-11 season.

One Hill could drop the appeal if an agreement is reached, said Tom Hoffman, executive director of pro-labor group Pittsburgh UNITED, which provides One Hill with financial support.

It was the second Planning Commission decision to be challenged in court this week.

On Tuesday, the nonprofit Riverlife Task Force filed a lawsuit against the commission's approval of the Majestic Star Casino's 3,800-space parking garage on the North Shore. It argued the structure will be an eyesore along the Ohio River and set a poor precedent for surrounding development.

Jeremy Boren can be reached at jboren@tribweb.com or 412-765-2312.

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's net profit dropped 70 percent in the first six months of this fiscal year, due largely to a sizable drop in its investment income, a $10 million outlay to a city tuition program and depreciation costs from the system's many improvement projects.

But the decrease in net income to $101 million from $342 million is "not really the whole story," said UPMC Chief Financial Officer Rob DeMichiei.

Officials representing the 48,000-person hospital system instead asked that attention be paid to a measure of cash flow showing the region's largest nonprofit earning $260 million before interest expense, depreciation and amortization, down only 3.7 percent from the same period a year ago.

UPMC, the officials said, used the cash generated by its hospitals and insurance arm to fund new projects, hire 642 employees, buy new equipment, invest in technology and pursue international ventures -- all of benefit to the Pittsburgh area, they argued.

And the consistency of this cash flow -- which topped $500 million for each of the last three fiscal years and is expected to do the same in fiscal 2008 -- allows UPMC to avoid taking on new debt to pay for construction of the new Children's Hospital in Lawrenceville ($240 million will be spent this year in preparation for a 2009 opening) or the new college tuition program known as the Pittsburgh Promise, which UPMC seeded with an initial $10 million (plus another $90 million if a matching $150 million can be found).

"We basically spend what we make," said Mr. DeMichiei, later adding: "We are not in the business to maximize profits. If we were in business to maximize profits, we would do things very differently."

The $260 million in cash flow also reflects strong operating results at UPMC's 19 hospitals (the Jan. 1 takeover of Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh brings the total to 20), where admissions were up 2 percent, and its insurance arm, where membership was up 26 percent in the first six months of fiscal 2008 to more than 1.2 million members.

Total UPMC operating revenues for the six-month period were up $346 million, to $3.37 billion, while operating expenses were up $370 million to $3.27 billion.

The system's international and commercial division -- which oversees UPMC's ventures in Italy and Ireland as well as an array of startup stakes and venture capital investments -- remains a small part of the bottom line, having lost $4 million during the six months ended Dec. 31. Nonetheless, UPMC officials view it as a major area of new opportunity and potential growth, citing "10 to 15 different international opportunities," said Mr. DeMichiei, without specifying in which countries. UPMC, he added, is also "developing initiatives" with Fortune 500 companies to turn technology developed by UPMC into actual products.

"We are growing and we are exporting what we do," he said.

UPMC's net income -- the figure that usually draws the most attention -- dropped in the most recent six-month period largely because volatility in world markets downgraded the performance of UPMC's equity and fixed-income holdings. The hospital network has 114 external investment experts -- including 20 hedge fund managers and 61 private equity managers -- looking after its $3.3 billion portfolio and in recent years gains from this portfolio contributed greatly to the dramatic rise in UPMC's net income; in fiscal 2007, total investment gains were $403 million, on top of $206 million in fiscal 2006.

But in the first six months of fiscal 2008, UPMC's return from this portfolio was $3 million, compared with $220 million at the same point in fiscal 2007.

The decrease is "not a concern at all," said UPMC treasurer Talbot Heppenstall, since the system invests with a five-year plan in mind. The system has not tinkered with its investment mix, Mr. Heppenstall said, nor does it plan to should the markets dip further this year. It's a "long-term investment strategy," he said.

Other factors weighing down net earnings in the first six months of fiscal 2008 were declining reimbursements from Medicare and higher depreciation expenses -- the result of the system's many capital investments that UPMC is able to fund with cash, not debt. One example is the Children's project. Another is the $16 million UPMC is spending this year on 4,300 new IV infusion pumps.

"Part of our core mission is patient care, not maximizing profits," said Mr. DeMichiei. "We do the right thing. We want to do it profitably, but we always do the right thing." Dan Fitzpatrick can be reached at dfitzpatrick@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1752. First published on February 14, 2008 at 12:00 am

High school students rarely have an opportunity to act as consultants to major corporations.

But that's what 25 information technology students from Forbes Road Career and Technology Center, Monroeville, got last week at Seagate Research Center in the Strip District.

Researchers from Seagate, a leading manufacturer of digital storage products, had asked the students to propose new applications for wireless and network-attached hard drives in everyday life.

Dressed for business, the students presented dozens of scenarios via PowerPoint presentations in Seagate's corporate theater. Some students had taken their task a step further by building prototypes to demonstrate their ideas.

The opportunity for students to consult with professionals was provided by the Adventures in Technology program, a joint effort of Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board, Catalyst Connection and The Pittsburgh Technology Council.

Acronyms and buzz words from the world of information technology flew fast and furiously during the student presentations, to be sure. The vocabulary was baffling for the casual computer user, but not for the professionals in the audience, many of them Ph.Ds.

Amid this alphabet soup emerged real-life applications that almost anyone could understand -- hard drive storage units set up to allow people to open doors without keys, proffer a virtual ID, shop at the mall without credit cards or cash, even to have instantaneous access to one's whole digital life -- from favorite music to the smallest detail in an e-mail message from months ago.

The student projects not only soared with cutting-edge innovations -- biometric fingerprint recognition and such -- but also labored over the more mundane aspects of making systems secure from hackers.

With project names like Fidelity, Altacella (Latin for "large" and "storage") and Logged Life, the projects sounded ready for prime time.

"They certainly did their homework," said Ed Skalko, Seagate's director of exploratory technology.

The 5-year-old Adventures in Technology program invites high school students to participate in a hands-on problem-solving activity with a local company. Depending on the company's need, students may be asked to design and build a product or to re-engineer an existing product, process or system.

Funding for the program is provided by the Lois Tack Thompson Fund of the Pittsburgh Foundation.

In addition to improving their technical skills, students learn business terminology, time-management skills, teamwork and how to make a professional presentation. Since 2002, the program has facilitated 24 partnerships between high schools and industry.

This school year, the program is focusing on students in six information technology programs affiliated with the worldwide Cisco Networking Academy.

Other participants are Mt. Lebanon, Parkway West, Peabody, South Side in Beaver County and Job Corps.

The Forbes Road students were fortunate to be matched with an industry leader like Seagate, said George Karnbauer, instructor in the Computer and Network Engineering Technology program at the school.

