Drinking the last few drops of his milk at breakfast, Eddy Gray explained that this is how his days start. At 7 a.m., he gets in line at the Erie City Mission for breakfast, which sometimes is hot food and sometimes is cereal.

“I come here because I don’t have the money,” Gray said. “It’s real good here.”

He’s been going since April 1 when he became homeless. Gray had been living in an apartment a few blocks away, but growing economic pressure left him unable to pay rent, so now he stays at the shelter.

Even when he lived in an apartment, he had to seek assistance to get food. He and his wife used to go to the Salvation Army’s once monthly pickup.

“That would be really nice,” Gray said about getting to choose his own food and have fresh produce.

In northwestern Pennsylvania, Second Harvest Food Bank provides food to over 175 partners in Erie County, including the Salvation Army and Erie City Mission. Breanna Watts, vice president of advancement for Second Harvest, recently said in a presentation on food needs with OpenEyes that the worsening economic picture and increasing cost of living is causing a heightened demand for food services, especially in food deserts.

Food access in Erie

A food desert is an area where at least one-third of residents live a mile or more from the nearest grocery store or supermarket. In Erie County, the United States Department of Agriculture states that there are 24 food deserts, with 20 of them located in Erie.

Income data from the U.S. Census Bureau highlights the reason the burden is concentrated in the city. Erie County’s median household income is $63,354, with a poverty rate of 15.97%. In the City of Erie, however, median household income falls to $46,113 while poverty rises to 23.3% on average, with some areas having over 40% impoverished. The disparity suggests that surrounding suburban and township areas are financially stronger, while poverty is concentrated in Erie’s urban center.

A geographic information systems mapping project by Gannon University students Ryan Fisher and Jillian Sullivan in 2025 found that food deserts are present in areas with high poverty rates that are not within walking distance of a grocery store. Many corner stores offer highly processed, packaged, high-fat, high-salt, or high-sugar foods and drinks, which can cause poor health compared to a nutritious diet.

The students’ mapping also found a correlation between food desert regions and increased prevalence of obesity and diabetes.

Those areas are also the areas that have faced historic disinvestment. Looking at the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation redlining map from the 1930s, the areas impoverished today were marked as third- and fourth-class areas, meaning they were not eligible for grants and loans because there were populations there deemed “undesirable,” including Black people and Hispanics who continue to be disproportionately impacted by food insecurity downtown.

“Regardless of who you are, what you do, where you stand, you are deserving of safe, nutritious, delicious, and comforting food,” said Celeste Makay, Erie County Public Health Program coordinator and co-chair of the Food Policy Advisory Council (FPAC).

Although there is some assistance available, it doesn’t fill all the gaps, which are sometimes generational due to policies like redlining. It’s estimated that 40,830 people in Erie County are food insecure, and the annual food budget shortfall is over $28.5 million.

“Food stamps only go so far,” said Gary Thomas, who sat next to Gray at the Erie City Mission. He also lost his housing due to money when a new landlord increased rent mid-month, but Thomas couldn’t pay because he’s on social security fixed income.

Out of the state’s 67 counties, Erie County ranks within the top 10 for highest SNAP (formerly food stamps) enrollees with 54,434. That’s about 20.7% of the population, the fourth highest SNAP percentage in the state.

In addition to SNAP, the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program provides monthly food benefits tailored to pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding individuals, and children up to 5 years old. However, only 41% of those eligible in Pennsylvania actually use WIC.

When asked why people may not connect to resources, Makay cited language barriers, stigma, lack of trust in the government, complicated rules and restrictions, and lack of access to a grocery store that provides eligible foods.

Gray remarked that having choices over what he eats would help him feel more dignified, adding “what more organizations and stuff need to help with is being able to give us like a $20 gift card or something where we can actually go in and buy our own food.”

When it comes to local programs that make a difference, Makay said it’s the ones that support choice and pair access with affordability that support the public in improving access to healthier foods.

Local response gains traction

Places like Erie City Mission currently act as a frontline response to food insecurity. The organization said it serves about 120 to 200 people per day, totaling 136,870 meals served to women, men, and children in 2025. It also distributes additional take-home food at its public meals like bread.

At aging agencies, seniors can get Farmers Market Nutritional Vouchers during the summer, which provides older residents with a way to get produce at local farmers markets.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest Pennsylvania also has a range of programs to address food insecurity. Key initiatives include the Backpack Program, which sends children home with food for weekends; the School Pantry Program, which provides food distribution sites inside schools for students and families; Military Share, which supports veterans, active-duty service members, and their families; and Produce Express, which uses mobile trucks to deliver fresh produce and groceries to underserved areas. Watts described the organization’s approach simply: “We meet them where they’re at in their community.”

It also launched its Health Pantry initiative, in which a registered dietician works with pantry partners to curate a healthy food selection. The pantry is redesigned to resemble a grocery store, so it mirrors that experience that Gray said he wishes to have in picking out his own food.

Watts said that food banks are typically just warehouses and suppliers, but in Erie County, that model isn’t enough.

“The reality is that that model is not meeting the needs and had to be tweaked a little,” she said.

In 2025, Erie Community Foundation awarded Second Harvest $100,000 to support the Second Harvest Marketplace. It follows the Healthy Pantry initiative and is located in the UPMC Community Center at 803 East Ave. in Erie, which is a designated food desert.

It operates as a free, walk-through grocery store designed to serve families.

Store U-Knighted, a campus pantry supported by the Social Work Department at Gannon University, also uses a grocery store model. The program uses grants and community-based funds to provide food choices to Gannon students.

Khanh Ngoc Tran, a sophomore at Gannon who frequently visits Store U-Knighted for food support, said it allows her to stay focused on her studies instead of worrying about her next meal.

“Store U-Knight really helped me during difficult financial times by ensuring I had access to food, which took a significant amount of stress off my shoulders,” she said.

When Erie County’s Department of Health is looking at effective interventions, Makay pointed out that accessibility should be the primary component. However, education is also beginning to play more of a role.

Serafin’s Food Market at East 24th and Ash streets has now hosted Erie County Department of Health nutritional education programs whether it be the Eat & Thrive program series or the FoodTrust’s Heart Smarts program.

Erie Farm to School brings education to the youth level to connect students in Erie’s Public Schools with local farmers and producers and gives them hands-on gardening and culinary experience through its 14 school gardens.

The Sisters of St. Joseph Neighborhood Network also teach students urban farming. The urban farming landscape in Erie has been expanding, with the 4th Street Community Farm near East Fourth and German streets. The farm was built through a network of farmers and volunteers in 2025 and grew vegetables through a series of community work and learn days. The garden hosted educational events to teach the community about at-home vegetable production, foraging, and food preservation.

Groundwork Erie has since adopted the 4th Street Community Farm as a project for its Green Team youth experience. The garden also hosted a Pay What You Can (PWYC) farmstand in 2025 to sell its produce.

This year, six of the seven Erie County PWYC farmstands — a network of organizations, farmers, and volunteers who support one another in their efforts to provide fresh food to community members at whatever cost they can afford — will have a plant sale as well so that people are able to grow their own food.

The path forward

While Makay noted that community collaboration is vital for the fight for sustainable, equitable food access and distribution in a community, she said, “burnout and sustainability are real challenges.”

The FPAC, a board that works to improve food systems by advising government and promoting community advocacy and education, created a Food Action Plan in 2023. While the plan exists and lays out recommendations, it does not actively facilitate the work. It is meant to inform the organizations that are organizing food efforts.

One example is the Food is Medicine movement. Across the state, Food is Medicine is increasingly seen as a way to promote overall wellness, cut down on chronic disease hospitalizations through preventative care, and create more resilient communities by providing them the foods they need for a healthy diet.

In these programs, which differ slightly depending on the organization and place, doctors typically prescribe patients a certain diet based on their health. For example, somebody at risk for heart disease would get a script for low-sodium foods.

Currently, Allegheny Health Network’s Healthy Food Center provides food insecure individuals with healthy food needed to manage chronic diseases, and a dietician works with participants to provide nutrition counseling as well.

Second Harvest Food Bank has said that it is in talks with local healthcare partners and distributors to figure out a model that would work across its 11 counties. On the state level, Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed $900,000 in his 2026-27 budget for a pilot Food is Medicine program, which when matched with federal Medicaid dollars, would amount to $2.3 million.

The Food Action Plan advises that the Food is Medicine program should include stakeholders on every level and use clinical indicators as appropriate measures to address community needs for health and nutrition.

Other goals in the 2023 Food Action Plan include broadening opportunities for youth engagement and increasing the PWYC farm stand model, which are already underway.

The plan identifies priorities for the county, and the GIS mapping from the Gannon students shows where interventions are needed most in the City of Erie to meet the plan’s goals. Already, there are grassroots movements in place, but Makay argues that as producers and community members face burnout, the harder question is who will sustain the work?

Makay said the current situation is policy-induced, so to course correct, there needs to be change from the top down as well as the bottom up.

“Food and nutrition insecurity are policy choices,” she said. “There needs to be buy-in from industry stakeholders to support sustained change.”

The Erie Food Policy Advisory Council hosts a community forum every fourth Wednesday from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at 436 East 26th St., Erie. All are welcome. More information at eriefpac@gmail.com.

This article was written and published as part of a collaboration between the Jefferson Educational Society and Gannon University. Through Gannon’s Community News program, in partnership with the University of Vermont’s Center for Community News, student journalists are partnered with local publishers to provide impactful news coverage throughout Erie County, Pennsylvania, and increase civic and community engagement.

My guess is they were trying to protect us. But from what? St. Andrew, my Catholic grade school in the 1950s, produced an annual spring variety show, which was an opportunity to entertain parents and supporters. As the school year shifted into winter mode, teachers began soliciting potential “acts” during classroom times. I had acquired a guitar at the beginning of seventh grade and was taking lessons at Osiecki Brothers Music Center. My teacher, Angelo Cash, was a gifted guitarist who seemed to be taking a special interest in me. For most of the year, I had been immersed in traditional instructional books, learning to read music and practicing fingering techniques. The work that we had been doing was tedious. Less than fun. To make up for the drudgery, Mr. Cash had been slipping basic chording instruction into the lessons. He would flat-pick a song and show me how to accompany him with chords.

One day I admitted that I had been listening to the Grand Old Opry and instead of being irritated as I had imagined that he would be, Mr. Cash was encouraging. He dug out a copy of the sheet music for “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” by Hank Williams, which was a cross-over hit at the time, and helped me learn to play it. He told me that there was no such thing as “bad music,” that I should follow my instincts and listen to everything, from country to classical to popular music. He was a fan of Frank Sinatra and especially loved “Autumn in New York,” which we spent hours learning to play. I was getting the best of all possible music lessons, a combination of traditional fingering exercises, combined with “really fun” opportunities to accompany my teacher with chords.

Seventh grade continued, as did music lessons. With Mr. Cash encouraging me, I was poised and waiting for “a big opportunity.” And it finally happened. Our classroom teacher announced that she was going to audition any class members who were interested in participating in the school’s annual spring variety show. I asked a friend if he would be interested, he agreed, and we decided to sing “Goodnight Irene,” a song that had been featured on the radio for several years. It had a catchy tune with easy lyrics, and we both loved it.

With the “artistic” decision determined, I approached my guitar teacher for advice, and Mr. Cash loved the idea. He found the sheet music, gave it to me, and began to take a special interest in helping with the new challenge. It was a nice distraction from the tedious grind of proceeding through traditional lessons that seemed intent on making me into a big band, rhythm guitarist, a fate that was not exactly in line with my musical listening tastes.

I expected Mr. Cash to resist my interest in learning a traditional folk song, but his response was exactly the opposite. We poured over the sheet music, and he explained the chord structure, which was written in 1933 as a simple, three-cord melody, in three-four time. Angelo showed me that while the song, as interpreted by writer Lead Belly, could be played with just three simple chords (G, D, and C). The best version of the chord structure included two seventh chords, which had been improvised by Pete Seeger, who was a banjo player. Mr. Cash brought an actual five-string banjo into the lesson room and demonstrated the improvements in the chording when seventh chords were added, as well as the way that they were “inspired” by the addition of the five-string banjo that Pete Seeger used when he was with The Weavers.

Following the meticulous instruction of Mr. Cash, I learned a flat-pick introduction that he transcribed onto musical paper, after which the plan was to break into the lyrics with accompanying chords. Mr. Cash patiently showed me how to play a more complicated accompaniment with seventh chords. Mr. Cash worked with me for hours, practicing the song. My school friend, who had a great singing voice (unlike me), also worked with me for hours. By the time we were ready to audition the song, we were sounding great.

The day of the in-class audition went well. Several other kids from the class had previewed potential “acts” but none of them had instrumental accompaniment. On the assigned day, I lugged my guitar to class and we performed flawlessly. The kids seemed to love the song and our teacher said that it was “wonderful.”

“Sometimes I live in the country,
Sometimes I live in the town.
Sometimes I take a great notion,
To jump in the river and drown.”
(Goodnight Irene, by Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, 1933)

My friend and I walked home the day of our “Goodnight Irene” classroom performance, complimenting each other on our apparent success. It was a Friday, and we had the entire weekend to savor the outcome of that classroom debut. I had gotten the chords right and, somehow, we had remembered the words. The final variety show program was to be finalized the following week, and we would be learning the details of our almost-for-sure position in the program the next week. Right on schedule, my friend and I were asked to report to the church rectory after lunch on Monday. We had an appointment with the infamous Fr. X, who was “executive producer” of all the school’s extravaganzas, and fancied himself a musical genius, so we were not surprised that he wanted to tell us the good news himself. We were welcomed to the rectory office right after lunch. We took seats and waited patiently for our “good news.”

Oddly, we were asked to enter Fr. X’s office individually. My friend went first. I wondered why we had not been asked to see him together but waited patiently. Suddenly there was loud yelling. Then silence. I was perplexed when my friend hurried past me with his head down and headed back to class. He did not look pleased. Next, it was my turn. Fr. X told me to take a seat as he shuffled papers. Finally, he looked up and asked what I knew about Communism and if I understood that it was anti-Catholic and unpatriotic. I was stunned.

“Communism?” I asked.

“Your friend said that it was you who insisted on the song choice. ‘Goodnight Irene,’”Fr. X barked.

“Sort of,” I responded.

“Do you have any idea that it is a Communist anthem and that the group that sings it is composed of known members of the Communist Party?” he continued.

I had no idea, and I was unable to convince Fr. X of my innocence. My defense was that “Goodnight Irene” was simply a song that I liked. After being chastised and accused of being un-American, I slunk back to class, where I failed to pay attention to several “critical” lectures for the rest of the day. Too much on my mind, I suppose.

“Goodnight Irene” failed to make the final variety show cut. It was replaced by two girls from my class who did an acapella version of “Ave Maria.” My once-promising musical career was circling the toilet after less than a year.

For the rest of that school year, I waited pensively to be arrested by the FBI. Meanwhile, news coverage of The Weavers and other alleged Communists dominated the media. The Weavers had been blacklisted and banned from performing by almost every major television network. They, along with many others, had been caught up in the infamous Joseph McCarthy Hearings of the 1950s. Through it all, Pete Seeger refused to budge from his convictions that he was a loyal American citizen who was trying to point to cultural difficulties using poetry and music. He also defied his own attorney by refusing to take the “Fifth,” a strategy that would have made things much easier for him.

