Aiming to assist residents in McKees Rocks and Stowe Township with job training and employment opportunities, residents and officials celebrated the opening of a new Opportunity Center Tuesday.
“ We are not just simply cutting a ribbon,” said Monique McIntosh, president and CEO of Goodwill of Southwestern PA. “We are opening doors, doors to opportunity to equity, to the kind of work that restores pride and builds futures.”
The center — located in the Allegheny County Housing Authority’s Pleasant Ridge community — will connect people to career coaching, job placement support, workforce programs, and other services, officials said. The center will be staffed and run by Goodwill in a space leased from the Housing Authority.
Jakob Lazzaro
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90.5 WESA
The McKees Rocks Opportunity Center at Pleasant Ridge.
Before helping to cut a ceremonial ribbon, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato said investing in people helps provide opportunity.
“ Here in McKees Rocks, this opportunity will mean everything for people who are ready to take that next step, whether it’s enrolling in a job training program, connecting with an employer, earning a certification, or simply having the access to resources to make themselves better and to be able to invest back in their community and their family,” she said.
McKees Rocks native and former Detroit Lions wide receiver Dontez Ford was also at Tuesday’s ceremony.
Jakob Lazzaro
/
90.5 WESA
Officials cut the ribbon to celebrate the grand opening of the opportunity center.
“ McKees Rocks made me the man I’m proud to be today. And I always said that this place taught me that when you have the ability to help someone, you just do it,” said Ford, who now works for a medical device manufacturer.
The new center is part of an increased emphasis for the housing authority on job training and self-sufficiency, in addition to affordable housing, said Richard Stephenson, the housing authority’s executive director.
“I can’t be more excited,” he said.