"Seagate is research and development, cutting edge," he said. "For my kids to get a look at this stuff is fabulous."

The benefits of the partnership go both ways. Seagate gains insight from young people who have grown up with digital technology; the youths get a real project to grapple with and the experience of presenting in a business setting.

California-based Seagate es-tablished its research center in Pittsburgh in 1998 and moved into its Strip District building in 2002. Jason Goldberg, research staff member at Seagate, coached the Forbes Road students.

Seagate's Skalko is an electrical engineer who graduated from Highlands, a school well represented at the event. Back in high school, he had also taken courses at Forbes Road.

"We're trying to encourage these students to pursue science and technology careers," he said. "We gave them a very broad project challenge and asked them to approach it creatively.

"They covered many of the relevant technologies, such as Bluetooth, WIFI, mobile storage in automobiles and games, GPS tracking and backing up their data.

"All in all, they did their homework to understand the applications for hard drives and the potential problems that industry is working on today."

Mr. Karnbauer also praised his students, noting that several went beyond the assignment and built hard drive prototypes with their own funds and time.

"These kids are problem solvers who want to build things to put in their own hands," Mr. Karnbauer said.

The three organizational sponsors of Adventures in Technology are dedicated to developing a workforce in our region that is proficient in science, technology, engineering and math.

The Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board is a group that guides decision-making on regional development to ensure that current and future market needs of business and job seekers are met.

The Pittsburgh Technology Council is the largest regional technology trade association in the United States. It focuses three main industries: information technology, life sciences and advanced manufacturing.

Catalyst Connection is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance the performance of small- to medium-sized manufacturing and technology companies. It is involved in developing a "pipeline of talent for the region," said Scott Dietz, who handles project coordination for Adventures in Technology.

"The program is really phenomenal for the students," said Mr. Dietz, adding that he is proud of businesses that have stepped up, including Seagate.

"Seagate's products are in many of the devices that kids use, like iPods," he said. "We try to open [the students'] eyes to what's in their own back yard." Tina Calabro is a freelance writer. First published on February 14, 2008 at 6:01 am

The Pittsburgh Riverlife Task Force filed an appeal Tuesday with the state Supreme Court to stop owners of the Majestic Star Casino from building a 3,800-space parking garage that the group believes would be an eyesore along the Ohio River.

Pittsburgh Planning Commission members violated the city's zoning code and failed to "demand complete information" from Majestic Star officials "beyond PowerPoint presentations" showing the casino's towering parking garage, according to the 21-page lawsuit filed by Riverlife Task Force attorney Clifford B. Levine.

Planning Commission Chairwoman Wrenna Watson defended the board's approval of the casino's shell design.

"I feel confident that the decision that we made was the appropriate decision to be made," she said.

Watson contends the Riverlife Task Force should have appealed the size of the garage within 30 days of an Aug. 7 public meeting in which the commission voted to approve the casino's foundation and structural steel construction.

That time has passed, she said.

"What's most troubling is they said we didn't have a right to participate in January, but now they say we should have participated in August," Levine said. "But in August there were no issues about the garage, and two stories of the garage were underground. It's kind of like moving balls around under cups: Now you see it, and now you don't."

Levine stressed the task force doesn't want to stop construction of the casino, only the garage.

The appeal asks the court to reverse the commission's approval of the casino's design and stop the city from issuing a building permit for the parking garage. Construction on the $450 million casino began Dec. 11. It is expected to open in April 2009.

"We're studying it internally, and we're not going to make any comment at this time," said Kirk Saylor, chief operating officer of Majestic Star parent PITG Gaming.

Designs for the garage have changed since Majestic Star owner Don Barden won Pittsburgh's lone gambling license in December 2006. Original plans showed a shorter garage with two subterranean stories.

At 119 feet, the garage would be about 40 feet taller than the casino's central drum feature, the building's highest point.

Michael Stern, a casino architect with the Downtown firm Strada, declined to comment.

The nonprofit Riverlife Task Force has argued for months the 3,800-space garage would ruin the look of the North Shore's riverfront along the Ohio River.

In addition to the Riverlife Task Force, the lawsuit is filed on behalf of North Side residents Randy Zotter and Robert Blackwell.

Pennsylvania's gambling laws require legal appeals related to gambling facilities to be filed with the state Supreme Court.

Separately, Stern briefed Planning Commission members yesterday about lighting and landscaping plans for the casino.

Board member Barbara K. Mistick expressed concerns about pedestrian and bicycle access to the riverfront in front of the casino and worried that brightly lit video projections and displays emanating from the casino's central chandelier might appear too bright to residents and nearby businesses.

Stern said the riverfront would be publicly accessible even though it's considered private property. He said he would study the impact of light from the chandelier shining through the building's glass central drum feature before the commission conducts a hearing on the landscaping and lighting Feb. 26.

Jeremy Boren can be reached at jboren@tribweb.com or 412-765-2312.

The Pittsburgh Riverlife Task Force filed an appeal today with the state Supreme Court challenging the Pittsburgh Planning Commission's approval of plans for the Majestic Star Casino on the North Shore.

The lawsuit argues the commission didn't provide enough public notice before approving the casino design Jan. 14 and allowed Majestic Star owner PITG Gaming "to avoid any meaningful review of its plans for its gaming enterprise."

The commission violated the city's zoning code and failed to "demand complete information" from Majestic Star officials "beyond PowerPoint presentations" about plans for the casino's towering parking garage, according to the 21-page lawsuit filed by Riverlife Task Force attorney Clifford B. Levine.

At 119 feet tall, the garage would be about 30 feet higher than the casino's central drum feature, the building's highest point.

The nonprofit Riverlife Task Force has argued the 3,800-space garage would ruin the look of the North Shore's riverfront along the Ohio River. The group has said that allowing the casino to build such a large, concrete garage would set a bad precedent for developments that might follow the casino, which is expected to open in 2009.

The suit asks the state Supreme Court to reverse the Planning Commission approval of the casino's shell design and stop the city from issuing a building permit for the parking garage.

In addition to the Riverlife Task Force, the lawsuit is filed on behalf of North Side residents Randy Zotter and Robert Blackwell.

Construction on the casino began Dec. 11.

Pennsylvania's gambling laws require legal appeals related to gambling facilities to be filed with the state Supreme Court.

Jeremy Boren can be reached at jboren@tribweb.com or 412-765-2312. Back to headlines

Grant Oliphant, the longtime No. 2 at The Heinz Endowments, will now get his chance to be a No. 1 across town at The Pittsburgh Foundation.

