Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh

MISSION OF MERCY PITTSBURGH PROVIDES FREE DENTAL, HEARING AND VISION CARE FOR BOTH ADULTS AND CHILDREN |PHOTO COURTESY MISSION OF MERCY PITTSBURGH

The statistics tell part of the story.

Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh provided free dental, hearing and eye care to 1,465 patients during a two-day clinic in 2022 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. Fifty percent of those patients had no dental insurance. Some had not received care in years.

The clinic, served by more than 1,100 volunteers, also distributed 681 pairs of eyeglasses (75 to children) and 229 hearing aids. In all, $1.55 million worth of care was provided.

Anecdotes tell the more poignant side of the story.

Like the patient whose teeth had decayed so severely that dentists had to remove each tooth from the top of his mouth. They told the man that if he hadn’t had them removed and received treatment, he would have been dead in a month.

Or the woman who was getting fitted for hearing aids. She turned to the audiologist and said, “This is the first time I’ve heard a voice in 30 years.”

Or the little girl, around age 8 or 9, who received her first set of eyeglasses. She turned to her dad and said, “I can see.”

“She had a smile on her face that would have lit up the convention center,” says Keith Young, chairman of A Call to Care, the nonprofit that runs Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh is the only city in America that hosts an annual two-day clinic offering free dental, vision and hearing care; the latter two specialties were introduced in 2022. This year it is being held Oct. 27-28 at the convention center and hopes to recruit 1,200 volunteers — a mix of health professionals and regular helpers — to run the clinic.

There are no income or eligibility requirements for patients, and service is first come, first served. Doors open at 6 a.m. each day.

Young says that, when he arrives at the clinic at 4:30 a.m., there are typically 250 to 300 people in line.

Those served are a mix of homeless and low-income, working poor, folks who live in rural areas that have little or no dental facilities or other health services and even patients with dental or medical insurance but not enough to cover expensive procedures. Some patients come from as far away as Greene, Washington and Butler counties.

“The vast majority of the people that show up here are saying, ‘I gotta make a decision whether I pay the mortgage, whether I put food on the table for the kids, or I get my dental, hearing or eye care done,’” says Young. “Guess what falls to the bottom? That’s exactly the population that I think we get the most.”

Maintaining good dental hygiene is critical for a person’s overall health, says Dr. Daniel Pituch, a co-founder of Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh and chief of oral and maxillofacial surgery at UPMC Mercy and UPMC Shadyside.

“We have thousands of emergency room admissions — thousands — within the city hospitals every year that are related to a dental problem,” says Pituch, who has been a dentist for 33 years and physician for 29 years. “The emergency department is not the place to get your dental care. It’s designed for acute medical care, fractures, trauma, strokes, heart attacks.”

Bacteria from infections from the mouth can spread to the heart, brain and even the lungs. Endocarditis, for example, is an infection of the inner lining of the heart chambers or valves that can be triggered by bacteria from the mouth. Research also suggests that heart disease, clogged arteries and stroke might also be linked to the inflammation and infections that oral bacteria can cause.

“I have personally treated over the years many individuals who have sustained these types of infections, where their life was on the line,” Pituch says. “And if we didn’t get them treatment within 24 hours or sometimes even less, they were going to face very, very serious consequences.”

About the free clinic, he says, “If we can at least provide [patients] access to care once a year, you can fix problems that, left unchecked, will lead to hospital admissions.”

The seed of the idea began when Mission of Mercy Pennsylvania — a traveling free dental clinic — contacted Pituch to see if he’d be a co-chairman with Dr. Richard Celko, dental director of UPMC Health Plan, for its first clinic in Pittsburgh in 2016. They helped raise money — about $100,000 to $150,000 at the time — to put on the event.

It was such a success that one of the donors and a major philanthropist in Pittsburgh, Michael Zamagias, chairman and CEO of TeleTracking Technologies, suggested Pittsburgh offer its own dental clinic on a regular basis. Mission of Mercy Pittsburgh was born.

It has grown each year to almost full capacity at the convention center. Following treatment at the clinic, many patients are served with a network of follow-up care.