At one point during the congressional hearings, Seeger was charged with contempt (a charge that was subsequently overturned). Pete Seeger’s career was rejuvenated in the late 1960s when he appeared with the Smothers Brothers on their weekly, musical variety show. He had been performing quietly until that time and working both as a music teacher and a musical archivist at the Library of Congress. After being celebrated on the popular television show, his career took off again. He used his new platform to advocate for peace and to work on the environment, most famously launching the sailing ship, “Clearwater,” on the Hudson River and using the beautiful old ship to help fight for clean water. Seeger continued to tour, often with Arlo Guthrie, until his passing at age 94.

Meanwhile back at Osiecki’s, the only person more disappointed than me when “Goodnight Irene” was summarily cut from the school variety show was Angelo Cash, my guitar teacher. But he had a “better idea.” Mr. Cash was a regular on a local, Sunday morning radio show and to make up for “our” crushing defeat he took me along on several occasions to play on the radio. Live! What a thrill for me, and what a risk for him.

I will never forget the first song that we played on live radio: “Going Home.” He introduced me as his most promising young guitar student, a promo for Osiecki’s, which was a radio sponsor, and we played the song. I flat picked the melody while he augmented my very basic guitar work with major chords, instrumental ornaments, and other amazing riffs. Angelo Cash charitably called it a duet. The song, written by Czech composer Antonin Dvorak in 1883, was embellished with words in 1923 and became a popular American hymn. One of Dvorak’s American students, William Fisher, wrote the words, and the song has haunted me for decades.

“Going Home”

Going home, going home
I’m jus’ going home
Quiet like some still day
I’m jus’ going home

It’s not far, yes, close by
Through an open door
Work all done, care laid by
Going to fear no more

Mother’s there, ‘specting me
Father’s waiting, too
Lots of folk gathered there
All the friends I knew
(All the friends I knew)
All the friends I knew

I’m going home

Nothing lost, all’s gain
No more fret nor pain
No more stumbling on the way
No more longing for the day
Going to roam no more

Morning star lights the way
Restless dream all done
Shadows gone, break of day
Real life, yes, begun

There’s no break, ain’t no end
Jus’ a livin’ on
Wide awake with a smile
Going on and on

Going home, going home
I’m jus’ going home
It’s not far, yes, close by
Through an open door
(Through an open door)
I’m jus’ going home

(Going home, going home)
Going home

Historian and author David Frew, Ph.D., is a Scholar-in-Residence at the JES. An emeritus professor at Gannon University, he held a variety of administrative positions during a 33-year career. He is also emeritus director of the Erie County Historical Society/Hagen History Center and is president of his own management consulting business. Frew has written or cowritten 35 books and more than 100 articles, cases, and papers.

What began as a $1,200 project and a few plantings has blossomed into the idea for an agricultural classroom on the campus of the Jefferson Educational Society. The Penn State Extension Master Gardeners of Erie County presented at a Community Conversation last Friday, May 15, about how the concept has grown from the ground up and the mission guiding it.

The Community Conversation series is meant for residents to hear directly from leaders of local organizations and gain a deeper understanding of initiatives and projects that contribute to Erie’s growth and development.

Lisa Rand, Master Gardener coordinator, explained that the Master Gardener program’s mission is “to use research-based horticultural knowledge to educate communities on sustainable gardening and environmental stewardship,” and the Jefferson project is a good fit.

The program’s volunteers bring science into their communities through an extensive process that includes 40 hours of lectures and hands-on learning, at least an 80% score on two exams required for certification, 50 volunteer hours required in the first year, 20 annual service hours, and 10 continuing education hours required to maintain certification.

The title “isn’t just handed out; it’s earned,” Rand said.

The volunteers host programming in schools and communities, and they’ve donated thousands of pounds of produce. The program has six community garden partners, including the B.E.S.T. Garden (Bayfront East Side Taskforce) and the Emmaus Grove Garden, which supplies produce for Emmaus’ food pantry and soup kitchen. The gardeners said their goal is to eliminate food deserts by teaching neighbors how to grow their own food.

The new Lincoln Family Gardens will also be a place of education, right on the lawn of the Jefferson Educational Society, 3207 State St.

The gardens, whose name honors its prime sponsor and longtime Jefferson supporter Mary Lincoln Brock and her family, will feature native plants, trees, and shrubs and a presentation area for Jefferson programming. Construction is expected to begin in June.

“It should be a very nice area for people to visit to get an idea of how they can pick and choose and work with native plants in their own yards,” said Master Gardener Mike Bailey.

Why native plants?

Take the Carolina chickadee for example. It needs about 9,000 caterpillars to raise a clutch of fledgling to adulthood.

“You can imagine what a young, recently hatched bird might be able to eat,” Bailey explained. “They’re certainly not going to be able to eat the insects that are hard. The digestive system can’t tolerate that at that particular stage of the game, so they’re eating the larva.”

What happens when the native plants that the caterpillars lay their larvae on are no longer around? Caterpillars go down in population, as do chickadees. It affects the entire ecosystem.

That’s among the main reasons why the Lincoln Family Gardens will be all native plants.

Native plants are indigenous species, including flowers, shrubs, trees, and grasses, that have evolved to a specific region’s climate, soil, and wildlife over thousands of years. As noted by the National Wildlife Federation, the plants are uniquely adapted to local weather, including droughts and winter freezes, making them easier to grow than non-native species. Once they take hold, they generally require less water, fertilizer, and pesticides.

Invasive species are poor hosts, but they’re also aggressive in growth; they crowd out native species; seeds are easily dispersed to other areas; and they’re not generally eaten by native species, Bailey explained.

Bailey said that most plants in commercial nurseries are non-native, making it harder to know the difference.

Bailey broke down the best practices for planting, saying that it’s essential to have a majority of native plants and ensure that if the plants are non-native that they’re not listed as invasive.

If the plants in a garden are invasive, the best route, Bailey said, is to identify it, dig it up by the roots, bag it, and take it to the landfill.

A new tool that can help people design their gardens with native plants is nativegardenplanner.com.

The best places to purchase native plants are local nurseries, plant sales locally, retailers (Prairie Moon Nursery, Pollen Nation, and Izel), and through wholesalers (Kind Earth Growers and New Moon Nursery).

To plant native species, Bailey said it’s best to prepare the soil properly, use mulch between plants for the first year, use proper spacing, water well in the first year, and keep weeds out.

The Lincoln Family Gardens will be built with a winding path throughout, which the Master Gardeners said is meant to let people wander leisurely and see each plant at different angles.

A grand opening is expected in early September. The gardens themselves –– a central space and eight plots –– are being designed by the Master Gardeners to showcase native plantings.

Weiss Earley Landscape Design and Contracting LLC has been working for more than a year with a committee of Jefferson and Master Gardeners’ representatives to develop an elaborate site plan that includes a patio, walkways, seating walls, low volt landscape lighting, and preparation plans for the garden plots.

The Jefferson Educational Society reminded attendees that everyone is invited to be a part of the new space.

By purchasing an engraved brick for the walkway, anyone can create a lasting tribute commemorating a loved one, family, or a meaningful milestone. Each brick will become part of a walkway that reflects the stories and connections that shape our community.

Purchase a brick using this form, learn more about the Master Gardeners of Erie County program here, and find upcoming events at the JES at JESErie.org/events.

Click Here to Watch the Livestream

After watching the 2018 Netflix series “Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist,” actress and producer Courteney Cox said she was compelled to direct a true crime thriller. The story explores an infamous local crime — the “pizza bomber” case — in which pizza deliveryman Brian Wells was killed by an exploding bomb strapped around his neck after a failed bank robbery on upper Peach Street in 2003.Where will it be filmed? New Jersey.

“Here is an example of now , you’re taking one of our region’s stories, and then you’re re-fabricating it completely somewhere else,” said Jessica Taylor, managing partner of MenajErie Studio and a board member of Film Erie. “And to me, there’s no reason for that.”

It’s not a new tale. Tom Hanks’ 1996 directorial debut “That Thing You Do” was entirely filmed in California rather than in Erie, where the first half of the movie is based and where Hanks got his inspiration.

What would happen if northwestern Pennsylvania had a dedicated film office and infrastructure to tell its own stories? What would be the economic impact if the current workforce were leveraged to create a destination for other filmmakers? Those questions were explored during a sold-out Community Conversation with over 100 attendees at the Jefferson Educational Society last Friday, May 8.

Formed as the Film Society of NWPA in 2011, Film Erie reorganized in the past 18 months and has new leadership at the helm with a new mission. Its mission now is to establish a funded regional film office.

“We are a local conduit,” said Film Erie Chair Patrick Miller, explaining that the office is meant to connect makeup artists, set designers, talent, videographers, welders, prop makers, and more to bring a project together. “There’s a lot more to the film industry, and we have an amazing base in Erie County already.”

Film Erie, which services Erie, Crawford, Warren, Venango, and Mercer counties, partnered with r.plan, an Erie-based planning and management consulting firm, to conduct a new analysis examining the role and potential of the film and media industry in the area. What it found was an opportunity to make an economic impact in the current industry market.

“Film is an economic engine for a community,” Taylor said. “It is beyond just the talents of the camera and the typical crew members that you think of.”

That economic engine includes trade skills like welding and logistics; tourism as productions book hotels and use local vendors; regional marketing, since films would showcase local places and talent; and a compelling reason for creative professionals to stay.

There are already some films being produced in Erie.

The Chronicles series on WQLN PBS, headed by Mike Berlin, produced over 65 half-hour television episodes over the past several years and has two feature-length documentaries coming up this year, totaling $2 million in four years — 87% of which circulated back into Erie County and created 11 full-time jobs.

Erie Insurance’s 100th anniversary commercial campaign used 43 local actors, served 400 meals using a catering company, rented six homes, and created six short commercials in the span of five days. On a larger scale, that could generate economic revenue.

Local production companies like R. Frank Media, MenajErie Studio, Revox Media, 814 Digital, Lyons Den Productions, Rhoxon Productions, and more already exist in the community to take on projects.

What’s stopping northwestern Pennsylvania from featuring more productions?

Currently, Film Erie said that the lack of a funded film office is what’s holding them back. When HBO host and comedian John Oliver came to Erie in summer 2025 for the Erie SeaWolves’ Moon Mammoth rebrand, his team outsourced work through the Cleveland film office. Although Oliver ended up reaching out and finding some local crew and talent, Taylor said, “that’s a missed opportunity for Erie.”

She said Erie already has what it takes to coordinate a project like that, but it needs the film office to act as that connector for companies to access local assets.

Already, there’s a tax credit meant to entice filmmakers to the area. The Film Production Tax Credit in Pennsylvania provides a tax credit of up to 30% for projects with a majority of production in the state. The tax credit is currently capped at $100 million, and Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have been nearly exhausting those funds while northwestern Pennsylvania has not yet applied for any.

This year, there will be $34 million going to Pittsburgh for the Netflix comedy series “Tires” and Paramount’s thriller series “Mayor of Kingstown” and $49.8 million to Philadelphia for the HBO crime drama series “Task.”

“Our tax dollars are going into paying for these programs, so our mission is to help attract productions here so that we can help bring that impact to our community,” Taylor said.

Legislation also is currently being advocated for a 5% additional boost to areas in the commonwealth’s T-zone, meaning the areas away from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Erie is unique in that it is the only coastline in Pennsylvania and offers a variety of locations and talent, but Taylor said productions will still pass by if there is no dedicated film office and updated vendor database.

Having a film office would help local filmmakers connect with opportunities like the tax credit and could even act as a pass-through agency, getting administration costs for being the middle person to administer grants and funding.

Why do advocates think northwestern Pennsylvania is ready to compete?

In addition to the diverse location offerings in the area, Taylor focused on the resource infrastructure that Film Erie believes can create a mid-sized media empire. Already, the U.S. trends show production companies are flocking to the east coast rather than Los Angeles.

Taylor emphasized that northwestern Pennsylvania is not in competition with larger markets like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia — it fits the mid-sized indie film gap that currently exists. Those would be projects under $10 million.

However, northwestern Pennsylvania is still near major hubs if extra resources or equipment is needed.

The area also includes physical infrastructure for projects, including fiber internet, an international airport, hotels, and entertainment options. It also has trade programs for positions like welders, electricians, carpenters, and more, needed to create sets.

Meanwhile, there are five universities and a community college that have film and video graduates at the ready. The Pennsylvania Film Office has shown its support to the Erie area, with Commissioner Gino Pesi’s visit in 2024, then landing a spot in the 2023-24 economic impact report.

“This is the time, right now,” Taylor said of the opportunity.

What did the economic impact analysis find?

To quantify the current film industry’s impact and its potential additional economic impact, r.plan conducted an economic impact analysis. The analysis measures how a specific activity, like film production, affects a regional economy. It traces spending through multiple layers:

• Direct effects: Crew wages, vendor payments, equipment, lodging, and facility usage.

• Indirect effects: Business-to-business transactions generated as local suppliers respond to production demand.

• Induced effects: Household spending from wages earned, supporting additional businesses and jobs.

R.plan founder Amy Murdock explained on Friday that she looked at average film industry wages, 2024 economic regional data, average net new jobs per production, and average cost of production for indie and mid-sized films. She found that Film Erie’s five counties generate about $73 million in economic output. That ranks in the middle of industries, near niche manufacturers and environmental consulting.

Currently, there is a $2 million film project planned to come to Erie in September, but Film Erie would like to see around three productions in the 2026-27 year.

If Film Erie achieves that goal, it believes it would increase economic impact by an estimated $32 million. Taylor described Columbus, Ohio, as a case study in success. Although a larger market than Erie, she said that it exemplifies how film can be reimagined and uplift its community.

“To the elected officials, I think this is something we should be seriously thinking about, not only as a way to plug this in and boost our economy with something like this, but keeping local talent here, younger talent, and thinking about the folks who will ultimately want to buy a house here and live here,” Taylor said.

What needs to happen for Film Erie to be successful?

The first step in bringing Film Erie’s vision to life is getting funding. Film Erie said it needs about $300,000 for its first year to be an established film office.

“I feel like we could probably leave this room today having that figured out,” Murdock joked, looking at the sea of attendees, which included key figures in the area like Erie County Executive Christina Vogel, Erie Mayor Daria Devlin, Erie Insurance CEO Tim Necastro, Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority Executive Director Perry Wood, and many others.

Infinite Erie Executive Director Kim Thomas asked if grant funding was used to start the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh film offices. Taylor said she believes Department of Community and Economic Development funds were used to start it, but grant funding isn’t sustainable, so Film Erie is looking for other options like public investment through the hotel tax.

Sitting in the room with her son, who is a film student at Penn State, Devlin showed her support, saying, “From the city’s perspective, we are here for this conversation. I love everything about what I’m hearing today.”

Taylor said that young talent like Devlin’s son is what Film Erie is hoping to attract, and she hopes to work with local universities to build that talent pipeline for projects.

Murdock said that other ways community partners could take part include registering their venue, property, or business as a filming location through Film Erie; introducing Film Erie to business leaders, tourism contacts, and potential funders; and spreading the word about Film Erie’s work.

Film Erie isn’t looking for a cameo; it sees northwestern Pennsylvania’s part in the film industry as a larger role, and it’s determined to get there.

“We don’t want northwestern Pennsylvania to be left out of that conversation,” Taylor said.