The region's third-largest grantmaking organization introduced the 47-year-old Mr. Oliphant as its president and chief executive officer yesterday after a four-month search that involved 14 other candidates, including The Pittsburgh Foundation's executive vice president Richard Reed and former state Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Baldwin. Mr. Oliphant follows William Trueheart, who left the foundation last September, and becomes only the fourth president in the foundation's 63-year history. Grant Oliphant

The new boss does not yet have a firm start date or salary (the range set by the selection committee was $200,000-$240,000).

But "I can't wait to get started," Mr. Oliphant said yesterday, in an interview. "The first order of the day for me in this role will be to open my ears and open my mind and ask people for their thoughts on what they think needs to happen . . . I think The Pittsburgh Foundation is uniquely positioned to help Pittsburgh go from wishing for a better day to actually creating a better day. We look forward to being a part of that transition. I look forward to being a part of that transition."

Unlike The Heinz Endowments or the Richard King Mellon Foundation, The Pittsburgh Foundation derives its wealth not from a single well-heeled family but from a pool of endowment funds established by 1,200 individuals and organizations across the Pittsburgh area. Considered tax-exempt by the federal government and thus obligated to give away at least 5 percent of its assets each year, The Pittsburgh Foundation awarded $35 million in grants last year to other nonprofits throughout southwestern Pennsylvania, compared with $80 million in grants distributed by the Heinz Endowments. The Pittsburgh Foundation controls assets worth $750 million, compared with $1.6 billion controlled by Heinz.

The appointment of Mr. Oliphant caps a string of leadership changes inside Pittsburgh's clubby philanthropic community. Among the other foundations to appoint a new boss recently are The Buhl Foundation (Frederick Thieman), The Grable Foundation (Gregg Behr), the Hillman Foundation (David Roger), the Fine Foundation (Susan Brownlee) and The Heinz Endowments, which in November hired former North Carolina educator Bobby Vagt to replace the outgoing Maxwell King, passing Mr. Oliphant over for the top job.

The new blood provides "a real opportunity to collaborate" and "take a fresh look at things," said Mr. Oliphant. "Most of the folks who are in those leadership positions now are not new to town. They understand what the issues are."

James Roddey, a Pittsburgh Foundation board member who led the search for a new CEO, said the board liked Mr. Oliphant's leadership and communication skills and "the feedback we received in the community is that he would be well received."

The Heinz Endowments' new boss -- Mr. Vagt -- released a statement of support for Mr. Oliphant yesterday, calling his departure a "significant loss" for Heinz and pledging to work with him "on significant projects that are vital to the future of southwestern Pennsylvania."

Mr. Oliphant leaves as Heinz's vice president of programs and planning, the No. 2 executive post, in charge of the endowments' $60 million grantmaking portfolio and strategic planning. Mr. Oliphant also leaves behind a long history with the Heinz family. He served as press secretary for U.S. Sen. John Heinz from 1988 until the senator's death in 1991. He then joined The Heinz Endowments, now chaired by the late senator's wife Teresa Heinz, in 1993 as director of communications. Prior to his work for the Heinz family, Mr. Oliphant was the founding editor of American Politics, a monthly magazine (his father is political cartoonist Pat Oliphant). Mrs. Heinz's current husband, John Kerry, ran for the U.S. presidency in 2004 and Mr. Oliphant was among those asked to refute false election-year charges that the endowments had funneled money to Fidel Castro, violent Hispanic secessionists and jihadists.

Mr. Oliphant said he spoke with Mrs. Heinz yesterday about The Pittsburgh Foundation job and "she was as positive as I ever could have hoped and very supportive and very proud. I am touched by that." Leaving Heinz is "bittersweet," he added. "This has been the best training ground one could have ever hoped for in community philanthropy. I am sad about leaving the Heinz family connection but I also feel as though I am being given the opportunity" to take all that he learned "and apply it on a broader scale."

Mr. Oliphant expects no dramatic changes at The Pittsburgh Foundation, citing the "strong team" already in place, although a stronger partnership with the local United Way is possible and work will begin soon on a new strategic plan, said Mr. Oliphant and Mr. Roddey. Whatever happens, through, Mr. Oliphant will no doubt bring a philosophy of openness to the new post. Foundations, he said in remarks made before the Center for Effective Philanthropy in 2005, "are human institutions controlling vast resources pledged to serve the public good and like it or not, that makes us legitimate targets of public scrutiny. Even if that scrutiny sometimes feels unfair, even if it sometimes is unfair, it is inevitable and rather than run from it, we must embrace it." Dan Fitzpatrick can be reached at dfitzpatrick@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1752. First published on February 12, 2008 at 12:00 am

It began barely a year-and-a-half ago, when Carl Farris was gunned down on a Duquesne sidewalk. It starts there, arbitrarily, because I had a tenuous connection to the young man.

The list's next entry occurred last July, when Jehru Donaldson was murdered on the North Side while picking up his girlfriend's nephews for an afternoon Pirates game. Then came Job Corps student Christopher Evans, killed in October near the East Busway.

The newest entry is Jolesa Barber, the 12-year-old who died last Monday when a hail of bullets tore through the front of her older sister's townhouse in the Perry South section of the North Side.

But these aren't just any victims' names. These were kids -- a preteen, two recent high school grads, and a 20-year-old -- who were doing everything right. They were studious, loving, law-abiding and involved -- most of them deeply involved -- in churches and faith-based programs devoted to helping them escape the violence and despair of so many urban neighborhoods.

But they didn't escape.

When I realized that Jolesa was killed less than a mile from the Pittsburgh Project's campus, I called executive director Saleem Ghubril to ask whether he or his scores of volunteers had had any contact with the young girl.

"We knew her and loved her very much," he said quietly.

For five years Jolesa had attended the center's after-school programs and summer camps. The morning of her death, Mr. Ghubril said, she and her sisters had breakfast with her mentor. "It's heart-breaking, to say the least. We feel angry and sad and frustrated."

That was the effect, I knew, of Carl Farris' death on the members of New Hope Church, a North Side congregation that focuses on interracial community building. Those whose lives were so deeply and joyfully entwined with his were devastated when their brightest star was extinguished just before he was to leave for college. So why even try, when the forces of evil destroy what's been so painstakingly built?

"This could be very depressing," Mr. Ghubril agreed. "But it's also very motivating."

Then he gently suggested that my list needed to be broadened.

The 15-year-old accused of killing Jolesa, the 17-year-old twin who'll stand trial for killing Jehru Donaldson, the 15-year-old arrested for murdering Christopher Evans -- these children aren't dead, but their lives may be essentially over.

"We lost them too," Mr. Ghubril said.

Often those toiling in programs like the Pittsburgh Project and Urban Impact, another powerful North Side group, know the youths who pulled the trigger. They've tried to reach these young men and failed. But they're not giving up.