Pituch has great praise for Pittsburgh’s support — financially and from volunteers — that have made this event a success.

“This event brings a whole community together,” he says. “It is not just about fixing teeth or providing glasses or letting people hear, which fundamentally is huge. It also inspires people, and it gives people hope because of the goodness that happens.”

–Virginia Linn

Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank

VOLUNTEERS PACK DIAPERS TO BE DISTRIBUTED TO THE MORE THAN 50 COMMUNITY PARTNERS AROUND THE REGION | PHOTOS COURTESY WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA DIAPER BANK

Anyone who’s welcomed a new life into the world, or even simply been to a baby shower, knows that babies need many resources to stay healthy, safe and happy — from bottles to cribs to onesies to a never-ending supply of diapers.

But it is less well known that 47% of U.S. families with young children struggle to afford diapers and often don’t have a sufficient number of diapers in their household, according to a 2023 study conducted by the National Diaper Bank Network, which is based in New Haven, Connecticut. To meet this need, the Rev. Phillip Battle and Cathy Battle founded the Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank in 2012 while serving the New Light Temple Baptist Church in the Hill District as pastor and first lady. Cathy Battle, now the executive director of the nonprofit, says she and her husband took action when they realized no other organization in the Pittsburgh area was.

“This is a silent crisis,” she says. “Moms have nowhere to go, so they suffer in silence. But we decided that no one should have to go without diapers. They are a necessity, not a choice.”

The first, and only, diaper bank in southwestern Pennsylvania has expanded its outreach over the past decade. The organization — which collected 16,000 diapers in its first year — distributed 2.15 million diapers and hundreds of thousands of menstrual and incontinence products in 2022, reaching 13,000 families across Allegheny, Westmoreland and Fayette counties.

Medical officials say clean diapers are an essential health and hygiene product for babies and toddlers, who face an increased risk of infection when left in soiled diapers for long periods of time. But diapers are not covered by federal government aid programs such as Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously called food stamps.

The only federal assistance program that can be used for diapers is Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. But the program, which provides cash assistance to children and their caregivers, is expected to cover many other expenses, including heat, electric and water bills, rent, transportation and clothing.

Because the average monthly supply of diapers for one child costs about $100, Battle says low-income families often have to cut back on other essentials. Battle, a respiratory therapist who often cares for infants, says she has seen first-hand how diaper need can cause daily stress for new parents.

“That mom has to make a choice every day — ‘Am I going to buy food? Am I going to pay this electric bill? Or am I going to buy diapers?’” she says.

When parents can’t afford diapers, Battle says, they are often forced to miss work or school — some children can’t be dropped off at daycare without a supply of diapers to last their entire stay. A quarter of parents and caregivers with diaper need have missed work at least once this year due to the situation, according to a National Diaper Bank Network survey.

The Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank collects diapers by hosting drives, gathering donations from the community and purchasing large shipments of diapers at discounted prices from companies that partner with the National Diaper Bank Network.

As diapers arrive at the organization’s warehouse on North Braddock Avenue in North Point Breeze, volunteers organize and package them into groups of 50 — the standard monthly supply of diapers per child.

The packages are then distributed to the diaper bank’s more than 50 community partners, which include social service agencies, schools, libraries, hospitals and more. Each partner is responsible for getting diapers to the families who need them most; they are free to choose their own criteria for families’ eligibility, but most include financial need as a main qualifier. (Head to wpadiaperbank.org for a list of agencies that hand out diapers.)

While the bank’s partners are concentrated in Allegheny County, partners in Westmoreland and Fayette counties are aided by a distribution hub on North Church Street in Mt. Pleasant, which opened in 2020. In the future, Battle says she hopes to expand into Washington, Greene, Cambria, Beaver and Indiana counties with the help of more partner agencies.

She says the organization’s growth has been consistent over the past decade and will be even stronger in the future.

“Even if you have a decent job, even if you have a car to get to a big-box store, even if you have a credit card — everybody is still thankful when their baby is out of diapers because of the financial stress. Everyone can relate,” she says.