Read the full economic impact analysis here, and find upcoming events at the Jefferson Educational Society here.

Editor’s note: Following is an On the Waterfront Classic by Jefferson Scholar-in-Residence David Frew. The Jefferson first published it in October 2022.

During seventh grade I became an independent entrepreneur by acquiring an Erie Times-News paper route that stretched along West Second Street from Cascade to Poplar streets. During the mid-1950s, long before the current high-end development that is taking advantage of views of Presque Isle Bay, the neighborhood was decidedly working-class with many more homes squeezed into the three blocks than there are today. Several of the original homes were flats, and many had porches on both the first and second floors.

Friday evenings were “collection” times for most paperboys. On those nights, we walked the routes, stopping at each customer’s home to collect weekly (in some cases monthly) payments for papers that we had already delivered. One of the great benefits of visiting customers on Friday evenings at suppertime was that lots of people were in the process of cooking evening meals. And one of the wonders of the mixed ethnic groups that inhabited my route was the unique and amazing foods that they prepared. While the dominant ethnic enclaves in the overall neighborhood were Italian, Portuguese, and German, there was a mixture of Hungarian families on the west end of my Second Street route and Swedish families on the east end.

There must have been something that encouraged customers along my collection route to feed me. Perhaps it was because I was perpetually drooling when I entered the homes of people who were in the process of cooking. The amazing foods offered by generous newspaper customers began with linguisa (Portuguese sausage), continued with various Italian delicacies, including meatballs and my personal favorite, fried calamari. They often ended with several varieties of Swedish pastries. I never came home hungry after collecting.

But the most interesting food treat along my route was poutine, a “delicacy” that one of my favorite customers, a man who everyone called Pierre, often shared with me. Since I had a collection book, containing “official names,” I knew that his name was really not Pierre. That was just the nickname that everyone called him, probably because he spoke with a thick French accent (lots of people had nicknames in those days). As I got to know “Pierre,” I learned that he was really not French. He was from Montreal and had come to Erie to work at Lord Corporation as a chemist. On Friday evenings, as I was collecting, Pierre was usually sitting on his front porch, watching the perpetual street football game that was almost always in progress immediately in front of his place.

West Second Street was not as busy as West Fourth Street. As a result, there was almost always a tag football game happening in the street between Liberty and Poplar streets. The game attracted a variety of players, ranging in age from early high school to grown men who were in their 30s. Several of the West Second Street football participants were talented ex-football stars. There were very few cars parked on the street because of an alleyway with garages south of the block so players had marked off a 50-yard section of street with small traffic cones so that the playing field, while a bit shorter than standard, seemed almost official. It was four downs and out, which encouraged passing as opposed to running plays, and that made the contests very exciting and fun to watch. Most of the quarterbacks were easily able to throw a football the length of the field.

From mid-June to December, there was almost always a game happening on West Second Street in front of Pierre’s house. And he would usually be sitting on the steel glider on his porch, watching the game and eating his supper. Most Fridays, Pierre’s supper would consist of a very strange compound called poutine, which I assumed was a French delicacy. Always generous, he would encourage me to sit with him to watch the game and offer me my own plate of poutine. At first, it scared me but after trying it a few times I began to like it. The ingredients were generally familiar with the exception of cheese curd, which seemed to be an odd form of curdled milk. While the individual ingredients were familiar, the combination was not.

As Pierre explained it, the curds were bits of curdled milk, deep fried into a crunchy consistency. Pierre’s poutine was prepared with bacon, which he explained was not typical. It was an old family recipe. According to my French-Canadian customer, there were almost as many different recipes for poutine as there were people in Quebec. Some added fried onions and others used bits of hardened bread.

I forgot about Pierre and poutine after giving up the paper route until decades later when one of my children moved to Wisconsin. Over the years between the late 1950s and the 1990s, poutine became famous and spread from Quebec to Ontario, Western Canada, and several northern American states. One day while visiting grandchildren, I was shocked to pull through a Culver’s drive-in window and see poutine on the menu. Culver’s is a popular fast-food restaurant in Wisconsin, which features several poutine-related items on its menu.

The most popular Culver’s poutine product is a “specialty burger” that features alternating layers of beef patties with poutine. In the years since first being exposed to Pierre’s poutine on West Second Street, the popularity of the regional dish has literally exploded in Quebec. These days there are specialty poutine restaurants, poutine food trucks, and other street-food alternatives.

As Pierre had explained, most Quebec families had their own special recipes for the delicacy, but most common components were and still are skinny french fries, brown gravy, and cheese curds. The resultant food dish can either be served as a plate of food or in a street-smart paper envelope.

Historian and author David Frew, Ph.D., is a Scholar-in-Residence at the JES. An emeritus professor at Gannon University, he held a variety of administrative positions during a 33-year career. He is also emeritus director of the Erie County Historical Society/Hagen History Center and is president of his own management consulting business. Frew has written or cowritten 35 books and more than 100 articles, cases, and papers.

In November 2025, Erie County residents used their vote as their voice to elect Christina Vogel as county executive. Last Thursday, Vogel took the stage at the Jefferson Educational Society for an update of her first 100 days.

Heading into office, Vogel brought with her a background of data analysis, business experience, and transparency. As she entered the position, she said she knew it came with challenges from the previous administration, which publicly disagreed with Erie County Council on numerous issues through lawsuits and vetoes. After an assessment, Vogel and her team found that their main task was to “rebuild trust and reset relationships” across the board, she said.

For employees, that includes lifting media censorship so that county offices are free to speak to the media; restarting the employee newsletter and leadership courses; and bringing back the Courthouse Cafe, a central gathering place that had been closed to become a gym that never came to fruition.

For County Council, trust-building includes inviting council members on tours of the prison, human services department, public safety, and more; ongoing individual and group discussions; and an administrative report from Vogel at council meetings.

For the community, Vogel said she is committed to partnering with organizations like Infinite Erie, Impact Corry, Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority, the city of Erie, and the Erie County Redevelopment Authority.

“All of those relationships had been paused,” she said, referring to the last administration’s actions.

She also hired a community engagement officer, John Stehlin, who was Erie News Now’s meteorologist, to learn about and highlight all the goings-on in the county.

Short-term opportunities

Already, Vogel has submitted appropriations requests for $63.5 million, but in the meantime, she’s full steam ahead on some short-term opportunities. One of those is the Tiny Homes project that the county terminated just a few weeks ago.

The effort was created under the Davis Administration to provide shelter to the homeless population. However, the budget for the project was $2 million, with half in Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority funds and half from the American Rescue Plan Act funds. The current structures do not pass the building code and would need to be raised by two feet and put on slabs to be used — at an estimated cost of $2 million on its own. There was also no money budgeted for ongoing maintenance, utilities, insurance, or supportive services.

“As such, we thought the county cannot support this,” Vogel said. “This is not what the county was ever set up to do, so we started looking for options.”

She met with municipalities that either didn’t have the right zoning, or were not interested in taking the structures. Now, the county is working with nonprofits and organizations that might be interested in using them.

“I think it shows very clearly that you need a plan before you take action,” Vogel said.

Another project left to her, the Brenton Davis administration wanted to turn Pleasant Ridge Manor farmland in western Erie County into a business park, but as Vogel lives in Fairview, she drives by frequently, “watching the weeds grow and grow.” Instead, she used a competitive bid process when she took office, awarding Troyer Growers from Waterford to use the land to grow potatoes. They’re expecting five million pounds of potatoes for harvest.

Other short-term efforts include reevaluating the internal departments like the public safety department and IT to streamline operations and share resources across the board.

“We have these great opportunities and resources in the county like the GIS center (Geographic Information System Center managed by the Department of Planning and Community Development), like the data center, that could be used throughout the county to improve the lives of the people of Erie County,” she said.

Medium-term opportunities

When it comes to planning what’s down the road, Vogel already has some priorities and has created a capital budget. The county is fiscally solid, she said, but there’s a lot of deferred maintenance and projects to be done.

Previously, the nearly $5 million in the gaming fund was sitting in what would basically be a checking account, not accruing any interest. Now, Director of Administration Chris Groner has transferred that to a fund that generates about 4% interest.

For someone with undergraduate and post-graduate degrees in business, and who successfully became the first solo woman franchisee for Donatos Pizza, Vogel said she has the background and skillset to recognize what needs to be done fiscally to achieve the county’s goals.

“Here we have a county executive that’s prepared to take a look at that budget and understand it and do what is necessary,” said former County Executive Judy Lynch, touting Vogel’s business experience.

Vogel is also hoping to tackle the EMS crisis, which former County Executive Brenton Davis made a central point of his term. Instead of seeing the crisis as a people problem, Vogel said it should be seen as a system design problem. Between fire departments, police departments, state police barracks, hospitals, and EMS agencies, Vogel said the complex network throughout the county demands partnership.

“The volunteers are leaving, the calls keep going up, the healthcare crisis is adding additional stressors, so we’re looking at ways that we can make this better,” she said.

Part of that is a system that began on April 1 to stack or hold BLS (basic life support) calls. BLS is less life-threatening than ALS (advanced life support), with BLS covering things like a sprained ankle. Under the new system, if an EMS agency is at the hospital to drop off a patient, it can wait to respond to another BLS call until after that person is safely in the hospital rather than call on mutual aid, which strains resources.

The county is also reviewing its IALS protocol, which is the step between BLS and ALS. She’s hoping to increase training and capacity by working with Erie County Community College, of which she was an inaugural board member.

Vogel also spoke about economic opportunities like Opportunity Zone 2.0, a tax strategy for capital gain that has an extra boost for rural efforts; and opportunities to market Erie County through the Erie to Pittsburgh Trail or flights to and from Erie International Airport.

Long-term opportunities

Looking to the future, Vogel mentioned many projects planned by Infinite Erie, so the county is looking to support the 35 projects identified in the latest playbook. The county will also support and be an advocate for the Ironworks Square project on 12th Street, the McKean Business Park, Corry Area Technology Center and Hub, and an eastside campus for Erie County Community College.

About 80% of the current community college student body is eligible for a Pell Grant, a federal form of assistance to low-income students that does not need to be paid back. The college has already applied for Title IV funding — expected to be approved in June — so it can administer Pell Grants up to $7,395. Tuition at the community college will cost $4,300 for the whole year, meaning the extra $3,000 can go back to students for child care, transportation, fees, and more, investing back into the Erie County economy.

For the low-income neighborhoods on the east side, Vogel said this could be a game-changer.

“It is imperative to get an option on the east side that brings in the resources, gets people to the next level so they can get better jobs,” she said. “It’s a great win-win situation.”

Across the whole county, Vogel said that there seems to be a lack of strategy to get from where it is now to where it wants to be. By increasing efficiency, removing obstacles, and rebuilding trust, she hopes to solidify that strategy and work toward it.

When asked what would be the metric to gauge her success, she answered that she wants to create a place where her three teenagers will want to stay.

“If I can create a strong foundation that provides opportunities for them to stay and for everybody else’s children or grandchildren (to stay) … or we get them back here, that would be how I would measure success,” she concluded.

To follow the county under Vogel, click here. To find upcoming events at the Jefferson Educational Society, click here.

ICYMI

City of Erie Mayor Daria Devlin stopped at the Jefferson to talk about her first 100 days.

Find Written Recap Here

Find Livestream Recap Here

‘If you enjoyed your meal, tell a friend.
If you didn’t, please tell me.’
– Common restaurant sign

Some things have not changed since the 1950s, such as the insatiable amount of bad news in society. The old phenomena remain the same, but the speed that bad news travels today has increased geometrically. Why? Bad news, such as criticizing spotty service in a restaurant, has always spread further and faster than good news.

Customers are less likely to tell friends and family about a wonderful experience than a negative one. That is why smart businessmen use prompts, rewards, and remediations, such as apologies, free add-ons like dessert, or coupons, to try to ameliorate gaps in service or quality. It also explains the common strategy for using existing customers to recruit new ones with such “deals” as paying the buyer of a new car a premium for recruiting a new customer.

A pizza shop moved into a corner location in the old neighborhood during the mid-1950s and created a marketing sensation with a popular giveaway program. The new shop sold pizzas, sandwiches and a specialty product that everyone loved: pepperoni balls. A sign on the front window offered a reward of six fresh pepperoni balls for anyone who recruited a new customer.

Regular customers were provided with pre-printed forms, which they could give to a potential new customer, who in turn would submit it when placing an order. The new customer received a discount of 10% for submitting the form, which had the name of the referring old customer on it. The new customer received a 10% discount, and the name of the referring person was written on a large chalk board so that he or she could claim the free pepperoni balls. A genius marketing idea!

Another sign offered six free peperoni balls to anyone who would submit an idea or suggestion for improving the shop’s menu or its quality. Perhaps the best part of these two give-away programs was the chalk board behind the counter where names of people who had earned free pepperoni balls were recorded. Most importantly, the pepperoni ball give-away was inexpensive since the shop had a few dozen brewing at all times.

The emerging 1960s’ marketing field cautioned sellers of products and/or services that a negative experience spreads approximately 10 times as fast as a positive one and that the best defense against destructive word-of-mouth (WOM) communication chains is to aggressively follow up to be sure that customers or clients are more than pleased. Instead of passively assuming a transaction went well, it is important to expect and to check for client dissatisfaction. And when there is evidence of an issue, it is essential that it be investigated to see if there really was a problem. If an issue was uncovered, the most important thing was to do “something” about it.

Anthropologists have explained “good news versus bad news” power and speed in terms of genetics. Humans and other creatures are hard-wired to pay more attention to bad news than good. The purpose of this adaptation is both individual and species survival. Bad news messages signal potential personal or social danger, so they must be absorbed, considered, and heeded. And to the extent that a bad news message could threaten family, friends, and society, human instinct has been to spread the warning to others.

Jane Goodall (“My Life with Chimpanzees”) noted this instinct in chimpanzees. During her observations, she was able to translate messages received by individual chimps, watch their body language, and note the urgency with which they communicated messages of danger to other members of their organized societies. And since chimpanzees share more than 98% of their DNA with humans, it should not be surprising that negative news (a danger warning) is quickly and efficiently sent along by most of us.

Before we humans take time to analyze a source and determine if it is accurate, our instinct is to tell others. Danger, political problems, a bad meal, or other random negative happening, experienced either directly or indirectly, are likely not only to be sent along but to be enhanced or exaggerated. This is not a new phenomenon, but the change that has occurred since the 1950s is the speed and scope of modern communication. Trapped in a relatively small neighborhood social circle with only a rotary dial phone, there was a limit to the spread of bad news.

Broadcast media, the internet, and social media, have conspired to enhance and accelerate negative news. As always, it outpaces positive news, but the 2026 difference is speed and depth of spread. And that change in speed is geometric. New social media platforms like Facebook use algorithms to accelerate and enhance the spread of bad news. It is in their financial interest to encourage the geometric spread of either good or bad news on their platforms, but since they are well aware of the tendency for bad news to move faster, they use internal algorithms to push bad news toward users who have shown a tendency to have received and then and spread such messages in the past. A.I.-driven decisions that are made at rocket speed move negative messages toward users who will be most likely to receive them and then add to the messaging stream.

Maria Ressa, Nobel peace prize-winning journalist from the Philippines, points to this phenomenon in the recent drift toward autocracy of her country, the Philippines. She noted in her research that Facebook usage by citizens of her country exceeded usage in the United States, even though the population of the Philippines is only one-third of that of the United States. Her vocal objections to the dysfunctional social impact of Facebook eventually led to her being jailed. When supporters helped her to get out of jail on probation, she escaped her native country to seek asylum in the United States.