A popular local blogger, "PittGirl," captured the anguish of many Pittsburghers last week when she wrote (at theburghblog.com) of an endlessly spinning circle of violence that defies anyone to "jump in and snap it open."

With gut-wrenching irony, PittGirl's post borrowed the title of a very old gospel song: "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" It describes a circle, broken on earth by death but someday restored in heaven. Its last verse goes, "One by one their seats were emptied, one by one they went away ..."

Instead of a circle of violence, Saleem Ghubril describes a "cycle of despair." And he envisions it being broken not just one by one, but one on one.

Too many kids graduate without a real education, destined for minimum-wage jobs, he said. And if they're young men who've already fathered children, those wages will be garnished for child support. That's why some reject the regular economy for one that's off the books at best, criminal or gang-related at worst.

While broad efforts like reforming the public school system must continue, he says, "intensively relational" programs like the Pittsburgh Project are necessary, too.

The organization just received its first federal grant to launch YouthBuild, a Department of Labor program. In the Pittsburgh Project's model, 25 to 30 men and women, ages 18 to 24, will get a year's training in construction along with academic and character-building classes. The neighborhood homes they refurbish will be made available to low-income buyers.

Participants will be paid throughout the 12-month course and three-month apprenticeship. The substantial paychecks "buy us leverage to be involved in their lives," Mr. Ghubril said. That means close mentoring, rides to work, even daily wake-up calls.

The cycle of despair has to be broken, and a circle of hope built, one person at a time.

"It's too late for Jolesa," he said, but her tragic death "has to be a call to arms" -- arms, as she knew, that encircle and embrace.

Ruth Ann Dailey can be reached at rdailey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1733. First published on February 4, 2008 at 12:00 am

As skiers and sledders careened down Boyce Park's snowy hills Saturday morning, Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato told a crowd of about 150 people gathered in the ski lodge that the slopes could be better operated by a private group than the county. In three to six months, the county plans to seek bids from private businesses to operate the slopes along with golf courses, horse stables, tennis courts, boat houses and other amenities in the county's nine parks. Yesterday, Onorato conducted a town hall-style meeting to ask park users for suggestions on other facilities that could benefit the parks.

"What we're going to start doing is looking at all nine parks," Onorato said. "We're going to rethink the way we're running our parks."

The county's 12,000 acres of parks are about 20 years behind on maintenance, Onorato said.

He has set $10 million aside to match, dollar for dollar, any private money raised for park improvements in the next year by the nonprofit Allegheny County Parks Foundation -- meaning $20 million could be pumped into the parks. The county spends an average of $3 million on the parks annually. Any business that would be willing to improve, maintain and run park amenities -- such as Boyce Park's wave pool -- in exchange for collecting fees for use, is invited to bid for operational leases.

"Say someone comes to the county and says, 'We'll put in $5-to-$10 million to renovate the lodge, put in an upscale restaurant, but we want a 20-year contract, a lease, to run it,'" Onorato said. "We're going to look at that. ... But we're never going to sell these parks."

Though fees could be increased for activities such as golfing and skiing, Onorato said the county would make sure they are reasonable increases that would not decrease attendance. He would consider offering discount passes to senior citizens to offset increases.

People who attended the meeting suggested the county consider adding dirt bike and motocross racing on the ski slopes during the summer, an RV park, a dog park, bocce courts, horseshoe pits and a roller skating rink to Boyce Park.

They also asked for improvements to the trails, playgrounds and tennis courts. Andy Baechle, county parks director, said the playgrounds and trails are slated for improvements in the spring, and there are plans for the tennis courts.

"We hope that a firm will come in and upgrade them," he said. "If not, we will ourselves."

Doug Martin, of Plum, said he is glad to know there is a foundation raising money for improvements, but was wary of bringing in private companies.

"I really don't like the idea of privatization," said Martin, 49. "But I guess it's a good way to make money."

Susan Moira Knechtel, who lives about a mile from Boyce Park and walks in it daily, said she loved the variety of ideas for the park, but hopes the county can balance them all.

"Sometimes bigger isn't better, sometimes less is more," said Knechtel, of Monroeville. "It's a catch-22 -- very exciting, but I'd like to see some upkeep of what's here already."

Allison M. Heinrichs can be reached at aheinrichs@tribweb.com or 412-380-5607

Organizers of the Communities in Schools program intend to offer Westmoreland County school districts a new alternative education program for high school students by this September. Its location, student transportation and per-pupil cost remain to be determined.

The Westmoreland County site is one of two Pennsylvania prototype Performance Learning Centers, said Linda Smith, director of Communities In Schools of Southwest PA Inc. The second site is in Philadelphia.

The centers debuted in Georgia in the 2003-04 school year, said Gary Chapman, national program director. That state has 28 centers. North Carolina has four, and Virginia and Washington each have one.

Funding for the nonprofit centers comes from Communities In Schools through a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Chapman and Smith spoke Wednesday to area school district administrators at the Private Industry Council building in Hempfield.

Performance Learning Centers are designed to benefit students who are struggling in a traditional high school setting.

"This is for students who fall through the cracks, students in the dropout pipeline," Chapman said.

The school will offer math, science, social studies, language arts and an elective, and will have a 1-to-15 teacher-student ratio, Smith said.

Sixty percent of instruction will be online, Chapman said.

Students can participate in community service, job shadowing, internships and mentoring. Dual enrollment with technical and four-year colleges also will be offered.

The schools can accommodate 75 to 150 students. Districts can purchase slots for students, but coordinators will wait to see how many are interested before determining how many each can buy.

"The cost is not going to exceed the per-pupil allotment you get from the state," Smith said.

Several administrators asked if the school would accept adjudicated students who juvenile court judges determined to have committed crimes.

Dorine King, director of the Communities In Schools of Southwest PA's alternative education Success Academy in Uniontown Mall, said a student's history and offense will be considered.

"I don't want to make a blanket statement: 'no way' or 'absolutely everyone'," she said yesterday.

Three possible locations, all in Hempfield, are Westmoreland Mall, Westmoreland County Community College and St. Paul Church, which no longer operates a parish school.

Georgia Teppert, principal at Greater Latrobe Senior High School, and Kathy Perry, principal at Derry Area Senior High School, both see a need for another alternative education option.

Teppert said she supports the rigorous academic curriculum and students doing the course work to enable them to graduate from their home schools.

"I think that's a key," Teppert said. "I think there are students who feel they would fit in at an alternative school, but if they are not getting a Latrobe or Derry diploma, they are not going."

"I'm positive, and I'm optimistic to an alternative," Perry said. "A traditional program, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., is not for everyone."

Mary Pickels can be reached at mpickels@tribweb.com or 724-836-5401.