But diapers are not the only expensive hygiene product not covered by government assistance programs. Adult diapers for incontinence cost almost three times as much as baby diapers, and menstruation products are estimated to cost $9,000 over an individual’s lifetime, according to US News and World Report.

In 2022 alone, the nonprofit distributed more than 290,000 period products and 50,000 incontinence supplies.

In 2018, the organization joined the Alliance for Period Supplies, a program formed through the National Diaper Bank Network, to address period poverty, which refers to inadequate access to menstrual products and education. A study conducted by the program found that 50% of Pittsburgh locals have had to make a choice between spending money on period supplies and another basic need at least once, and 60% have resorted to using makeshift period products, such as socks and toilet paper, at least once — a practice that leads to an increased risk of infection, Battle says.
The nonprofit also directs the Period Advocacy Project to further alleviate period poverty. Launched in 2021, Battle says the program empowers teenagers and young adults by covering a variety of topics from their health needs to the political and social barriers that limit product access to tools for advocacy.

Battle is engaged in advocacy work of her own, too. She meets with representatives from more than 300 diaper banks, each affiliated with the National Diaper Bank Network, to lobby in Washington, D.C. every March and joins with Pennsylvania’s diaper banks to call for reform at the state level every September. The nonprofit directors urge government leaders to pass bills that will make diapers more accessible to struggling families, Battle says.

Although Pennsylvania has 10 diaper banks, only two are on the western side of the state — Battle’s Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank and the Diaper Depot in Erie. Pittsburghers have surprised her year after year with their support, she says.

“We never ran out of diapers. That’s our biggest success,” she says. “The Pittsburgh community as a whole really stepped up to the cause. I always had what I needed, and I have to thank the community for that.”

–Emma Malinak

Power (Pennsylvania Organization for Women in Early Recovery)

ARCHITECTURAL RENDERINGS BY LAB 8 DESIGNS SHOW PLANS FOR EXPANSION.

Lily, of Hopewell, started drinking at age 13 and began using drugs at 16.

She says she owes her adult life to The Pennsylvania Organization for Women in Early Recovery, or POWER — Allegheny County’s first halfway house designed specifically for women in recovery.

“I was 20 years old when I got clean. So, I went [to POWER]. And prior to that, all I ever knew was like partying and doing drugs. I did not know how to be an adult,” she says. “You stopped developing emotionally at the age that you started using. So that’s why when a lot of people get clean, they are a mess, mentally and emotionally and physically. You just don’t know how to live as an adult.”

POWER House provided her with a new start through taught skills acquired through chores such as cooking and cleaning as well as emotional support through therapy.

“It wasn’t like a sterile hospital medical feeling. It was like a house,” she says.

After getting involved in cosmetology school during her stay with POWER, Lily, who asked her full name not be used, now runs her own hair salon in the Strip District.

Established in 1991, POWER is embarking on its most ambitious expansion to provide a growing number of women with accessible holistic care.

It’s close to reaching its $12 million fundraising goal to create a one-stop-shop of services in Swissvale, including a detox and rehab clinic, its halfway house, outpatient counseling, peer recovery support and children’s programs.

The new location stands next to POWER House, a 26-bedroom recovery center. POWER purchased the new building, formerly the Word of God Elementary School, in 2021 and is expected to provide the first part of a list of women’s recovery services by February 2024.

Samantha Dye, chief development officer for POWER, says that it is important to provide holistic care, as individuals struggling with addiction often feel overwhelmed and discouraged by the amount of steps and self-advocacy needed to pursue recovery.

“When we bring it all together, it just breaks down so many of these barriers and makes it easy for people to stay in treatment. And the longer you stay in treatment, the more likely you are to stay in recovery,” says Dye.

The campus will be composed of the new building, POWER House and their conjoining grounds. The new main building will house three floors of services that include a welcome center for comprehensive intake, assessments and referrals, a detox and rehab center, outpatient and intensive outpatient treatment, mentoring, recovery support services and conference and training rooms.