There is also some interesting research ongoing at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. In a long-term study of social media, Sloan researchers have noted that incorrect news spreads much faster than accurate news, and that receivers of incorrect (fake) news are apt to further negatively enhance it as they send it along to others. When they do so, internal social media algorithms ensure that the exaggerated incorrect news is sent to even more recipients.

It works like an old-fashioned chain letter. Select new receivers of fake news tend to be individuals who have previously demonstrated a propensity for not only receiving and reading but also for adding to and re-sending the message. Regardless of the voracity of a message, social media platforms such as Facebook earn additional revenues as messages are sent, which is why their algorithms favor both negativity and the recipients who have a demonstrated history of enhancing it.

Historian and author David Frew, Ph.D., is a Scholar-in-Residence at the JES. An emeritus professor at Gannon University, he held a variety of administrative positions during a 33-year career. He is also emeritus director of the Erie County Historical Society/Hagen History Center and is president of his own management consulting business. Frew has written or cowritten 35 books and more than 100 articles, cases, and papers.

Living in downtown Erie, access to healthcare might seem like a given. Major hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics are within blocks of one another. But for many residents in surrounding neighborhoods, access is not defined by whether care exists; it is defined by whether it can be reached. That gap between presence and accessibility is at the heart of what researchers call a healthcare desert.

A healthcare desert refers to an area where residents lack reasonable access to essential medical services, including hospitals and pharmacies. In urban settings like Erie, that often means living beyond a walkable distance from care, compounded by barriers such as income, transportation, and infrastructure. The result is a city where geography quietly determines health outcomes.

Those patterns become clearer when mapped across the city.

June Monasterio, a student at Gannon University, examined healthcare access across Erie using geographical information system mapping. Her analysis layered hospital and pharmacy locations with income levels and vehicle ownership, revealing patterns that repeat across the city’s eastside and central downtown neighborhoods.

“Key factors include low income, lack of transportation, and the spatial distribution of healthcare facilities,” Monasterio said. “Neighborhoods with higher poverty and fewer cars are more likely to become healthcare deserts.”

Her maps show hospitals clustered downtown, including UPMC Hamot and St. Vincent Hospital, both within walking distance of nearby residents. But neighborhoods such as Little Italy, Burton, the Central Eastside, and parts of the east and west bayfront fall outside even a half-mile radius of care. Many of these same areas also carry some of the city’s highest poverty rates.

Pharmacy access follows the same pattern. Higher-income corridors along upper Peach Street and west Erie contain dense clusters of pharmacies, while low-income neighborhoods often have none within walking distance. For residents without vehicles, some areas reporting rates as high as 33.8%, picking up the nearest prescription can require long bus rides, rideshares, or dependence on others.

The overlap between poverty, transportation, and distance turns healthcare access into something more fragile than proximity alone suggests. That fragility is something community developers see firsthand.

Paul Hamilton, executive director of East Side Renaissance, a nonprofit focused on neighborhood revitalization on Erie’s eastside, emphasized that the issue extends beyond the existence of healthcare.

“A healthcare desert on Erie’s eastside means residents lack convenient, reliable access to essential medical services,” Hamilton said. “It’s not just about the absence of providers. It’s about transportation barriers, long wait times, and fragmented care systems that prevent people from receiving timely, preventative, and consistent treatment.”

Those barriers often shape how residents interact with the system. According to Hamilton, many individuals rely on emergency rooms for basic care because consistent primary services are difficult to access. Appointment wait times can stretch for months, and limited provider availability continues to strain the system.

Data collected through East Side Renaissance’s partnership with Multi-Cultural Health Evaluation Delivery System (MHEDS) reflects that pressure. In Erie’s 16503 ZIP code alone, more than 1,000 patients are connected to MHEDS services, with demand far exceeding available capacity. Wait times for care can exceed four months, and life expectancy in the area remains below the county average.

“Data provides validation and scale, but lived experiences provide context and urgency,” Hamilton said. “The most effective solutions come from aligning hard data with real stories from the community.”

Transportation systems attempt to become a bridge for the gap. The Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority (EMTA) provides fixed-route buses and paratransit services that connect residents to healthcare, employment, and daily necessities. According to EMTA’s head of public relations and marketing, Sarah Morrison, those systems are designed to expand access, but they still depend on awareness, planning, and time.

Senior citizens can ride fixed routes for free. EMTA’s Lift Division allows residents to schedule transportation in advance, including for medical appointments. A recent Travel Education Program helps users navigate the system, while tools like “Find My Ride,” phone scheduling, and a new language line expand usability. Rural routes exist as well, though they operate less frequently and require advance scheduling.

Even with these supports, transportation remains a partial solution. Getting to care still requires knowing the system exists, understanding how to use it, and having the flexibility to plan ahead.

Those gaps in access become more visible when viewed through lived experience. For Charles “Boo” Hagerty, president of Hamot Health Foundation, the issue is not simply where care exists, but whether people trust it enough to use it.

“Two words: build trust,” he said.

Hagerty points to neighborhoods spanning roughly Sixth Street to 14th Street, where residents experience a life expectancy gap of up to 20 years compared to nearby areas. Early attempts to address this gap through traditional models, including placing a primary care clinic inside the former Wayne School, failed to attract patients.

“All the national data said this is the model to follow … but we never asked the people in the neighborhood … and nobody came,” Hagerty said.

That realization shifted the approach entirely. In 2019, his team hired local residents to conduct door-to-door surveys, resulting in conversations with 650 people. What emerged from those interviews challenged assumptions about what was driving poor health outcomes.

“No one said that they were hungry… no one said food was an issue… no one said transportation was an issue… it was all about trust,” Hagerty said.

In response, new efforts moved beyond clinical care to make residents feel cared for. The Erie Center for Arts and Technology (ECAT) in the former Wayne School was created to provide tuition-free job training in healthcare and construction, while BUILD, a community development corporation, focuses on housing rehabilitation and neighborhood revitalization.

The strategy also expanded into street medicine and direct outreach, bringing care into homes and neighborhoods rather than waiting for patients to arrive. In one case, a $150 air conditioner prevented repeated emergency room visits for a woman with asthma.

“When you start caring about people and you show them that they’re important… they’re going to be healthy,” Hagerty said.

That same emphasis on accessibility is shaping longer-term solutions. Through its collaboration with MHEDS, East Side Renaissance is working to develop a centralized facility that would bring primary care, dental, mental health, rehabilitation, and pharmacy services into one location within the community.

“The goal is to eliminate barriers by bringing comprehensive, integrated services directly into the community,” Hamilton said. “Beyond access, it’s about shifting from reactive care to preventative, community-based health.”

That same emphasis on dignity and access appears at the UPMC Neighborhood Center, where Drevell Showers, director of marking and public relations, described many residents as arriving with needs that extend beyond healthcare.

“We aim to provide that initial glimmer of hope,” he said.

Showers emphasized that trust is often the deciding factor in whether people seek care at all. Many residents, he said, avoid systems due to past experiences or fear of being dismissed. The center’s model is built around accessibility, including open services regardless of insurance status.

“That sense of safety and acceptance plays a significant role in building trust,” he said.

That trust, he added, is reinforced through partnerships with local organizations that help create a consistent and welcoming environment. Collaborations with groups such as the Hamot Health Foundation/BUILD CDC, UPMC Pathways to Work, the Erie Redevelopment Authority , UPMC Western Behavioral Health at Safe Harbor, Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest Pennsylvania, and GECAC expand the center’s reach beyond healthcare alone.

Together, those partnerships connect residents to food support, employment resources, behavioral health services, and community programming. In its early months, the center served more than 2,100 individuals (duplicated) through its food pantry and hosted 88 public events.

Even with expanding services, gaps in care remain visible across the system, sometimes most clearly during short-term interventions.

Organizations like Remote Area Medical (RAM) highlight that reality. When RAM clinics come to Erie, they often serve large numbers of residents who have gone without care due to cost or access barriers.

Since 1985, RAM has provided free medical, dental, and vision services across the country under a simple principle: “Healthcare shouldn’t be a luxury.”

In a city with established hospitals, the demand for temporary free clinics underscores a deeper contradiction. Healthcare exists, but access is inconsistent, and for some residents, it’s only temporarily available.

Across data, interviews, and lived experience, the pattern is consistent. Erie’s healthcare challenges are not defined solely by distance to hospitals or the number of providers, but by the systems that determine whether care is reachable, understandable, and trusted.

As Hagerty put it, “All of a sudden … these health deserts aren’t health deserts anymore … they are health opportunities.”

What remains is not a question of whether resources exist, but whether the conditions surrounding them allow people to use it, and whether systems are willing to meet communities where they are.

To learn more about the Hamot Health Foundation and its BUILD CDC and Street Impact programs, click here. To get involved with the Neighborhood Center, click here. To find out more about what the EMTA has to offer, click here.

This article was written and published as part of a collaboration between the Jefferson Educational Society and Gannon University. Through Gannon’s Community News program, in partnership with the University of Vermont’s Center for Community News, student journalists are partnered with local publishers to provide impactful news coverage throughout Erie County, Pennsylvania, and increase civic and community engagement.

It wasn’t some “magic magnet” in Lake Erie that drew Brandon Mendoza to Erie, Pennsylvania. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, and spending the past decade at the top of Pittsburgh’s government affairs scene, Mendoza saw Erie’s assets and potential and wanted to be part of its future.

“This is a world-class place, and of course we’ve got a million problems to solve,” he said. “Every community has trade-offs. I will take our positive trade-offs against any place in the country.”

Now the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership’s president and chief executive, Mendoza presented “Erie 300: A Strategy for Erie’s Next Chapter” at the Jefferson Educational Society last Friday (May 1) as part of its Community Conversation series, which is meant for residents to hear directly from leaders of local organizations and gain a deeper understanding of initiatives and projects that contribute to Erie’s growth and development.

Like wanting to be a part of Erie’s future, Mendoza wants to secure the Chamber’s role in Erie County’s future. Since he joined the Chamber in 2024, during its 150th anniversary, Mendoza began thinking of not how to make the Chamber part of the Erie area’s future for the next 150 years but for the next 300. Fittingly, the plan he presented on Friday was not a roadmap for Erie’s future but for the Chamber.

Erie 300 is broken down into six pillars, created from a process of strategic listening, research, and planning.

Pillar One: Erie’s Advocate

When the Chamber looked at the success of other Chambers of Commerce, it noticed that some do some more real estate work, some do more education and programming, and some do more workforce development, but the throughline of it all was advocacy.

The Chamber, in turn, is Erie’s advocate, Mendoza said, and he’s the YIMBY person — Yes In My Back Yard — saying yes to opportunities in the place he now calls home.

Part of that advocacy was creating a political action committee (PAC), which provides donations to certain political candidates to advance local projects and priorities. Mendoza, who has worked extensively in government affairs on the local, state, and federal levels, said that politics and money are part of the game, whether people like it or not.

With his expertise though, the Chamber has already raised $5,000 in the first year, its base goal, and has had a policy victory. The work is bipartisan, not choosing one political party over another.

“We’re a moving organization, so if you want to move with us, we will build a bridge between whatever ideology you have,” he said. “We subscribe to the Erie Party — we’re here to move the region — left, right, center — Work with us and we’ll work with you.”

In that same sense, the Chamber is embracing Erie County being a swing county in a swing state. Because Erie County is a key battleground for political candidates, Mendoza said they have to be ready for candidates to spend time here and even invite them here, having their “asks” lined up for that time.

This year, the Chamber is working with the Erie County Democratic and Republican parties to set up a debate with the gubernatorial candidates in the fall, with one candidate already agreeing. This kind of work is something the Chamber hopes to continue into the 2028 election.

Pillar Two: The Catalyst

The second pillar is meant to drive investment in Erie area businesses, real estate, and infrastructure.

As baby boomers retire and businesses are left with empty spaces, Mendoza wants to connect those employers with partners who can fill those gaps.

“They’re looking at the bench and thinking ‘Man, it’s not as ready as we thought it would be,’” Mendoza said of local employers.

Already, there are organizations and programs at work like the Greater Erie Community Action Committee’s Bright Futures Summer Jobs program, which could be better utilized and expanded, he said.

The Chamber also wants to help accelerate businesses with a focus on ones that will reinvest in Erie. For example, First Ascent Biomedical is a healthcare tech company that is already partnering with Gannon and the Allegheny Health Network and is now going to build labs in Erie that will employ and educate Erieites.

In general, the Chamber wants to expand its business support, but part of the area’s infrastructure goes beyond businesses and into transportation. Mendoza said that they want to strengthen Erie’s connectivity to the world by focusing on the Erie International Airport — securing existing air service, adding new air service, and marketing the airport to support long-term needs.

Pillar Three: The Erie Brand

A trend that the Chamber found in its research was that other places are using marketing as a tool. Negative perception is something that showed up in all their strategic planning sessions.

“The gap between the quality lifestyle and the quality assets in this community and the story that’s been told and is being told is enormous,” Mendoza said.

Now, the Chamber is working to elevate Erie as a competitive and attractive region to live, work, and play, embracing the unique attributes that define Erie — something that the Jefferson Educational Society’s Civic Leadership Academy recommended this year in its report about combatting population decline.

Mendoza said the Chamber currently has verbal agreements with the city and county leadership and with funding in place, the Chamber is set to issue a Request for Proposal for a marketing firm to come in and do the work.

It’s meant to get at the heart of the Erie area experience, the common underlying pride that comes from Erie County’s assets specifically.

Pillar Four: AI Forward

As the Chamber integrates artificial intelligence (AI) into its own operations — business acceleration, educational programming, membership support, and economic development — Mendoza said it’s critical to focus on best practices and business outreach to help others use AI responsibly too.

As there are already AI initiatives in the area, the Chamber wants to help all businesses keep pace. Soon, it will announce that it’s working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Google to bring Google in for a set of educational sessions with Erie’s business community.

There are also data center builders and investors interested in building in Erie County, and Mendoza said the Chamber wants to be ready for that so that the area doesn’t continue to fall behind in technology innovation and infrastructure.

Pillar Five: The Connector

Outside of advocacy, the second throughline of successful chambers was events. The Chamber wants to become the region’s top platform for business connections, relationship development, and professional growth, earning the pillar’s title as “The Connector.”

In 2025, the Chamber made strides in this area by hosting about 500 attendees at its Spirit of Erie event, which combines awards, networking, and a dinner program. It’s an event that merges Erie’s Homecoming and the Celebration of Excellence awards.

The Chamber is going to continue to build Erie’s business connections with various events and programs that have already started.

Pillar Six: The Erie 300 Plan

When Mendoza came to Erie, there were questions about the Chamber’s sustainability. That’s why it is creating the Erie 300 Fund and building an endowment to continue work for years to come. It is also going to re-evaluate its membership model.

It is also solidifying its value in the community by establishing and formalizing partnerships, like its recent hire of Colleen Dougherty, who works as the regional coordinator between the Chamber and Infinite Erie to align goals and resources.

The Chamber wants to create a culture of speed and getting things done.

“On every one of our pillars, we have serious momentum,” Mendoza said of its progress already.

The Chamber is working on expanding its progress dashboard to include a public-facing side so that residents can follow its progress as well.

