From left are seen: Sam Guesto, Chairman, Lower South Valley COG; Dan Guydish, Executive Director, Mountain COG; state Sen. John Yudichak; Jim Montone, Chairman of the Supervisors, Hazle Township.
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Lower South Valley Council of Governments, Mountain Council of Governments among recipients
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State Sen. John Yudichak, left, is seen with John Cosgrove, Executive Director, AllOne Foundation and Charities.
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Three organizations in the state’s 14th Senatorial District have been awarded the Governor’s Award for Local Government Excellence, state Sen. John Yudichak I-Swoyersville, announced.
AllOne Foundation & Charities has been awarded the Governor’s Award for Local Government Excellence for its leadership in helping to create the NEPA Nursing Home SOS Program.
The Lower South Valley Council of Governments and Mountain Council of Governments received the award for their part in helping to create the COVID-19 Regional Code Enforcement Partnership (RCEP) in Luzerne County.
The Governor’s Center for Local Government Services sponsors Local Government Day annually to honor local governments and officials who serve their communities and improve their quality. The Local Government Day Awards ceremony will be held virtually on May 19.
AllOne & PPE
AllOne Foundation & Charities was honored under the Building Community Partnerships category.
AllOne Foundation & Charities partnered with Yudichak and the Earth Conservancy last year to help raise an initial $500,000 to get the SOS Program off the ground to ensure nursing homes had the personal protective equipment (PPE) they needed to ensure safety during the pandemic.
Just a little over a month later, both Luzerne and Lackawanna Counties joined the partnership, donating $250,000 each as well as a $5,000 donation from the Luzerne Foundation and a $5,000 donation from the Carbon County Community Foundation to bring the total program investment to just over $1 million. To date, the program has supplied NEPA nursing homes with just over two million total items of PPE. AllOne Foundation & Charities administers and manages the program with delivery of the PPE items being carried out by One Point.
The NEPA Nursing Home SOS Program has also had a considerate legislative impact, partnering with the Pennsylvania Health Care Association and LeadingAge PA to serve as an important advocacy voice that helped lead to the passage of Act 2A of 2020, that put nearly $300 million in critical funding into the hands of long-term care facilities in Pennsylvania.
“AllOne Foundation convened its strong network of local government, philanthropic, business and non-profit leaders to craft a comprehensive, agile and immediate response to the major challenge of providing sorely needed supplies to our most vulnerable seniors and those heroes caring for them,” said John Cosgrove, Executive Director, AllOne Foundation and Charities. “This program shows that collaboration, creativity and communication can always provide much-needed solutions in a crisis.”
“When approached by Senator Yudichak regarding the challenges COVID-19 brought to the nursing home community in NEPA and his thoughts to help the most vulnerable of elderly residents in these facilities through the SOS Program, our answer was a resounding, yes,” said Terrence J. Ostrowski, President/CEO, Earth Conservancy. “The Earth Conservancy is known for its reclamation and redevelopment work, however, the end goal of those projects is to improve the region’s quality of life. COVID-19 challenged residents and municipalities in unprecedented ways, and we were glad to support the NEPA community during this time of need. It has been heartwarming to see the positive impact of the SOS Program, as well as how it has continued to grow.”
COGs and RCEP
The Lower South Valley COG (LSVCOG) and the Mountain COG (MCOG) received recognition under the Intergovernmental Cooperation category.
In early April of 2020 in partnership with Yudichak, the RCEP was formed to inform, enforce and report after COVID-19 safety concerns were being reported throughout NEPA warehousing and logistics facilities. The LSVCOG and the MCOG built regional inspection teams from their member communities and coordinated random inspections of businesses in the region’s industrial parks. The RCEP conducted over 140 on-site inspections.
“The Lower South Valley COG and Mountain COG put together a historic collaborative effort when state and federal inspectors failed to conduct on-site COVID-19 safety visits in the industrial parks along the I-81 corridor in northeastern Pennsylvania,” Yudichak said. “The COVID-19 Regional Code Enforcement Partnership swiftly put inspectors in the field to ensure safe working conditions for employees and to better protect the public health of our communities.”
The COVID-19 RCEP addressed the following:
1) Informed companies they must implement COVID-19 Safety Guidelines and the guidelines from the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Building and Safety Measures Order.
2) Enforced all municipal code violations at company facilities.
3) Reported any COVID-19 violations to federal and state authorities and established a website (LuzerneCovid.com) to accept complaints regarding COVID-19 Safety violations.
“The COVID-19 Regional Code Enforcement Partnership between the Lower South Valley and Mountain Council of Governments was organized to ensure the safety and well-being of the people in our community. It was especially important to provide outreach and guidance to the large local employers, so that employees were provided safe environments to work in,” said Sam Guesto, Chairman, LSVCOG. “We even created a website in both English and Spanish, for people to submit concerns and access our resources if they felt there was a need. The LSVCOG visited over 100 businesses within our area to provide workplace safety information.”
“The creation of the Regional Code Enforcement Partnership between the Lower South Valley Council of Governments and Mountain Council of Governments under the leadership of Senator Yudichak enabled the communities in those areas to coordinate their code enforcement efforts in the local industrial parks to protect the health and wellness of their citizens in a timely, efficient and effective manner,” said Dan Guydish, Executive Director, MCOG. “Thanks to the Senator’s quick response, a potentially serious crisis was mitigated in a well-coordinated manner during the onset of the pandemic.”