The detox and rehab centers on the upper level of the building, set to be completed by fall 2025, will accommodate up to 21 women at a time. Recovery services include a drop-in center and meditation and exercise area.

UPMC physician Dr. Jody Glance has served on POWER’s board of directors for more than five years. She says that studies show that having comprehensive treatment in one location leads to better recovery engagement.

POWER BOARD MEMBERS BREAK GROUND ON THE PROJECT | PHOTOS BY FISCHER FOTO

“We’ll be able to focus on whole-person wellness, not just the substance use disorder, but also physical health and mental health. They’re on site. So, our goal is to have a primary care physician’s office on site that can help take care of the physical health needs,” says Glance.

The POWER campus is expected to be open to clients in February. According to CEO Rosa Davis, who has been working for the organization since a year after its 1991 opening, the campus provides a needed approach.

“There’s so much stigma because there’s a lot of bad behavior associated with substance use problems. People only think about that, and they forget that it is an illness that responds to treatment. If a woman is trying to reclaim her life, then that means she needs the treatment to better understand mental health issues, her addiction progression and how to get and stay in recovery,” says Davis. “She’s probably ignored her health for many years.”

POWER CEO ROSA DAVIS SPEAKS AT THE GROUNDBREAKING

In 2022, POWER helped more than 1,700 people; 77% were women and 92% had children.

“Over 2,000 children last year had a parent that received services of POWER, and we consider that a positive thing … To us, it means brave people getting treatment,” says Dye.

Davis says that the mothers seeking support show they want to give their children a chance. For women in need of child care while they attend short-term recovery services, POWER provides provisional child care centers.

“Our mission at POWER is to help women reclaim their lives from addiction and related emotional health issues and improve the well-being of future generations,” says Glance.

In the past, POWER House has provided smaller programs and activities such as resume writing and sewing. Local volunteers, such as artist Patty Lilja, collaborate with the women to create fun projects as well — such as the stained-glass window in their multipurpose room.

Among funding support, State Sen. Jay Costa, D-Allegheny, helped secure $3 million in federal and state grants for POWER. While POWER says it has been fortunate to have received foundation grants and have several generous donors, rising costs due to the pandemic resulted in a higher budget to complete the project. So far, it has raised $10 million of the $12 million needed.

As part of the capital campaign, POWER is holding a Bricks and Pavers fundraiser.

Individuals and companies can purchase either a paver for $500 or a brick for $250. The pavers will be part of the outdoor patio and the bricks will line the walkway to the main entrance. Both will be inscribed with a few lines in honor or memory of a loved one. There are larger naming opportunities as well.

The comprehensive approach will go a long way in benefiting the women, Glance says.

“Even if women aren’t sure what they need…they can come to us at one location and we’ll be able to provide what they need and meet them where they are in their stage of their recovery journey.”

–Megan Trotter

Light of Life Rescue Mission

PHOTOS COURTESY LIGHT OF LIFE RESCUE MISSION

Light of Life Rescue Mission is one of the oldest homeless shelter networks in Pittsburgh, and after a $24 million capital campaign that funded two new buildings, it is ready to serve the community as never before.

The nonprofit, founded in 1952, serves an average of 3,000 people each year who are struggling with housing and food insecurity. With the help of more than 1,000 volunteers, the organization runs a variety of programs to meet clients’ needs and serves an average of 500,000 meals a year from its kitchens and food pantry.

The Rev. Jerrel T. Gilliam, executive director of Light of Life, says that every act of service in the organization’s continuum of care — from serving healthy meals to offering short-term emergency shelter to guiding clients through years of recovery programming — prioritizes compassionate, personalized, trauma-informed aid.

That’s the kind of care that fosters the miracles of healing and hope, he says.

“Every client that I see, they are a miracle,” Gilliam says. “It’s amazing to realize that now their family has a whole new trajectory that’s generational because of Light of Life being here.”

But Gilliam acknowledges that providing quality care has grown more difficult in recent years because of the increasing rates of homelessness in Pittsburgh that are due in part to the economic challenges of the pandemic. According to an Allegheny County report, 913 individuals were homeless in January 2023; while 758 were staying in emergency shelters, 155 had no place to live. In a January 2019 pre-pandemic count, 774 individuals were experiencing homelessness.