Although the six pillars sound like a lot, Mendoza said it’s achievable.

“We’re not trying to boil the ocean — or boil the lake,” he said. “The goal here is let’s move this organization forward and let’s strategically align it behind some key initiatives that will in turn, help move the region forward.”

Arthur Gamble Jr., an Erie resident who returned after working across the country in various positions, including economic development, said that although the plan is great, there have been many great plans over the years that fell through.

“We’ve seen a lot of folks come to town and pitch new things, and there are a lot of plans and programs on the shelf,” Gamble said.

Since Mendoza is an outsider to the Erie community, Gamble said it’s important to not continue looking outward but to use the people it already has and invest in those people and their ideas.

Part of that is the African American community and its experience, which Gamble said he was comfortable in speaking for. As Erie was named the worst place for African Americans to live in 2017, whether deserved or not, it’s created a black cloud over the community.

“It became the reality in terms of how they felt about their opportunities here, and other folks in the community here who have been overlooked,” Gamble said, explaining that it creates a new opportunity for Mendoza and his team. “You have an abundance of people that have a lot of talent and ability that are entrepreneurs in the making that the Chamber can work to retain the companies that are here, including some of the people who have been excluded.”

To learn more about the Chamber, click here. Find upcoming events at the Jefferson Educational Society here.

Editor’s note: Following is an On the Waterfront Classic by Jefferson Scholar-in-Residence David Frew. The Jefferson first published it in August 2021.

When my mother passed away, it was my job to go to her house and “take care” of all the stuff. There were family relics: photographs, vintage furniture, and other items that were passed along to my children. But there were also hundreds of items that she had meticulously stored –– the beloved and important tools of her life. One of the most glaringly obvious of these hung inside her kitchen storage area, nestled in cupboard shelves where she stored food. I was shocked to see it there but immediately recalled its prominence in my life on West Fourth Street in Erie, Pennsylvania. It was a bright red DDT spraying pump.

During those years, Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was considered a miracle of modern chemistry (its primary developer received the Nobel Prize!). First isolated in laboratories in the late 1800s, it was shown to be a devastating toxin for insects. Given contemporary concerns about bug-borne diseases, including Malaria, DDT seemed to hold the key to a better life. By the post-World War II era, the “Atomic Age,” chemical companies had also synthesized dozens of companion consumer products that were sold to consumers with the promise of helping to “make everyday life better.”

Popular consumer products included a clear paint called Pestroy that could be applied to surfaces such as kitchen cupboards and widow screens. There was also a DDT-impregnated cedar-paper, which could be glued to closet walls, and even DDT-impregnated children’s wallpaper featuring Disney characters for those who really loved their kids.

Schools painted student lockers with DDT coatings, huge foggers were used to spray patios and yards, and DDT bombs were sold to campers for killing insects while in the woods. DDT spray powder was available for shaking on family pets so that they would not carry insects into our homes.

The family DDT spray machine was an indispensable “spring cleaning” tool. Each year, seemingly on cue, almost everyone in my neighborhood waited for the first warm day to begin dragging household furnishings out of houses and into backyards for the annual cleanse. It was a ritual. Carpets, small furniture, couch cushions, and other large objects were spread about the lawn and positioned so they could be sprayed. Then my mother (as well as the other neighborhood ladies) shifted to laboratory-chemist mode and began mixing various chemical compounds into kitchen containers in preparation for loading the DDT spray machine. Then the army of neighborhood ladies began spraying. I don’t remember anyone wearing protective gear.

I can distinctly recall the acrid smell as a fog of DDT was applied to everything. First, the outdoor stuff was saturated and then the indoor areas. Cracks, crevices, immovable furniture. Anything that did not “get out of the way” was sprayed. When we were done with that terrible spring duty, the awful smell of DDT filled the house and remained for weeks. Eventually, we lugged everything from the yard back into the house and reveled in the satisfaction that disease-ridden bugs had been eliminated for the year.

Enter Rachel Carson.

Born south of Erie on a farm near the Allegheny River, Rachel was drawn to nature. As a child, she prowled the riverbanks, forests, and fields upstream from Pittsburgh, ultimately learning about plants, animals, and aquatic creatures. Bright and a precocious writer, Rachel Carson was published at a young age and went off to college at a time when it was rare for women to follow such a track. She hoped to major in English and become a writer. Mid-curriculum, her love of nature won out over pure writing, and she ultimately graduated with a degree in biology. She continued her education at Johns Hopkins University, earning a master’s degree in zoology in 1932.

Rachel Carson had planned to continue Ph.D. work at Johns Hopkins, but the Great Depression placed her family in economic peril, so she took a job instead. Working for the U.S. Fisheries Department, she systematically earned a reputation for being one of America’s premier marine biologists. Over a 12-year career, she became a talented field researcher and published several important scientific and popular articles. Her writing skills drove her to begin writing and publishing books in addition to her articles, and she ultimately produced three seminal works in marine biology. As she continued her work, however, she became increasingly disturbed by changes that she was observing in the water column. Her research began to link these dysfunctional shifts to chemicals that were being released in the environment, causing her to suspect the role of DDT in changes that she was measuring.

Confident in her ability to write and to reach a national audience, Rachel Carson resigned from the Department of Fisheries, moved to Maine and began to plan the book that would become her most important work, “Silent Spring.” It took her four years.

The book, which was published in 1962, essentially predicted that if chemicals, including DDT, were to be allowed to be “dumped” into the environment at the rate that they were through the 1950s, the negative results would be absorbed by every living creature from the tiniest plankton in the oceans, to fish, birds, and eventually humans. The book title came from the possibility there would be a spring without birds, the “canaries in the big coal mine of life” and Earth’s most sensitive harbinger of environmental danger. She predicted that chemicals, including DDT, would lead to an epidemic of cancer in humans. Carson estimated that the half-life of DDT was approximately 20 years in soil, meaning that even if its use could be slowed, the disastrous impact on the food chain would continue for decades if not centuries.

As “Silent Spring” became a bestseller and its frightening message was fanned by mainstream media (New Yorker Magazine serialized and published it), the chemical companies reacted. The industry giants, facing the loss of millions of dollars of revenue from their “miracle product and all of its licensed spinoffs,” hired a publicity firm and launched a nasty national campaign against Rachel Carson. The essence of the anti-Carson campaign, which continued for years (and still re-appears, episodically), accused her of being a “hysterical woman trying to do a man’s job,” a “low level fishery worker operating well outside her area of expertise,” a “communist,” and a “lesbian.” They were trigger words designed to inflame ordinary people during the 1950s.

In retrospect, it is now unclear if it was Carson’s work or the transparently self-serving publicity campaign by chemical companies that was most effective in alerting the public to the dangers of DDT. By the 1960s, worldwide research from dozens of independent sources implicated DDT and other pesticides in myriad environmental threats. DDT was banned from agricultural use in the United States in 1972.

Before she passed away (from cancer) in 1964, Rachel Carson and her work had been vindicated. Interestingly, Carson had never advocated the total ban of DDT. She understood its power in eradicating Malaria. As a pesticide, however, she wrote that its use would become increasingly less effective since her research showed mosquitos adapting to it, genetically.

Carson is now celebrated. Her Pennsylvania home has been made into a national monument, her statue graces a park near the Chesapeake Bay where she did much of her work, and the Pennsylvania Department of Natural Resources has honored her. Among her many awards, President Jimmy Carter presented her (posthumously) with the Presidential Medal of Honor.

These days, her book, “Silent Spring,” is credited with launching the modern environmental movement. In 2004, DDT was banned worldwide in agricultural applications, beginning a long period during which it was slowly, but not completely, disappearing from the human food chain (recall the 20-year half-life). The power of the chemical for eradicating malaria, which has been a terrible problem for Third World countries, has allowed continued non-agricultural use. Unfortunately, the malaria spraying that continues adjacent to farm fields in some countries has resulted in DDT being present in produce that is imported to the United States.

Although my parents and their friends were nearly contemporaries of Rachel Carson, they and the rest of my neighbors were oblivious to her dire warnings. Thus, the annual 1950s, Fourth Street fog of DDT has probably influenced the long-term health of all of us.

In recent years, we have learned from animal as well as epidemiological studies that DDT exposure is linked to Type II Diabetes as well as several blood cancers. And as Rachel Carson warned, the half-life of the chemical in both soil and human fatty tissues has assured that it will be with us for a long time. Under the general heading of a “gift that keeps on giving,” the presence of DDT in human tissue has recently been connected to Alzheimer’s disease.

Lately, I have been wondering what Rachel Carson would have to say about glyphosate in herbicides.

Historian and author David Frew, Ph.D., is a Scholar-in-Residence at the JES. An emeritus professor at Gannon University, he held a variety of administrative positions during a 33-year career. He is also emeritus director of the Erie County Historical Society/Hagen History Center and is president of his own management consulting business. Frew has written or cowritten 35 books and more than 100 articles, cases, and papers.

A host of community members and leaders, teachers, and parents filled the room at the Jefferson Educational Society on Friday as Commonwealth Charter Academy’s (CCA) Erin Sekerak stood behind the podium. Everyone listened as she set the scene for the talk: Imagine you have a child who continually cries every day they have to go to school. When they do go to school, your phone is flooded all day with texts and calls from the child about how miserable they are.

Instead of getting better with time or support from school, it seems to only worsen, and the mental health picture grows grim. At what point does the alarm go off that this is no longer normal behavior?

Especially since the pandemic, the idea of what education looks like has changed and expanded in some ways. CCA is one of those beneficiaries; as the fastest-growing school in Pennsylvania and the largest cyber charter school in the state, it saw an uptick in enrollment by 235% — about 20,567 students — from 2018-19 to 2024-25, with over 39,000 now attending. There are about 68,000 students attending cyber charter schools in the commonwealth.

Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Court ruled the state’s educational funding system unconstitutional due to the disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes based on the wealth of each area’s tax base. Now, the state is tasked with reforming the funding system, with Auditor General Timothy DeFoor and two auditors general before him singling out cyber charter schools’ funding formula as part of the problem.

The Community Conversation, which is meant for residents to hear directly from leaders of local organizations and gain a deeper understanding of initiatives and projects that contribute to Erie’s growth and development, happened amid this all. Sekerak, the regional vice president of community and alumni relations at CCA, wanted to combat some “myths” about cyber charter schools.

What is a Cyber Charter School?

A cyber charter school is a public nonprofit school that serves students from kindergarten through 12th grade and primarily uses electronic means for instruction. There are 14 cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania, and they are tax-funded with no tuition or fees for families.

However, they don’t have the ability to raise taxes. The funding mechanism is through the host school district, which gives cyber charter schools about 70% of the funding per student that traditional public schools get — given that cyber charter schools don’t have the same costs for food and transportation. The remaining 30% of funding per pupil stays with the district. This funding formula dates back to 2002 and has been the subject of ongoing legal debate.

CCA is fully accredited and has 23 years of experience providing what it calls a family-centered model. It follows the same state standards as other public schools and must also follow cyber standards and is subject to nonprofit reviews.

Where cyber charter schools differ from traditional public schools is in their flexibility and offerings. Whether it’s to escape bullying, manage health conditions, move at a faster academic pace or even move to a different area without changing schools, CCA provides a flexible remote learning option for students who struggle with a traditional public school setting.

Sekerak said it’s not a second-line alternative, and cyber school is not for everyone, the same way that traditional schooling is not for everyone. For some, CCA provides a safe and comfortable environment that allows them to succeed.

“It’s not a loophole,” she said. “It’s a lifeline.”

Working in alumni relations, she spoke of a couple of success stories: a country star whose music career began to take off in high school, and CCA enabled her to tour while getting her degree; and a girl suffering from chronic illness who was able to get the medical help she needed without stopping her education and is now a bodybuilder who owns gyms.

“In a time when mental health crises are on the rise, when bullying and safety concerns exist, and when family stability affects more than students than ever, expanding options, not restricting them, is the only compassionate choice,” Sekerak said.

The Myths

One of the first myths Sekerak addressed was a supposed lack of accountability and oversight. She explained that as public schools, each cyber charter school has a board of trustees, public meetings, public budgets, annual audits, and follows Pennsylvania Department of Education guidelines. Each is also subject to audit by the state auditor general, who found through his recent audit some spending that raised concerns.

The purchase of gift cards and advertising drew criticism from taxpayers. Sekerak explained that because cyber charter schools don’t have cafeterias to serve food to students who need it, they often provide gift cards to grocery stores or Walmart for food. Additionally, school districts do not need marketing because enrollment is based on geography. CCA has to use advertising to raise awareness of its existence, which it uses 1.5% of its budget to do.

Another myth was that cyber charter schools don’t have to serve students with special needs, which requires more funding and resources. Sekerak said that’s false as 33% of CCA’s enrollment is special education students, combatting the critique that cyber charter schools only pick the “easy” students who require less oversight.

Along with homeschooling, cyber charter schooling comes under fire for the lack of socialization, which Sekerak said is false. The students are not just sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day every day. CCA provides about 1,000 field trip opportunities throughout the school year across the state, and it has medical clinics and social clubs at its physical location, which in Erie is on West Ninth Street by Cathedral Preparatory.

Students by law are also allowed to partake in their home school district’s extracurricular activities like sports, band, and theater.

CCA also has career readiness programs in which students can train for their future careers. One such avenue is the MedWorks program, which exposes students to careers in the healthcare field using its facility in southwestern Pennsylvania. Similar programs are on the way for other industries like media and trade.

One myth that’s been gaining traction and was a significant topic of discussion on Friday was low student performance on state assessments. Per the Future Ready PA Index, which tracks state assessment standards like graduation rates and proficiency in standardized testing, CCA has failed to meet goals in all subjects and has a low graduation rate.

Sekerak said graduation is only counted for students from ninth grade to 12th grade, and since about 30% of students come to CCA in the middle of those years, they are not counted as graduates. Also, 80% of CCA parents opt their children out of state testing, which is an option to any public school student. She said that most parents cannot drive their children to the public testing site, which leads them to opt out.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education requires a 95% participation rate for school testing, and subsequent non-tested eligible testers must be reported as non-proficient if that rate is not met — leading to a lot of non-proficient scores. Sekerak said that those who do take the test exceed, but she did not have those statistics on hand.

Brian Slawin, regional director for Ben Franklin Technology Partners, leveled a criticism not specifically for cyber charter schools but for schools in general, asking how taxpayers are supposed to know how effective their money is in educating students if there are no test scores.

It was explained that CCA, per state regulations, provides alternative competency assessments that may include extra modules or certifications that are geared toward career readiness. For example, for someone who wants to enter the military, the military entrance exam score would be considered.

CCA parent Santina Eger said that her children have both taken the state standardized tests, and each time she’s been impressed by the attitude of the children taking the tests.

“The atmosphere at the Family Services center is so different than what you’re seeing; the kids are excited to be there,” she said. “They know the test is a reflection of what their school is teaching and not a reflection of themselves, so they go into it with a much better attitude. They’re happy to represent their schools and show what they’re learning.”

The Funding Fight

Another point of contention is the funding formula. Cyber charter schools lost about $175 million last year thanks to a new funding formula that provides less money in cyber charter tuition, citing that the school still must pay for things like the student’s extracurricular activities. The change caused furloughs across cyber charter schools and may lead to the closure of a couple of smaller cyber charter schools.