It was certainly not a slow summer dip in the river. "It's not the worst swim I've been to," said shivering Andrew Marino, 25, of Mt. Lebanon as he poured hot water onto himself after a swim in the Monongahela River on Saturday at the South Side's Riverfront Park. "This hot water is so nice."

About 30 people calling themselves the Pittsburgh Drowned Hogs braved a 28-degree morning and 32-degree water to raise money for Circle C Family & Youth Services of Green Tree.

Yesterday's Groundhog Day swim raised money for Circle C, a nonprofit organization that works with at-risk children. Swimmers get sponsors for the event, which raised more than $10,000 in its first two years, said Rich Knoult, Circle C's executive director.

"This has worked well. The weather can be much colder at this time of year, so we are lucky today," Knoult said. Some bathers seemed unfazed by the brisk water.

Nancy Spang, 43, of Brookline did not know what to expect.

"This is my first time. It was OK because it was so fast," she said.

The event was started by Al Bollinger, 58, of Mt. Lebanon. A Pittsburgh native who lived in Boston for 30 years, Bollinger organized a Feb. 2 swim on a beach south of Boston 13 years ago. The consensus of the swimmers was that winter will linger six more weeks.

"We think we are a more accurate predictor than a groundhog," Bollinger said.

Rick Wills can be reached at rwills@tribweb.com or 724-779-7123.

He was a youngster in 1958, the year the Brother's Brother Foundation was founded by his father, a world famous anesthesiologist from Cleveland. But one memory from that period brings tears to his eyes. Luke Hingson, for all of his experience in third-world politics and charity-giving, wears his emotions on his sleeve, and nothing seems to move him as deeply as recalling the time his father, Robert Hingson, pushed back against bigotry in his native Alabama.

Luke Hingson, a bespectacled teddy bear of a man with curly gray hair and a quiet yet engaging manner, explains that his father gathered a delegation for a trip to Africa -- an early excursion in the illustrious 50-year history of Brother's Brother, a trip designed to bring the wonders of medical inoculation to a land and people just then emerging from decades of oppressive colonial rule.

One of the distinguished group of scientists and doctors asked to go along was the president of the hospital at Tuskegee Institute, the famous all-black academy in segregationist Alabama. When word leaked of the invitation, which had been personally tendered by Robert Hingson, all hell broke lose.

Regardless of his lofty credentials, Dr. Eugene Dibble was not fit to carry the banner of American goodwill to the people of Africa -- or so critics complained. The group that had offered to finance the trip -- to the tune of $10,000 -- began to make noises that it might bow out. Finally, an ultimatum was issued: Either the president of Tuskegee hospital was shown the door, or the cash for the trip would be withdrawn.

"It was a different time in America," Luke Hingson, 55, explains, sitting in the third-floor conference room of a converted North Side pipe plant, the combination warehouse-office headquarters of the Brother's Brother Foundation of Pittsburgh. Black Americans were regularly dismissed as second-class citizens during the 1950s, and the civil rights movement had yet to take hold -- all of which might have lead Robert Hingson to disinvite the Tuskegee doctor and take the cash.

The critics didn't know Robert Hingson. Hingson, a man who wanted to represent the best of America, found a replacement donor. The trip went forward, as evidenced by a grainy black-and-white newspaper photograph featuring Hingson and Dibble just before their departure to Liberia.

Luke Hingson's voice quivered as he spoke of the incident and looked at the photograph.

"I think my father did the right thing," he says.

On a wall in the conference room high above Galveston Avenue hangs a photo of Robert Hingson and other Americans alongside Albert Schweitzer -- the renowned philosopher, physician and humanitarian of equatorial Africa.

"That about says it all," Luke Hingson says, a note of triumph in his voice.

Model organization

The Brother's Brother Foundation is, by most accounts, the most efficient, low-cost charitable outfit in America, if not the world.

Transferred from Cleveland to Pittsburgh in 1968, when the elder Hingson took a position at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health, the staff of 13 continues to gather accolades. The latest, from Forbes Magazine, praises Brother's Brother for its "charitable commitment," calling attention to its low salaries (Hingson earns $113,400 a year -- "half what counterparts at some comparable nonprofits" receive, the magazine commented) and its ratio of charitable giving to expenses.

For six years running, Forbes has given Brother's Brother a perfect score in the categories of fundraising efficiency and charitable commitment.

Brother's Brother also has been recognized by the Better Business Bureau, Nonprofit Times, Chronicles of Philanthropy (which ranked it the ninth largest charity in the United States in 2006) and Web-based Charity Navigator.

For four years in a row, Charity Navigator has given Brother's Brother Foundation its highest Four-Star rating.

Normally, heads are turned by such high praise. Not at the Brother's Brother Foundation, where the unofficial motto, according to volunteer medical director Dr. Chip Lambert, is "We go the extra mile."

Indeed, there is something extraordinary about Brother's Brother. Working with U.S. pharmaceutical companies Milan, Teva, Barr and Watson, book publishers McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin and Pearson Education, a host of Pittsburgh and East Coast hospitals, as well as individual donors, Brother's Brother has carved out a special position among U.S. gift-in-kind charities. One of the largest such charities in the country, it might be the smartest- and hardest-working.

"Unique" is a word that has been applied to it.

How so?

Schuyler Foerster, of the Pittsburgh World Affairs Council, notes the foundation's cultivation of high-profile nongovernmental organizations, as well as the U.S. State Department and, within the State Department, the Agency for International Development. Brother's Brother has been a major partner with AID in the distribution of books for African children.

"They're crazy about Brother's Brother at AID," Foerster says.

The foundation's specialness, Foerster says, also is reflected in the fact that it serves not the short-term needs of countries and peoples in distress. Foerster recalls an earthquake in Pakistan.

"Brother's Brother was Johnny-on-the-spot," he says.

Hingson notes that Brother's Brother has an active board of directors -- far more active than in the past. That energy is seen in people like Lambert, an emergency room doctor at Allegheny General Hospital before he joined the Medical Benevolence Association (he works for the Houston-based nonprofit from his residence in Allegheny County).

Asked about the value of an energetic board, Lambert starts by saying donors look to Brother's Brother for one thing above all: "accountability."

Translation: low operating costs and high-value merchandise.

Toward that end, Lambert continues, the staff and board are dedicated to not taking the path many charities travel. In too many cases, he says, charities with billion-dollar budgets become self-absorbed and end up spending most of what they bring in on multi-million dollar advertising campaigns.

Instead of haggling over splashy advertising campaigns or rubber-stamping staff decisions, board members involve themselves in the nitty gritty of the group's work. A curious and wonderful thing has happened during the past several years, Hingson says.

Board members have become the eyes and ears of the organization's far-flung overseas ventures.