Allegheny County’s first low-barrier shelter — the five-story Second Avenue Commons that is operated by Pittsburgh Mercy — opened in November 2022 Downtown and immediately reached capacity. The temporary shelter at Smithfield United Church of Christ on Smithfield Street, Downtown, which typically is available only during winter months, extended its operations through mid-June because of the huge demand.

At Light of Life, staff members were ready to meet the community’s new needs during the pandemic, but its physical buildings were not, Gilliam says.

Throughout its 70-year history, Light of Life has operated in pre-existing buildings that were bought and quickly repurposed into homeless shelters. The buildings weren’t designed for the nonprofit’s unique needs, Gilliam says; clients were often “jammed on top of each other” in common areas and unable to sit up in the top bunks of beds without hitting their heads on the ceiling.

Its “Opening New Doors” capital campaign has been an initiative at the nonprofit for the past 25 years but has been the most adamantly pursued in the last six years. The first new building, a shelter on Voeghtly Street on the North Shore, opened in January 2021 to offer emergency services and 50 beds for short-term housing — from one night to up to 90 nights — for men, women and children.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are served seven days a week in the building’s dining room that seats up to 80 people. Clients also are offered showers, hygiene products, clothes, laundry services, medical care, chapel services and more. Gilliam says the nonprofit’s emergency services differ from other shelter networks’ because Light of Life emphasizes the “deinstitutionalization” of care. Staff members work one-on-one with each client to see how the organization can help.

“One of the failures of other programs is when they create solutions without asking the people who are going to be accessing the services what they actually need,” he says. “What we specialize in is hearing a client’s story.”

The Voeghtly Street shelter is the first in Light of Life’s history to offer emergency services for women and children — a development that is crucial as women with children are the fastest growing homeless population in Allegheny County and the country as a whole.

Gilliam says that while the building was not designed to increase Light of Life’s total bed capacity, it does offer more space to improve the organization’s quality of care, as well as dignity for clients. The extra room can also be transformed into overflow housing when needed.

The second building funded by the capital campaign, Ridge Recovery Center, opened in September on Ridge Avenue in Allegheny Center. Once a Pittsburgh public trade school, the building has been reimagined into a home for clients who enter Light of Life’s long-term programs, which range from 18 to 24 months.

After staying in the Voeghtly Street shelter, clients can enter what the nonprofit calls long-term “Transformation Programs,” designed to help them gain housing, employment and stability. Each program is created for specific needs, such as healing from past traumas, recovering from addiction or improving mental health.

Once clients graduate, they are supported by an alumni network that offers continued mentoring. Many graduates give back to Light of Life; 10% to 20% of the nonprofit’s staff members are alumni from long-term programs.

The Ridge Recovery Center includes a floor for men’s programs and a floor for women and children’s programs, in addition to classrooms, a gym, free store, hygiene center including dental care, salon and more that facilitate long-term residency. This building also houses the administrative offices.

There are 40 beds in this center for the men’s long-term programming. Single women are housed in 10 apartments off site at Sister’s House. In addition, Light of Life houses women with children at scattered site housing.

Gilliam says both of the new buildings are, compared to the old buildings, in areas that are more accessible to the communities that the nonprofit serves. Making care accessible to all, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, ability, substance use or any other background, is a priority for Gilliam — a goal that he says addresses one of the biggest misconceptions of the Christian-based organization.

“We are here because of our faith. But also, because of our faith, we don’t make faith a barrier to our services,” Gilliam says.

The capital campaign manager, Philip Spina, says the completion of the new buildings was only possible thanks to generous donations. In addition to the Richard King Mellon Foundation, which kicked off the $24 million comprehensive capital campaign in 2016 with a significant commitment, there were several other foundations, corporations, individual donors, and other community support that made Light of Life’s dreams a reality.

“I’m just proud of Pittsburgh,” Gilliam says. “We’re a very giving place.”

– Emma Malinak