Public school spending continues to increase while traditional public enrollment drops, and cyber charter schools got 3% of that public school funding despite teaching 4% of the population. Currently, tuition ranges from just below $8,000 to over $25,000 for a student without special needs, using a formula that’s the same for brick-and-mortar charters and cyber charters despite the latter’s lower overhead costs. This year, Gov. Josh Shapiro has included an $8,000 tuition cap on cyber charter education per pupil in his proposed 2026-27 budget, which Sekerak criticized.

“In their eyes, Pennsylvania isn’t cutting funding to cyber charters, which are public schools,” she said. “Instead, they are generating ‘savings’ by ‘redirecting’ and ‘returning’ funding to the school districts — essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

The move would send about $600 million more to public school districts, which helps Pennsylvania in its push to meet a constitutional funding model. In 2023, the school funding system was ruled unconstitutional as low-wealth districts had been systemically deprived of adequate resources. As a result, Pennsylvania has one of the widest per-pupil spending gaps in the country. The state is now under legal obligation to fix that, which has led to this “redirecting” of money.

Although Republicans are known for their support in funding alternatives to traditional public schooling, Republican Auditor General DeFoor has said that cyber charter schools are in a more than advantageous position financially. Although Sekerak pointed out on Friday that cyber charters have $875 million in reserve funds, compared to school districts’ $13.2 billion, those cyber charter reserves increased 144% from 2019-20 to 2022-23. She said that the reserves are needed for situations like the state budget impasse in 2025 when they recieved no funding from schools, but that’s because school districts were also not getting any funding.

DeFoor said that cyber charters were gaining reserves because of a formula based on what districts budget, not what online education costs. He called it outdated and called for reform, while CCA maintains that what the state considers the cost of online education is wrong.

The argument could be seen in Sekerak’s closing anecdote, which she said she read in a magazine. She spoke of a girl named Hope, who was on the autism spectrum and presented as non-verbal but quickly became a conversationalist once Hope began cyber charter school. Sekerak said it was because cyber schooling had better support for Hope than the home school district had.

It’s a story that cuts at the heart of the debate. For families like Hope’s, cyber schooling was the answer available to them. Whether adequate funding to the home district could have made it unnecessary is the question Pennsylvania’s courts have already begun to answer, and lawmakers are continually discussing.

“We’re not the public school enemy,” Sekerak said. “We’re the solution.”

While the debate continues to play out in Harrisburg, families are not waiting for a resolution; they’re making the decisions each day about where to send their children to school.

Think of it as a puzzle.

When a person is struggling — with housing, with addiction, with mental health — the challenges rarely arrive neatly one at a time. It’s not that Erie County doesn’t have the resources to help, but rarely do those needs fall within the scope of a single organization. Instead, each agency has one piece, and without collaboration, it can be nearly impossible to see the bigger picture.

That was the message at a recent Jefferson Educational Society Community Conversation, where local leaders and residents gathered to explore how collaboration, not innovation, of human services may be the most necessary step forward.

The event, “Collaboration and Physical Location of Human Services: Why It Works and Why It Is Necessary,” featured Paul Lukach, executive director of the Crime Victim Center of Erie County. Lukach leads programming and outreach for individuals affected by crime.

At the Crime Victim Center, he said, clients frequently arrive with needs that extend beyond victim advocacy. While referrals to other agencies are available, barriers such as transportation, lack of awareness, and physical distance can prevent individuals from accessing those services.

“We have a wealth of human services,” Lukach said, arguing that the issue is coordination of those services.

One solution he proposed is the development of a co-located human service hub, where multiple agencies operate within a shared physical space. The model, he explained, would reduce barriers by creating a centralized location for services while also improving communication and coordination among providers.

He said that human service nonprofits are already navigating a combination of funding shortages, workforce challenges, and increased demand. As part of his blueprint, Lukach pointed to the potential of repurposing vacant strip mall plazas, which could offer accessible, cost-effective locations for multiple organizations to operate under one roof. Such sites, he noted, would also be especially beneficial for individuals who rely on public transportation, making services easier to reach.

By increasing visibility and accessibility, a shared hub could expose individuals to services they may not have otherwise known about, while allowing organizations to streamline referrals and better manage resources. Lukach described his blueprint as a way to strengthen service delivery across the Erie community, while emphasizing the importance of planning for longevity and keeping future community needs in mind.

For attendees, the discussion highlighted both the urgency of the issue and the importance of collective action. Lorri Bland, a retired educator and volunteer with the Erie Community Cornerstone Project, a local initiative focused on providing support and resources to all walks of life, emphasized the need for unity among organizations.

“The community really needs to work together,” she said.

Comments from the audience also raised questions about how to expand awareness of these efforts, particularly when it comes time to secure funding. In response, Lukach underscored the importance of continuing to hold public conversations, like the one at the Jefferson, suggesting that sustained dialogue is key to building both understanding and support.

The Community Conversation series serves as a platform connecting leaders of local organizations with the Erie community, allowing them to share updates on ongoing initiatives and changes being implemented across the region.

While the concept of collaboration offers clear benefits, Lukach acknowledged that challenges remain. Nonprofits often operate in competitive funding environments, and sharing space or resources can raise concerns about organizational identity and logistics.

Still, he stressed that the opportunity to rethink how services are delivered is immediate.

“Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor,” Lukach said. “The time is right.”

To learn more about the Crime Victim Center of Erie County, click here. To find upcoming events at the Jefferson Educational Society, click here.

This article was written and published as part of a collaboration between the Jefferson Educational Society and Gannon University. Through Gannon’s Community News program, in partnership with the University of Vermont’s Center for Community News, student journalists are partnered with local publishers to provide impactful news coverage throughout Erie County, Pennsylvania, and increase civic and community engagement.

During the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic, several of us from the Jefferson were thrashing about, attempting to find something that would bring value to members. I’m not entirely sure who to credit (or blame) for the idea or the title, Ben Speggen, Pat Cuneo, or myself, but eventually we came up with the idea of me publishing a series of short essays, describing Erie life during the 1950s. My idea was to center the essays about the West Fourth Street neighborhood where I grew up. It was a time and place that I understood, experientially. Finally, we (I think it was Pat), decided to call the series “On the Waterfront.”

Roots of the Essay Series

I knew there could be several great stories centered on the multi-ethnic bayfront neighborhood and the unique nature of the post-World War II era but wondered if they would continue to be interesting to readers, or for how long I could carry on with writing new and fresh stuff. Amazingly, more than five years have passed since then and stories keep coming.

The neighborhood kids were called “bay rats” and we were as endemic to the bayfront, the docks, and the vast undeveloped open areas of the northwest corner of Erie as the namesake rodents that graced the Cascade Docks where we prowled. Origins of the actual title were less than clear until one day, during my time as executive director of the Erie Historical Society when an old friend stopped to visit. Dave Bello, of Bello’s Market fame, came to my office with an old photograph that he had found in a family album. It was an image of several of us when we were about 11 years old, standing on the corner of West Fourth and Cascade streets. We were all wearing the same basic outfits. Faded dungarees (as opposed to modern jeans), and dirty gray (once white) undershirts that had been worn for months and washed repeatedly without bleach. Our hair had not seen combs or brushes for days.

“This is why we were called bay rats,” Dave said, pointing to the photo. “We were disheveled, gray, and distinctly ratty.”

Becoming a Psycho-Historian

Since the essay series has matured, people have been referring to me as a historian. The title oversteps my contextual understanding of an important discipline, and my traditional academic training persuades me to temper the title, especially when I am introduced. My own academic background hovers between engineering, my first career, and organizational psychology, where I completed both my doctorate and post-doctoratal work. The resulting hybrid has shaped how I see the world: analytically, but also contextually. While some of my graduate school peers found research methods daunting, I found comfort in them — a reflection of my earlier training in math and science.

Most importantly, I’ve come to believe that understanding any problem requires more than a singular disciplinary lens. With respect to history, I have always had an attraction to tradition and the way that events unfold over time, especially when viewed through lived experience and the wisdom of those who came before us. That’s why I find myself thinking less like a traditional historian and more like something else entirely.

One of my favorite science fiction writers, Isaac Asimov, has often described protagonists in hybrid terms, and coined the term “psycho-historian” to describe characters who blend psychology and history to understand human behavior across time. Perhaps that is an apt definition for what I have become. Unlike traditional historians who have internalized world and cultural history and can easily describe epoch events, including wars, famines, and civilizations, I am limited. An attraction to water, ships, and the Great Lakes has helped me to contextualize matters connected to ships, shipping, and commercial fishing, but don’t invite me as the “historian” to your trivia team. I will disappoint.

Like many, I took my share of history classes in middle and high school, but I was not a fan. Teachers and textbooks seemed to organize history by using wars, presidencies, geography, or world eras, and I usually had difficulty following the logic of big, sweeping events that were organized in such a way. Meanwhile, I was living in a history-rich environment filled with ships, docks, and other great reminders. It seemed that almost everyone who inhabited the neighborhood was an experiential historian. Neighbors regularly recalled World War II, commercial fishing, and they often described the War of 1812 as well as the Brig Niagara. Most seemed to be better “historians” than the 19-year-old cadet-teachers who struggled to make us memorize facts at school. A few blocks from my home, for example, there was a monument to Charles V. Gridley, but when I asked a teacher who that was, she had no idea and seemed annoyed. Gridley was a naval commander and captain who served in the Civil War and played a key role in the Battle of Manilla Bay in the Spanish-American War. He was once stationed in Erie, married an Erie woman, and is buried in Lakeside Cemetery in a plot that features historic cannons.

Our older neighbors told stories. Teachers listed facts but had no apparent interest in the Brig Niagara or its role in a neighborhood war.

Neighborhood History Lessons

It also seemed that the most important history was micro-local. My approach to learning about life and its history was connected to the personal experience of expanding my “territory.” Stretching my range. As I grew, I was increasingly allowed to expand my world. At first, I was forbidden from wandering more than a few houses in any direction. “Stuck” at my home, plus or minus a few houses in either direction on West Fourth Street. Gradually, however, I was allowed to ride my bike to either corner but not go into the street or round the corners of the city block where I could have been out of sight. Later, I was permitted to go around the corners of the block and cross the next streets. Enter and explore mysterious new territories.

My world expanded, especially as I met and began to hang out with other neighborhood kids. Eventually, we were regularly wandering all the way to the waterfront, exploring the docks and perusing the interesting places in between. Often, we violated ultimate boundaries created by parents, and sometimes we were caught. “Helpful” neighbors seemed to feel that it was their duty to mention that little Tommy or Mikey had been seen swimming in Presque Isle Bay. Awful?

All of this now seems entirely normal and the best and most natural way to learn history, geography, culture, and more. We were scouts, setting off to explore “new worlds” quite like the television adventures of “Star Trek.” Ethnic neighbors regaled us with stories of their “old worlds” and why they had come to America. They fed us perpetually starving kids wonderful foods that were foreign to our own homes. Portuguese sausage: linguica. Italian cookies: pizzelles. Swedish pastries: kringles. Food became a cultural learning experience.

Readers Expanded the Series

Amazingly, there were many responses to the essays. People whose memories include such iconic former landmarks as Charles Strong’s Pond, Chestnut Street Pool, the Strong Estate, the Bayview Tavern, the Goose Woods, the Finnish Church, Modica’s Social Club, the West Fourth Steet Trolly, Holy Trinity Portuguese Society, and Beckman’s Ship Supply/Chandlery were pleased to see old neighborhood pictures and read stories about bygone days. They wrote to add nuances and suggest additional stories. Their ideas and recollections have led to additional essays.

Several readers wrote to ask about 1950s’ style parenting. They wondered why parents would have been so laissez-faire to have allowed us kids the freedom to wander, explore, and get into the dumb scrapes that characterized so many of the “On the Waterfront” stories. My answer to horrified readers was that times and circumstances were quite different back then. Seemingly safer? And that kids who grew up in my ZIP code may have led lives that were far less orchestrated (by parents) than other children.

Some of the most interesting general reactions have come from readers who did not grow up in Erie. Several of them noted that the 1950s environments that being described in essays were exactly the same as childhoods in other places. Interesting.

Applied Nostalgia Theory

As essays continued, it became apparent that “On the Waterfront” was skirting an interesting, psychological phenomena, in addition to providing glimpses into local micro history. The psychological root of the “On the Waterfront” essays was nostalgia. Generally defined as a sentimental longing for the past and or for a former home and roots, contemporary researchers have developed statistically reliable psychometric measures of nostalgia and have begun to investigate the psychological role that it may play in personal development. While nostalgia was once imagined to be a psycho-emotional weakness, bordering upon neurosis, it has recently been elevated to a more positive and useful place in the panacea of human existence. It is only the rare individual who descends into extreme mental bouts of nostalgia who is dysfunctioned.

Researchers are now reporting correlations between measures of nostalgia (including Botcho’s Nostalgia Index, the BNI) with subjective well-being (happiness), adaptive skills, job performance/satisfaction, feelings of connectedness, belonging, self-esteem, and resilience, all positive aspects of personal life. In short, it now seems that nostalgia is a good thing. I reluctantly admit that this positive psychological bonus to the essay series was serendipitous. Now that I am surveying nostalgia literature, I fully understand how the essays work, but I cannot claim that it was intended. Nostalgia researchers understand that the personal reflections at the root of nostalgia may not be entirely aureate. They are subject to the distortions and adjustments of memory that most of us create. In fact, the memory enhancements probably help.

What’s Next?

There is no end in sight for the essays. And to that extent it seems that there may be some value in collecting a few of the “best” bay rat stories and presenting them in the form of a program and or a collected publication, featuring the best and most popular. Or even a modern podcast. Who knows?

Historian and author David Frew, Ph.D., is a Scholar-in-Residence at the JES. An emeritus professor at Gannon University, he held a variety of administrative positions during a 33-year career. He is also emeritus director of the Erie County Historical Society/Hagen History Center and is president of his own management consulting business. Frew has written or cowritten 35 books and more than 100 articles, cases, and papers.

After running on a campaign promising major change for Erie, Mayor Daria Devlin reviewed her first 100 days in office in a program at the Jefferson Educational Society on April 14 and promised to put residents’ voices first in informing her vision for the future.

Being the first woman to hold the position in nearly 25 years when the city faced a number of challenges after the six-term tenure of Mayor Louis J. Tullio, Devlin said she is aware of the hope she symbolizes for many who are looking for a new start. Aptly, former Mayor Joyce Savocchio, who became the first woman to be elected mayor in 1989 and went on to serve three subsequent terms, introduced Devlin at the event.

Devlin opened with a promise: “The future of Erie is not something that just happens or that we can wait for –– it’s something we build. Together.”

Collaboration and listening have been hallmarks of Devlin’s first 100 days in office as she brought all City Hall departments together in a day-long strategy planning session. Having a record of social impact and community involvement before her election, Devlin said she’s drawing on that experience to chart a path forward.

Devlin defeated incumbent two-term Mayor Joe Schember in the 2025 Democratic primary and Republican Matthew Thomas in the fall election. She was sworn in on Jan. 5. Previously, she served as director of Social Impact for the Hamot Health Foundation and took part in creating a coalition that brought $14 million in state funding to Erie’s Public Schools alongside Sen. Dan Laughlin and helped establish the Erie Center for Arts and Technology (ECAT). She has served on numerous boards in Erie, in addition to volunteering with her church, Emmaus Soup Kitchen, and the Our Neighbor’s Place seasonal overflow shelter.