Joe Senko, retiring soon as board treasurer, does not disagree. Senko, a partner in a Pittsburgh accounting firm, is the goodwill ambassador in Pennsylvania for the Eastern European nation of Slovakia -- officially, he is Slovakia's honorary counsel to the state.

In this capacity, Senko helped steer to Slovakian schools thousands of surplus computers, which had been stored at Brother's Brother in Pittsburgh. The warehouse later got a supply of Highlights magazine for children. Working with the U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, Senko was able to identify Slovakian schools that could best use the magazines.

Eventually, 66,000 English language Highlights left Pittsburgh for Slovakia.

In both instances, Senko followed up with visits.

But that pales in comparison with two of Lambert's recent experiences.

Because, in Hingson's phrase, Brother's Brother works with the "poorest of the poor," it engages some of the most unstable political environments in the world. Congo is one such place where political instability has bred a form of lawlessness unknown to the developed world. Bands of highwaymen -- robbers -- roam the Congolese countryside. Lambert calls Congo "the second most difficult country to move around in."

Despite the challenge, Lambert undertook a combined mission for the Medical Benevolence Foundation and Brother's Brother: For the former, he inspected six Congolese hospitals; for the latter, he hand-delivered $60,000 worth of surgical instruments to the hospitals.

He did the same in troubled Kenya, personally delivering 1,400 surplus scissors, forceps and other surgical equipment to three hospitals.

"We do what works," Lambert says. "We all do."

The family business

A history major at Tufts University in Boston, Hingson never meant to spend more than a few months working alongside his father at Brother's Brother. "I was at loose ends," he says. "I was typical of my generation. I didn't know what I wanted to do."

He learned by doing, and he recalls the day his dad threw him to the wolves. It was the early '70s after a hurricane in Honduras, a situation that begged for a rapid infusion of medical personnel and supplies.

While Robert Hingson took on the responsibility of mobilizing Pittsburgh-area doctors and nurses, the supply part was handed off to Luke -- who recalls his father saying, "Here, son, why don't you try it?"

"I was just a youngster, 22 years old. I didn't know a thing," Hingson says.

With some luck and a lot of pluck, Hingson cobbled together a supply system that embraced a half-dozen Pittsburgh hospitals, scores of Teamsters, members of the Pennsylvania National Guard, an abandoned Nike missile site in Moon (where the supplies were temporarily stored) and J&L Steel, which donated use of its corporate jet.

In the end, the novice Hingson managed to dispatch the equivalent of 20 tractor-trailer loads of medical supplies to Honduras.

"I learned to do things on a shoestring," he says.

And now?

"I'm still working on a shoestring."

Some shoestring. When Brother's Brother moved to Pittsburgh, the cash value of its charitable donations barely topped $100,000. By 1993, it was in the $40 million range. By 1998, it had grown to $77 million.

Nine years later, in 2007, the total cash value of the foundation's donations to 62 countries in Central and South America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe peaked at $328 million.

While this mushrooming was taking place, one thing remained constant: the low cost of doing business. A miniscule 0.1 percent of what Brother's Brother took in 2006 was devoted to administrative expenses, according to the latest analysis by Charity Navigator.

"He's a visionary," Foerster says of Luke Hingson. "He's passionate. He really cares about carrying on this work."

Brother's Brother is trusted to do some of the best work in the business. It started way back in the early 1960s, when the Kennedy administration asked Robert Hingson if he might turn the organization's attention to Africa.

More recently, Foerster says, the Clinton administration approached Luke Hingson to focus, in the wake of the Dayton Peace Accords, on Bosnia and Kosovo.

And in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Brother's Brother was one of the nongovernmental organizations consulted by the Bush administration, which was bracing for a flood of Iraqi refugees fleeing the country (a development that never occurred).

Hingson "pulls people along," Foerster says, partly because he's persistent and partly because he's a friendly guy.

A "no" answer doesn't seem to faze him. Ministers of health and education in more than 100 countries have felt Hingson's gentle, hovering presence.

And then there's the private sector. Hingson soon expects another donation from Crocs -- a donation of "hundreds of thousands" of shoes that will end up on the feet of people around the world.

Hingson feels he's fulfilling his father's original intent for Brother's Brother, which was to do as much good as possible for the neediest of people. He is humble. He chokes back tears a second time when he mentions (briefly, because that's all he can manage) the cash donations that come the foundation's way from people who themselves are having a hard time keeping things together.

"When people give you their life savings, you want to be respectful of it," he says.

In fact, Hingson is appreciative of the people of Western Pennsylvania. The bulk of the foundation's cash donations are made locally. The same is true of the volunteers who work in the warehouse or in the Galveston Avenue office licking envelopes.

Hingson credits his father's decision to take a job in Pittsburgh as one of the wisest and most beneficial he made -- which, all things considered, is saying a lot.

Richard Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@tribweb.com or 724-836-5660.

John Heller / Post-Gazette A study shows that a Pittsburgh audience such as this entering a symphony performance at Heinz Hall has the second-highest percentage of patrons age 55 or older in the nation.Ever look around at the crowd when the lights come up at a live performance around Pittsburgh and get the feeling it seems a little old? No need to adjust your bifocals. Your eyes are not deceiving you.

Nearly half -- 45 percent -- of Allegheny County's arts audience is 55 and older, according to data from cultural advocates Americans for the Arts. That is higher than both the national average for that age group and higher than the 55-and-older turnout in such peer cities as Baltimore, Buffalo, St. Louis and Cincinnati.

Graying audiences are a problem for nonprofit arts and entertainment groups nationwide, but the problem gets magnified in Allegheny County, the second-oldest big county in the country. Whether younger people will grow into arts patrons -- the kind of people who will fill seats, buy subscription plans and kick in to fund-raising campaigns -- is weighing on the minds of local arts professionals like Jeremy Kraus.

"Obviously the lifeblood of our organization needs to be a younger audience,'' said Mr. Kraus, marketing director at City Theatre.

"We can't just keep maintaining the same loyal fans, as extraordinary and important as they are," he said. "We need to keep reaching out to build a younger core, and get them in the door at a younger age, and then they will be our core in later years."

To tackle the problem, City Theatre and other arts groups are developing whole new ways to market themselves, using text messaging and other technology to reach young fans; devising ways to make arts experiences unique; and providing ticket discounts, networking opportunities and a splash of booze.

Of course, they are competing with bars, restaurants, clubs, sports and entertainment districts that are trying to do the same thing.

The arts are "just another leisure choice," said Dan Martin, director of Carnegie Mellon's Institute for the Management of Creative Enterprises. "To get somebody to say, 'Yeah I'll go to the exhibit rather than go to Lidia's,' you have to help them understand why that's a better choice."