Devlin credited her team of City Hall aides and a renewed spirit in the building for making the city hum, which requires doing their work together.

“I am most proud of the team we have assembled at the city of Erie,” she said. “I have been to public works to watch them fill potholes. I rode on a snowplow. I’ve gone out with the fire department. I went into a burning building to see what fires look like and how our fire departments respond.”

The first 100 days of the Devlin administration meant setting themselves up for success for the next 100 days, and the next, she said. While she knows that change doesn’t happen overnight, her focus is on building foundations, establishing better systems, and earning early wins that show that change is possible.

Devlin shared updates on five core issue areas that she believes shape daily life in Erie and have a long-term impact on the city’s health: housing and neighborhood development; youth; workforce and economic development; budget and financial sustainability; and leadership, culture, and service delivery.

At Hamot Health Foundation, she led efforts for improved housing and neighborhood conditions, which have been carried into her public office. Devlin’s team worked to identify and streamline varying housing efforts across Erie into one coordinated, community-driven housing strategy. The key will be to establish a one-stop approach to housing programs and services, she said, and proposed a new rental registration program and strengthening the collaboration between code enforcement, police, and fire.

Devlin’s team since taking office has hosted two housing listening sessions, refocused efforts on trash removal and beautification, and advanced the final phase of the Erie Outside Parks planning process. Additionally, Devlin has teamed up with Erie County Executive Christina Vogel to devise a plan for the Tiny Homes initiative taken up by former County Executive Brenton Davis.

Devlin said strategic planning is central to daily operations. She said she saw youth programming across the city that was limited and uncoordinated, so her team established a strong partnership with Erie’s Public Schools to discuss shared goals and include youth feedback into their planning. Devlin will also be adding a youth initiatives coordinator to the team to oversee programming.

From learning how to make hot dogs at Smith’s Provision Co. to understanding the tinning and galvanizing process, the administration has also spent its first 100 days speaking directly to Erie businesses and local agencies to figure out what assets already exist before chasing the next big thing.

Many residents hope to see a big new company settle on Erie’s shores, but Devlin pointed out that Erie also must nurture what it already has. She said during her campaign she was, “overwhelmed at the quality of businesses in our community.” Smith Provision Co., Erie Beer Co., Fralo Industries, and Curtze Food Services are just a few of the medium-sized, family-owned businesses she toured.

Despite the relationship-building, listening sessions, and strategic planning, nothing can be done without a stable financial future, she said. The administration is currently working with Public Financial Management to obtain five-year financial projections and to establish a baseline for the city’s budget, which Devlin had criticized in 2025 and called a “crisis,” much to the chagrin of the past administration. In addition, the newly formed Department of Grants has submitted 13 grant applications totaling over $4.5 million for city programs and services, with $147,000 secured in the first quarter.

Devlin repeated, “we are in this together,” which means establishing a culture grounded in care, excellence, and trust. Devlin told her staff, including the Erie Police Department, “I trust you, but I now need that from you.”

In the first 100 days, staff engagement, collaboration, and community conversations have set the tone. But what about the next 1,361 days? Devlin highlighted some key initiatives her team is taking on now.

Following the lead of some neighbors around Erie, the administration is working to develop a “new economy agreement” that would encourage nonprofits to contribute non-tax-based resources to the city. This may include encouraging employees to become city residents, which would contribute to a stronger tax base. The Southwestern Pennsylvania New Economy Collaborative leverages public and private partnerships to bring new economic opportunities, like robotics innovation, to an 11-county area headquartered in Pittsburgh.

In addition, the Rental Inspection Program will now be done in-house rather than contracted through a third party, and the Strengthening Police and Community Partnership Council will also be making a return as the administration emphasizes community policing initiatives.

Early wins also bring early challenges, and that includes adjusting to recent federal funding cuts. That includes promised Trump administration cuts to the Community Development Block Grant program (CDBG). Erie receives around $4 million in CDBG funding, which is used to finance summer programs, after-school programming, emergency services projects, and street paving. Such cuts would drive efforts to find additional revenue sources and underscore the need to strengthen the tax base.

In developing a new strategic plan for housing, the administration also must address historic injustices in the city’s infrastructure caused by disinvestment and redlining practices that still have an impact today. Erie has a childhood poverty rate of 30%, one of the highest in the state. In just the first quarter of 2026, Erie has endured nine infant and child deaths, double the number in 2025. Devlin spoke of a recent tragedy on March 29 in which three young children died as a result of a house fire. Devlin said the moment showed her the true impact of poverty in our community.

When people ask Devlin why she wanted to run for mayor, she said, “I love the city with all my heart; I’ll give it everything I have,” something that she says she has no plans of walking back on.

Track Devlin’s progress here and find upcoming Jefferson Educational Society events here.

This article was written and published as part of a collaboration between the Jefferson Educational Society and Gannon University. Through Gannon’s Community News program, in partnership with the University of Vermont’s Center for Community News, student journalists are partnered with local publishers to provide impactful news coverage throughout Erie County, Pennsylvania, and increase civic and community engagement.

Editor’s note: Following is Part 4 of a series on American neo-imperialism. The United States has asserted its global dominance in the oil industry starting shortly after Edwin Drake discovered oil and built the first commercial oil well in nearby Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. Oil clearly still plays a large part in U.S. foreign and trade policy today.

On Feb. 12, the Environmental Protection Agency under the second administration of President Donald Trump announced it would repeal the 2009 finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health. This finding was the basis for all resulting regulations on emissions.1

It is indeed ironic that this announcement was made on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. One of his forgotten achievements as president was the creation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1862 and the National Academy of Sciences in 1863. The following year, he established California’s Yosemite Valley as a public trust, including the giant Mariposa Grove sequoias, laying the groundwork for our national park system. Growing up on the land, Lincoln recognized the importance of sustainability to ensure Americans cared for the environment to secure its future in continuing to care for us.2

To understand how the Trump administration landed at this decision, and why reversing the emissions finding has such enormous implications, it helps to trace how oil became such a critical aspect of global affairs and conflicts and American power and policy from the beginning.

The Birth of the Oil Industry

While farming and human habitation have long affected the environment, these were greatly exacerbated with the advent of the Industrial Age and the increasing scale of coal burning for steam engines, generally beginning in the 1740s in Britain. This ramped up considerably with the first commercial oil well drilled in nearby Titusville, making this a hometown story. Oil had long been used as a lubricant and fuel but had mostly been gathered from where it was lying close to the surface until Edwin Drake’s first derrick began pumping it from the ground in 1859. Large-scale drilling changed the game entirely and began a race to exploit this resource at rates never imagined.3

Canadian oil extraction began in 1848, more than 10 years before Drake’s first haul. Just as there is Oil City in Pennsylvania, Canada’s first commercial drilling site was in Oil Springs, Ontario, with various histories claiming falsely that it predated Drake’s.4 The U.S. industry was first concentrated in the Appalachian Basin, mainly in western Pennsylvania and New York, then in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. By the end of the 19th century, oil was being produced in California, as well as Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and in the Panhandle of Texas, which was the next game-changer, as illustrated in the chart.5

A mere 11 years after Drake’s achievement, John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil already controlled 80% of the U.S. oil market. The Russian Empire was the next to extensively exploit this resource, through oil fields mainly centered on the Caspian Sea area with the commercial industry starting in Azerbaijan in 1871,6 in Turkmenistan in 1876,7 and in Kazakhstan in 1899.8 Interestingly, the first off-shore oil was drilled in the Caspian, off the coast of Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku, in 1803, but the well was hand-dug, and its infrastructure was destroyed by a storm in 1825.9

Automobiles and the Race for Market Dominance

While additional industrial uses were found for oil, it was the automobile that really ramped up demand for it. While the first electric automobile was invented around 1832, with the first in production by 1884, Carl Benz patented the first gas-powered car in 1886. This ignited a battle for industry dominance between the two types: electric cars, which were quieter and closer to today’s models than their hand-cranked ancestors, and gas-powered, with more speed, power, and distance capability. Henry Ford’s implementation of a highly efficient assembly line production method led to the dominance of gas-powered cars from 1908 through the next century and beyond.10

In 1911, Teddy Roosevelt’s “trustbusting” program under President William Howard Taft broke Standard Oil into 34 different companies. By the 1940s, three of them and four international companies, called the “Seven Sisters,” much like today’s “Magnificent Seven” tech companies driving the U.S. stock market, were dominating the global oil market. Along with Standard Oil of New Jersey, which eventually became Exxon; Standard Oil of New York, which became Mobil; and Standard Oil of California, now Chevron; top competitors included Royal Dutch Shell, Texaco, Gulf, and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, today’s British Petroleum.11

Just as the 14th century Age of Exploration led to the rise of multinational corporations and the race to colonize the Global South, the 19th-century oil boom led to immense exploitation, not only of natural resources but of human resources. Once the race was on for the largest companies to gain market dominance over this resource, it quickly became a central driver of economic and foreign policy in the industrialized world.

Oil as a Driver of Foreign Policy

In every war throughout history, logistics present critical strategic challenges. Moving troops and supplies around the battlefields are critical activities. While there were still horse-mounted cavalry units, World War I was the first major mechanized campaign with trucks, airplanes, and even rudimentary tanks and submarines that were fed with gasoline. Having control of more than 70% of the world’s known supply, the Triple Entente powers of Britain, France, and Russia, and later the U.S., had a primary advantage.12 This made it fully clear that oil-based economies and militaries would be crucial to victory and prosperity in the 20th century.

These countries continued to amass and exploit oil holdings around the world, except for those around the Black Sea, which were controlled by the Russian Empire. The countries suddenly became objects of interest to the great Western powers. As the global oil industry expanded, many countries suffered from this “resource curse,” which tends to suck labor and capital away from other sectors of the economy, such as agriculture and manufacturing, and economists say are more important for growth and competitiveness.13

When these labor-intensive export industries lag, unemployment often rises, and the country often develops an unhealthy dependence on the export of natural resources. Such countries are called petrostates. Some petrostates with large foreign investment may forego local oil production and instead derive most of their oil wealth through high taxes on foreign drillers. These economies are then left highly vulnerable to unpredictable swings in global energy prices and capital flight. They also tend to develop a fabulously wealthy elite that enjoys the fruits of these taxes, while the majority of the population sees little benefit aside from oil product subsidies to keep them quiet.

OPEC Founded to Reduce Foreign Influence

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was formed in 1960, under Venezuelan leadership, as an effort on the part of oil exporters to reverse foreign exploitation and exert influence over their own nations and the developed world. As noted in the graphic, Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world at 303 billion barrels, more than Saudi Arabia, but it requires more effort to refine.14

Dependent on oil for 95% of its export revenue, Venezuela has been at the mercy of oil price booms and busts since that period, making it a petrostate, like Russia. Even before today’s political upheaval, the country was highly unequal with wealthy elites and mostly everyone else at the bottom, with a small and poorly developed middle class. The socialist government traditionally subsidized domestic prices to keep itself in power, but when oil prices drop, inflation rises, causing immediate hardship for most of the population. U.S. influence is undoubtedly changing the status quo, but the eventual outcome is unknown.

Venezuela, along with Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia were four of the five founding OPEC members. Let’s see how they each have fared. Iraq first: The U.S. invaded in 1991 with a coalition of 40 countries to protect Kuwait, the fifth OPEC founder, from annexation by Iraq. Then the U.S. invaded again in 2003 with a new coalition. It’s top leadership was put on the street, its head of state was hunted down, and the country dissolved into civil war, making it ripe for the ravages of ISIS. It is still trying to recover.

Iran: In the 1920s and 1930s, Great Britain began developing the oil industry through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which eventually became BP. By the 1950s, those outside the Shah’s circle were frustrated with Britain receiving the majority share of oil profits. Upon assuming the position of prime minister in 1952, Mohammad Mosaddegh quickly nationalized the oil industry to channel the profits into infrastructure development and social services. With Britain’s encouragement, the CIA removed him through a covert operation, and he died under house arrest in 1967, as a result of America’s single-minded pursuit of anticommunism during the Cold War.

The Shah resumed power and sidelined Parliament, then renegotiated the arrangement with BP to a 50-50 profit-sharing agreement. The Shah’s continued profligate spending on bling and American weapons, and the worsening living conditions of the Persian people eventually led to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which was decidedly against any foreign ownership of key assets and proclaimed defying “The Great Satan” (America) as a key foreign policy aim.15

After the Iranian Revolutionary Guard cracked down on protests claiming the lives of tens of thousands of protesters in January of this year, President Trump urged Iranians to take charge of their government with a promise of U.S. support.16 When they did not do so, under the proven threat of being killed, Trump launched missile strikes that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28, leaving his son, Mojtaba, as the new Supreme Leader. The U.S. or Israel continued killing top leaders, eventually igniting a full-blown war on Iran. As of this writing, a tenuous two-week ceasefire has been declared to allow negotiations. Observers do not expect this to bring a resolution, as both sides’ positions are so far apart.

The war led Iran to close the narrow Strait of Hormuz, which has left much of the Persian Gulf’s oil stranded and unable to be transported for export. An estimated 40% of the world’s oil travels through the strait and this critical waterway is now at the heart of negotiations along with Iran’s nuclear weapons program. While Iran reopened the strait to commercial traffic on April 17 until the end of the ceasefire, the ultimate outcome of the conflict is unlikely to be fully resolved in the near term.

Saudi Arabia: The discovery of oil in 1938 completely transformed Saudi Arabia from a nomadic subsistence farming kingdom newly consolidated under the House of Saud in 1932, into an energy powerhouse. Chevron and SoCal were granted drilling rights and eventually SoCal partnered with Texaco. The country was found to have the largest oil deposits in the world of the highest quality sweet crude, which means it has less sulfur, so the refining process is simpler and less costly than Venezuela’s, whose oil is heavy and sour, requiring imported lighter oil for processing.

By the 1970s, the House of Saud began purchasing shares in its oil company, ARAMCO, and gained 100% ownership by 1980. Today, Saudia Arabia does not define itself with its primary aim of hating the U.S., as has Iran, but works mostly cooperatively while setting its own course. This is very much due to the influence of OPEC.17

As for Venezuela, the U.S. placed significant sanctions pressure on the country for its human rights and election abuses since Nicolas Maduro became president in 2013. As noted in a previous essay, after the U.S. seized Maduro and began “running” Venezuela, on Jan. 9, 2026, Trump issued an executive order that U.S. proceeds from the sale of Venezuelan oil would be used to make the American and Venezuelan people prosperous and would not go to Venezuela’s creditors.18

Many of these creditors are U.S. oil companies, who claim to be owed $20 billion to $30 billion from Venezuela’s nationalization of their assets in 2009, but this also applies to China, which has provided over $105 billion in loans to the country, intended to be paid back in oil, dwarfing U.S. claims 5-1.19

Today’s Crisis and New Geopolitics

If Trump annoyed U.S. oil company CEOs with this policy, he certainly paid them back with his Feb. 12 revocation of the 16-year-old environmental doctrine that fossil fuel pollution causes health challenges to humans. On Jan. 29, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a general license to permit American oil companies to “buy, sell, transport and refine Venezuelan crude oil,” among other activities.20

Reuters reported on Apr. 1 that Venezuela’s “monthly ‌oil exports surpassed 1 million barrels per day in March for the first time since September 2025, with sales to refiners in India and shipments by trading houses to the Caribbean for storage ​increasing volumes.”21 Chevron reported in early April that it is greatly increasing its imports of Venezuelan crude oil, with plans to potentially bring in up to 400,000 barrels per day.22

Some forecasters estimate Venezuela’s previously dismal economy could grow by 12% for 2026. While aggregate gains are being made due to oil revenues, experts warn that true recovery will require reforms and large investments in infrastructure to reach beyond oil.23 Thus far, OPEC has provided mixed results for increasing this founding member’s influence to manage its own affairs, and recent events may or may not bring relief from economic catastrophe for the Venezuelan people in the long run.