At the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, the big daddy of local arts groups, the major youth outreach effort has been its quarterly Gallery Crawls, which are entering their fifth year.

Starting with just four galleries in 2004, the crawls -- which feature free art, entertainment, and limited beer and wine -- now have up to 20 Downtown locations, and demographics to die for. The biggest proportion (43 percent) of attendees are ages 24-29; 80 percent are young professionals; and 99 percent say they want to return.

The youth influx adds a different flavor to the trust's overall mission of revitalizing Downtown through art and culture, which it does most prominently through its Broadway series and other traditional performances.

"The Gallery Crawl audience is very, very, very young, but you also get older people Downtown because it's art. ... The mix is really broad and we love that," said Janis Burley Wilson, the trust's vice president of education and community engagement.

The South Side's City Theatre has started advertising with text messages that offer ticket discounts. It has given free tickets to bloggers, adopted ticket and drink specials for groups of women and created a "Greenroom" committee of young leaders that networks for new subscribers.

Four years ago, the theater also lowered prices to its 9 p.m. Saturday shows to capture the Carson Street date crowd, and ticket sales went from a previous average of 100 up to 275-seat sellouts, Mr. Kraus said. On Saturday nights "we have a tremendously younger crowd than we normally have," he said.

Pittsburgh Public Theater offers $15 tickets to those 26 and younger, which helped sell more than 4,000 tickets -- the equivalent of 31/2 sellouts -- to last year's season opener, "Oedipus the King." A regular preopening night networking party, called "Mix@Six," has discounted tickets and free drinks and food.

For 10 years, the University of Pittsburgh, through its PittArts program, has given students thousands of free tickets (and meals and transportation) to more than 100 arts performances citywide, often including behind-the-scenes looks at a production and its stars. The university-funded office also sells some 9,500 discounted "Cheap Seats" to selected performances to Pitt students and staff.

Once the training wheels come off, it's hoped that the students will keep going to arts events after graduation. Asked in a PittArts survey last year if they would do so, 84 percent of students said "yes" and 15 percent "maybe."

"Honestly, I feel there's been an impact" from PittArts, said its director, Annabelle Clippinger. "When I go out, I see more young people and I've not seen snoring or sleeping when I go to the symphony or wherever I go," she joked.

A key to luring the younger arts crowd is simply using language or references it understands.

Kate E.H. Prescott, a Pittsburgh-based marketing consultant who works with corporate and nonprofit arts clients nationally, saw that generation gap firsthand while interviewing young music fans about Pittsburgh Symphony Pops, which traditionally gets an older audience.

"When I'd say to younger people who don't go, 'Do you like pops?' they would say, 'What, do you mean like Britney Spears?' They didn't know the word," Ms. Prescott said.

Communicating clearly also requires technology, and not just the text messages and blogs City Theatre uses. It also means being able to book and print tickets online, and to constantly monitor and respond to audience preferences. While commonplace in the for-profit arts community (such as Ticketmaster), the cash-strapped nonprofit world is still catching up to this Web-driven segment of the population.

Young people go online "in other parts of their lives, but as of yet, they are not able to do it as much in the arts. That's just essential for ease of consumer access," said Janet Sarbaugh, senior arts and culture program director of Pittsburgh's Heinz Endowments. "Organizations large and small here are thinking about that and will have to work together to pull it off."

Still, some traditional cultural organizations find it best not to focus too strongly on audience age.

A study Ms. Prescott did for the American Symphony Orchestra League in 2001 found the average orchestra attendee nationwide was age 57; fewer than 10 percent of the audience was under 35. The numbers simply reflected the fact that older attendees had more time, more spending money and had "reached a stage in life when self-improvement, continuing education, and enjoying new experiences are very important," her study found.

In other words, older audiences remain the bread-and-butter for many organizations, like the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. While it has adopted many current youth-building strategies -- increasing its Internet presence, creating a young professionals group, offering discounts and educational opportunities to students -- the PSO has found that mining its traditional, older base is the best way to fill Heinz Hall.

Since 2004, when the PSO re-focused on selling subscriptions (rather than single tickets) for its Mellon Grand Classics and PNC Pops series, it has had its best sales in a decade. "This goal," audience development senior director Doug Kinzey said in an e-mail, "tends to focus on more traditional audiences."

Some arts groups, with the help of the Heinz Endowments' Arts Experience initiative, are not focusing on audience age, income or other demographic categories at all. Rather the foundation is pushing for deeper audience participation in events, with the hope of strengthening bonds between people and the arts.

The worst thing arts groups can do, said the Heinz Endowments' Ms. Sarbaugh, is assume young people do not like art and will naturally age into seasoned arts patrons.

"I think if you have the right introduction to [art], everyone can enjoy it. Finding new ways to do that, given the huge amount of competition for young people's time, is the real challenge we have," she said.

Timothy McNulty can be reached at tmcnulty@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1581. First published on February 1, 2008 at 12:00 am

NEW YORK -- Founded in the mid-19th century, the Young Men's Christian Association has expanded far beyond its name in the United States. It welcomes all faiths, half the 20.2 million people it serves are female, and more than half are adults.

With that diverse clientele in mind, the Y is again redefining itself. A new strategic plan envisions the organization as America's paramount fitness and anti-obesity crusader, combatting what it calls "the nation's ongoing lifestyle health crisis."

While maintaining its varied youth programs and vast child-care network, the Y is aggressively expanding health-related initiatives, notably through a program called Activate America.

At hundreds of local Ys nationwide, officials are retraining staff, redesigning facilities and revising activities to better serve the millions of Americans who find it hard to stick with weight-loss and fitness regimens.

"Our history has been one of taking a lead on key issues facing our society," said Neil Nicoll, who since May 2006 has been president of the YMCA of the USA -- the parent group that coordinates activities of the 967 independently run YMCA associations across the country.

The YMCA's new direction was first tested in Pittsburgh, said Eric Mann, president and chief executive officer of the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh.

"We here in Pittsburgh started our focus on these key areas four years ago," he said. "We were one of the pilot areas."

The Pittsburgh Y designed programs to encourage people of all ages in the communities they serve to live healthier lifestyles, Mr. Mann said.

He said he is especially proud of the after-school programs the YMCA offers at 42 locations throughout the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.

"Three days a week every child in our program gets a structured exercise program, plus information on healthy eating and snacking."

The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh has a similar program for teens, a corporate wellness program where the Y works with employers to devise on-site programs for employees, and another for senior citizens, Mr. Mann said.

"On a daily basis, we have close to a thousand seniors involved in our activities," he said. "The beauty of it is we do this in all communities."

Now, more than 370 of its associations already have joined Activate America, which Mr. Nicoll said is targeted at the 40 percent of Americans who crave a healthier lifestyle but waver in their pursuit of it.

"They're looking for personal support, done in a more holistic way," he said. "We want programs geared to group activity so people can develop connections instead of just running in and out."

The YMCA of Greater New York has a new 12-week, personalized exercise program -- free to members -- with four individual sessions with a fitness coach.

Despite lower fees, a survey of 10,000 gym users, just released by Consumer Reports, found that health facilities at Ys and other nonprofit centers were generally better rated than big health-club chains.

Jack Kelly contributed to this report. First published on January 30, 2008 at 12:00 am

By Janice Crompton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For adoptive parents and young mothers like Michelle McClelland, having adoption services close to home and within easy reach makes an emotionally charged situation a little easier.

Ms. McClelland, 19, of Bethel Park, gave up her newborn son for adoption a year ago, and although she's thrilled with the way things turned out for her and her baby, grinding through Pittsburgh traffic every week or so wasn't so great.

In response to mothers like Ms. McClelland and potential adoptive families, The Children's Home of Pittsburgh and Lemieux Family Center recently opened a satellite office in Washington.

The nonprofit Children's Home, established in 1893, is seeking to expand its adoption services in Southwestern Pennsylvania, starting with Washington County.

"We came to Washington County in hopes of motivating birth parents and adoptive parents to take advantage of our unique adoption services, since they will now be provided closer to their homes," said Connie Bach, director of adoption for The Children's Home.

"In this location we will be able to serve more birth parents, help more babies to achieve permanency at an early age and assist more adoptive parents to build their family through adoption."

Located in the Washington Trust Building, the satellite office is open by appointment and includes birth parent and adoptive parent support, education and counseling. It is being staffed by masters-level social workers who are state licensed.

Marketing director Robin Weber said data gathered by the organization showed that Washington County is underserved for adoption services. The prospect of having to travel to downtown Pittsburgh also can be intimidating for young mothers.

"We wanted to open a satellite office outside of Pittsburgh," Ms. Weber said. "We felt that, especially for birth parents, it can be daunting to go to Pittsburgh."

Ms. McClelland echoed those sentiments, saying she would have preferred a trip to Washington than to fight traffic into Pittsburgh. It would also be closer to her on the days she visited with her parents, who live in Union.

"It would be so much easier," said Ms. McClelland, who lives with her grandparents in Bethel Park.

The Washington office will serve as a pilot program to gauge the need for adoptive services in the suburban Pittsburgh area, Ms. Weber said.

The Children's Home of Pittsburgh is known for its adoption and counseling services, and completes 25 to 30 adoptions each year. It has placed more than 7,000 infants since its inception.

"We counsel more than 100 birth parents a year," Ms. Weber.

Not all birth parents who are helped by the organization choose to put their babies up for adoption, but for those who do, the organization offers a rigorous screening program for potential parents, including a comprehensive family study required by the state for all adoptive families.

Birth parents can choose the families they want to adopt their child, and the average waiting time for adoptive parents is about two years, although that can be shaved, depending on how flexible parents are.

Birth parents and adoptive parents also can choose open, semi-open or private adoptions, which dictate how much information is shared and how involved birth parents will be in their child's life.

An open adoption was important for Ms. McClelland, who became pregnant at 17 after a brief relationship with a 38-year-old man she believed to be 27.

Almost as soon as she learned she was pregnant, Ms. McClelland considered her only realistic option to be abortion, because she thought adoption would be too difficult and knew she couldn't care for the child, whose father didn't want to be involved.

Working at a fast food restaurant, the then junior at Bethel Park High School saved more than $600 for the procedure and had even made an appointment at a clinic, when she reconsidered.

After some counseling and support programs at The Children's Home, Ms. McClelland said she realized she could keep in touch with her baby throughout his life.

At first, she said, "I didn't know if I could go through with it. I figured, you have your baby, you give it to someone else and you don't see it again. But, it was so not like that."

After meeting several couples, Ms. McClelland said The Children's Home matched her with a family that fit her expectations.

"I definitely did want to see him quite often and I wanted parents who wanted the same thing," she said.

The separation after his birth was emotional, but Ms. McClelland said, she has no regrets. She finished high school and plans to attend college and law school.

"He is just so happy and so healthy," she said. "He'll always grow up knowing I'm his mom."

The Children's Home picks up medical expenses for birth mothers, while the fee for adoption is $15,000, which includes all expenses, such as legal fees, the family study, counseling, educational sessions, and other programs.

New parents going through a private adoption process typically pay about $15,000 to $30,000, depending on the location and type of adoption. Costs can be lowered through tax credits, interest-free loans, and other assistance for those adopting African-American or mixed-race infants.

Costs for foreign adoptions have risen due to new restrictions on Chinese adoptions and problems with other popular countries, such as Guatemala.

In Washington County, the adoption rate in the past three years has remained steady at about 73 per year.

The majority of those -- about 50 a year -- originate in the county's children and youth services agency, where foster parents sometimes have the option to adopt their foster children at no cost.

"At least two-thirds of the adoptions are finalized with foster parents," said CYS Director Jeff Felton.

Mr. Felton said his office handles adoptions for newborns and older children. Recently, the agency finalized the adoption of a 17-year-old boy, while in the past year, four newborns have come to the agency through the state's "Safe Haven" initiative.

That program allows new mothers to anonymously surrender their babies at any hospital in Pennsylvania, provided the baby is under 28 days old.

When the county recently saw an upsurge of babies available for adoption, it was forced to look to outside agencies for assistance, Mr. Felton said.

That's where The Children's Home hopes to step in to help facilitate adoptions. The organization is reaching out to groups that work with women who may experience unplanned pregnancies -- such as local hospitals, medical centers, pregnancy care centers, social service agencies, homeless shelters and high schools.

Its Pittsburgh office also includes a pediatric extended-care center serving medically fragile infants and children, and a 28-bed pediatric specialty hospital that provides short-term transitional care from hospital to home for babies who are technology dependent and who may suffer from life threatening illnesses.

Mario Lemieux and his wife Nathalie became involved with the Children's Home last year when they helped to fund the organization's new $20 million home on Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh's Friendship neighborhood. That's when the Lemieux Family Center was born.

The organization is geared to long-term counseling and support and often works with families and birth parents years after an adoption is completed, Ms. Bach said.

Ms. McClelland still attends monthly support programs and has spoken to audiences of up to 400 people about her experiences.

"We're committed to working with our families throughout their lives," Ms. Bach said.

Contact The Children's Home at 1-800-961-7704, or by visiting its Web Site at childrenshomepgh.org.

Janice Crompton can be reached at jcrompton@post-gazette.com or 724-223-0156. First published on January 27, 2008 at 12:00 am