While the global price of oil and in the United States have risen dramatically after the outbreak of war, it has not affected U.S. supply as directly as the rest of the world’s because America is a net energy exporter and is now freely importing Venezuelan crude and determining where it will be sold. China, on the other hand, previously obtained more than 50% of its oil through the strait and 10% of that directly from Iran.24 Before January 2026, China imported less than 10% of its oil from Venezuela and replaced that supply with Iranian oil when that market was blocked to it by U.S. actions.25

While the ostensible focus of recent American adventurism appears to be focused on oil, it may involve a larger strategy to restrict China’s access. However, China has also been increasing its production of renewable energy from wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal sources. As illustrated in the graphic,26 renewables meet 38% of China’s energy needs and it controls nearly 80% of global solar panel production and 60% of wind turbines. The remining 62% of its energy needs are overwhelmingly met through coal, rather than oil. China is only reliant on oil for about 20% of its energy needs27 and about 50% of that previously transited the now restricted or partially blocked Strait of Hormuz. It has reserves sufficient to meet its needs operating at normal capacity through June 2. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are also able to route a total of 5 million barrels per day away from the Strait with China as a ready customer28 to support its normal consumption of just over 16 million barrels per day.29

Much of the rest of Asia, where up to 90% of needed oil transited the Strait,30 and Europe, which has pivoted away from reliance on Russian oil since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, are already feeling the squeeze. The Trump administration temporarily lifted the sanctions on Russian oil exports in March to alleviate the global crisis, but it also seen by critics in Europe and elsewhere as greatly enhancing its war efforts against Ukraine. India is also benefitting from the lifting of these sanctions, but it is not that country’s citizens who will be voting in the U.S. midterms this year. Thus, the geopolitics of oil are as critical to global affairs as ever.

Diane Chido is a Scholar-in-Residence at the Jefferson Educational Society. She writes a global affairs column, gives lectures, and facilitates a foreign policy discussion group. She teaches political science at Gannon University and has a boutique consulting firm, DC Analytics, that provides research, policy analysis, and educational support for local and nationwide clients. For two decades, she has provided analytic products for local companies, nonprofits, and public entities and enjoys learning about local development initiatives.

Editor’s note: Following is an On the Waterfront Classic by Jefferson Scholar-in-Residence David Frew. The Jefferson first published it in February 2023.

My friends and I attended many Bayview Field baseball games during the 1950s, enjoying the opportunity to watch relatively high-quality contests for free. During that period, however, the most exciting games were those that featured former Major League Baseball star Sam Jethroe.

Rumors of his likely appearances would ripple through the neighborhood and on those occasions, Bayview Field at West Second and Cherry streets in Erie would have standing-room-only crowds. The park was later renamed Pontiac Field in honor of the Erie Pontiacs Black baseball team that once played there. Sam Jethroe never failed to disappoint in those Glenwood League games. Sometimes when he played, he would arrive late and be inserted into the lineup after the third or fourth inning. The rumor was that he was sneaking away from his second shift GE job to play for a few innings.

No one was sure of his exact age. There were stories. While he had “officially” been born in 1922 according to early Major League Baseball records, which would have made him about 35 in 1957 when we were watching him, some insisted that he was actually seven or eight years older. If those rumors were correct, Sam Jethroe would have been 41 or older when we were watching him. Ancient by our standards or by typical Glenwood League age averages.

Regardless of his age at the time, Sam Jethroe played like a man among boys when he appeared at Bayview Field. He was the best hitter, a fearsome home run slammer and clearly the very fastest player either in the field or on the base paths. He could and would steal bases at any time. When he came to the plate, he was greeted by whistles and cheers and when he made one of his patented, brilliant defensive plays, he was loudly applauded. Spectators could not say enough good things about him or get over the discussions of how his big-league career had been cheated by fate.

Sam Jethroe was born sometime between 1915 and 1923 in Columbus, Mississippi and grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois. From 1942 to 1948, he played for Cincinnati, which became the Cleveland Buckeyes of the American Negro League, where he led the league in stolen bases three times. In 1944, he won the league batting title with an average of .344. In 1945, he hit .393 as his Cleveland Buckeye team won the Negro League championship.

Jethroe broke into the majors in 1948 with the Brooklyn Dodgers’ AAA International League team in Montreal. In 1950, his contract was purchased by the Boston Braves of the National League, and he became rookie of the year. A switch hitter, he played center field. He hit .273 that year and led the league in stolen bases with 35, an accomplishment that earned him the nickname Sam “The Jet” Jethroe.

In 1954, he was traded to Pittsburgh but played in only four games before being cut. His seemingly rapid decline was attributed to his age since it was already suspected that he was much older than “advertised.” He was also criticized for having a less than accurate throwing arm.

During an era that preceded multimillion-dollar baseball salaries, Jethroe, like most major leaguers, had to find an offseason job to make ends meet. His time with the Cleveland Buckeyes in the Negro Leagues had brought him to the attention of Erie entrepreneur Ernie Wright, who recruited Jethroe to work as a greeter and celebrity resident at his famous Pope Hotel at East 11th and French streets. Later, Mr. Wright used his influence to help Sam Jethroe get a job at Erie’s General Electric plant. Jethroe settled in Erie and eventually raised a family. After working for several years, he opened a steakhouse on Parade Street and eventually moved to the site of the former Arbiters Club near East 18th and Parade streets

In 1994, Jethroe sued Major League Baseball for discriminating against him by not providing a pension and won a small judgment. Sam Jethroe died at Erie’s St. Vincent Hospital in 2001. He was survived by his wife, four daughters, and 10 grandchildren.

I had two personal connections to Sam Jethroe. Both involved the Downtown YMCA. The first was at the Men’s Health Center, where he had a locker just a few feet from mine. Sam, who was always welcoming and friendly, became a friend, and he invited me to visit his restaurant. I did so on several occasions.

A second connection was created by Tom Lee, perennial lunchtime YMCA basketballer whose size disguised his talent as a point guard and shooter. Tom, the uncle of current civic leader Gary Lee, recruited me to play for his Glenwood League team one day while we were playing basketball.

Like several of my friends, I had played Boys Baseball at every level and presumed that I was pretty good at the game. But I was about to have a rude awakening. My role with Tom Lee’s 1960 team was to sit on the bench, waiting for one of the regular players to be moved to the pitcher’s mound, which opened up a position in the field. Only then did I enter the game. In a half-dozen contests, I had about 10 at bats and managed to get two hits. Not very impressive.

Pitchers in the Glenwood League threw curveballs that really broke and fastballs that bordered on 95 miles per hour. Most also delivered “trick pitches” that I now realize were varieties of sliders.

In contemplating how good those Bayview players were (with respect to my skills) and recalling how much better Sam Jethroe was when I watched him play long after the end of his career, I realized how good “Sammy the Jet” really was. And how bad I was. I never played baseball again.

Historian and author David Frew, Ph.D., is a Scholar-in-Residence at the JES. An emeritus professor at Gannon University, he held a variety of administrative positions during a 33-year career. He is also emeritus director of the Erie County Historical Society/Hagen History Center and is president of his own management consulting business. Frew has written or cowritten 35 books and more than 100 articles, cases, and papers.

The 1950s Erie bayfront neighborhood that shaped my life was decidedly working-class and ethnic. As an artifact of that dual composition, the neighborhood was rich with ethnic social clubs. On my city block alone, there were two Italian clubs: the Pennsylvania Pedemonte Society (Penn Club) and Modica’s. Several additional clubs were located within a few city blocks, including the Finnish Club on Plum Street, Danish Club on Seventh Street, Portuguese Society on Fifth Steet, Cascade Park Club on Third Street, and Gem Club a few blocks east on Fourth Street.

Social theorists suggest that there were five distinctly different types of clubs that flourished in America during the late 19th and early 20th centuries:

1. Ethnic clubs, which were common in cities of all sizes, were generally created to assist in the process of immigration and integration. Waves of ethnic people who arrived in the United States needed help in integrating themselves into a somewhat closed society. This was especially important for groups that were regarded as “less than desirable.” Ethnic clubs were places where people could celebrate familiar cultures, support each other, and find help in locating both housing and jobs.

2. Fraternal organizations such as the Elks and Moose, generally coalesced about one or more missions often designed to direct members and activities toward specific socioeconomic aspects of society. The familiar Moose Club, for example, was openly racist during its early history, disallowing Black people.

3. Functional clubs generally formed around one or more activities, such as golf, bowling, fishing, or boating. Functional clubs increased in popularity and membership as leisure time became more available for working class Americans after labor became organized and workweeks shortened.

4. Civic societies like Rotary and Kiwanis generally formed to support American cities. A secondary function of those organizations was to allow ethnic and other new citizens to become involved in community activities and development.

5. Religious organizations like the Knights of Columbus, Masons, and Banai Brith, were generally formed to support the core religious groups that sponsored them. They helped to support the organizations that sponsored them while demonstrating that members of sponsoring religions, such as Roman Catholics or Jews, could be “good American citizens.”

The final years of the 20th century witnessed a precipitous decline in social clubs; not just in my bayfront neighborhood but throughout Erie (and other American cities). Long-standing clubs that had seemed to be institutions like the East Erie Turners and the Erie Maennerchor slowly declined and disappeared. The Maennerchor club began in the 19th century as a German singing society, merging two social club typologies. It was an ethnic association and a functional club. Its grand building, which featured a huge second-floor room with a stage, was once one of Erie’s premier institutions. The first-floor restaurant served quality meals and offered private meeting areas for professional groups. Until the early 2000s, its ongoing presence was never in question. But like other social clubs, it suddenly faded and disappeared, assisted in the news media accounts after its refusal to admit a prominent female judge for membership in its all-male association and not allowing women to sit at the bar or order a drink from the bar. Like so many social clubs, both the original membership and bylaws were male-dominated.

Other clubs, including civic associations, also experienced declining membership through the late 1900s. As attendance plummeted, a few survived by moving away from the downtown core and into the suburbs. One interesting exception was the Nova Aurora Society, one of Erie’s most prominent ethnic clubs. But it seems to have done so by integrating two of the basic club types: functional and ethnic. Nova Aurora added an indoor bocce court to its old bowling lanes and bocce has attracted a large following. In addition, Nova Aurora, one of Erie’s oldest Italian clubs, has encouraged membership among non-Italians by creating two types of membership: Class A for persons of Italian heritage and Class B for all others. Once accepted, both A and B members have equal voting rights.

Robert Putnam, an academic researcher and social theorist, presents sociological explanation for the demise of social; clubs in his popular book, “Bowling Alone.” After conducting extensive research and publishing a traditional refereed academic journal article, Putnam was persuaded to expand his research into a book that became a bestseller. In “Bowling Alone,” he begins with the observation that while the business of bowling was expanding during the 1990s, it was doing so without increased league activity. Instead, individual bowlers were frequenting the alleys and focusing on improving their personal scores. Bowling alone. Prior to that time, the growth of the bowling business had been driven by teams of friends, family, and coworkers who were participating in leagues. Putnam moved from that metric to the conclusion that Americans had been increasingly disengaged from most community involvements. Since the 1970s, fewer and fewer people seemed to be interested in participating in any kind of community activities, and this trend was slowly eroding political, religious, and social interaction.

Putnam pointed to several socioeconomic phenomena as drivers of this trend. Working women, shifts in family structure, increased television watching, and growing government cynicism were among his primary hypothesized determinants. But instead of focusing on finding the most important causes of social disengagement, Putnam concentrated on the social losses that have followed the general withdrawal of people. Chief among the victims of Putnam’s measured disengagement were ethnic social clubs. He posits that as America has aged, fewer people see themselves as members of ethnic communities. Earlier waves of immigration, mixed ethnic marriages, ethnic enclaves whose members moved out and away from old neighborhood cores, and the general melting pot impact of American society have conspired to render those old social clubs and societies “less than important.”

Putnam notes that functional clubs seem to have done better than other social organizations, especially as they have managed to add select services to the activities that originally drew members to them. Golf clubs that add swimming pools\swim teams for member children and restaurants that serve meals represent a typical example. But he notes that even though a few such clubs seem to have flourished and grown, they have not changed the trend toward social disengagement. As an example of this process, he points to the abysmally low voting turnout that characterizes American citizens.

There is an interesting example of a new and thriving social club in the general bayfront neighborhood, the Gurdwara Sikh Cultural Society on West Seventh Street. The success of that club, which has taken over the previous location of the Danish Club, illustrates a traditional process by a recent ethnic arrival.

Historian and author David Frew, Ph.D., is a Scholar-in-Residence at the JES. An emeritus professor at Gannon University, he held a variety of administrative positions during a 33-year career. He is also emeritus director of the Erie County Historical Society/Hagen History Center and is president of his own management consulting business. Frew has written or cowritten 35 books and more than 100 articles, cases, and papers.

In 2020, George Floyd’s death ignited a national reckoning, and Erie County responded with decisive action –– declaring racism a public crisis and backing that declaration with tangible steps. Building on that momentum, Diverse Erie now focuses on empowering locally owned, people-of-color-owned businesses across the community.

On Friday, Feb. 27, the Jefferson Educational Society hosted the program “Abundance vs. Scarcity: The Impact of Inclusive Investments in Erie County” to help the community to gain a clearer understanding of Diverse Erie’s work. The event provided an opportunity for the organization to explain its mission and strategies, as well as how it is working to make Erie a thriving community not only for white residents but also for communities of color.

This program is part of JES’s Community Conversation series, so residents can hear directly from leaders of local organizations and gain a deeper understanding of initiatives and projects that contribute to Erie’s growth and development.

Founded in 2021, Diverse Erie was established to help make Erie a place where people of color feel welcomed, included, and empowered –– socially and economically. Diverse Erie operates at the intersection of policy, funding, and community development, advocating for policy priorities, evaluating public investments, and guiding strategies for equitable economic growth across the county.

A key focus of the organization is supporting BIPOC-owned businesses and nonprofits (Black, Indigenous, and people of color). According to Gary N. Lee, research shows that BIPOC businesses often face significant barriers, such as higher loan denial rates, collateral requirements, limited networks, and gaps in credit history. Lee explained that while these challenges may be negligible for large corporations, they often represent substantial obstacles for small business owners, hindering economic growth and opportunity at the local level.

Even the organization itself faced challenges in its early days. Initially, Erie City Council allocated $10 million in funding, but that amount was eventually reduced to $3.5 million. However, as Lee put it, “we do not complain, we create.” With that funding, Diverse Erie supports 54 small businesses and sustains 32 jobs. While these figures may seem modest to some, they carry significant weight in a region like Erie, where each job can provide stability for an entire household.

“Those numbers may seem small,” Lee said, “but in Erie County, every family-sustaining job is an important job.”

Diverse Erie frames its efforts through what it calls the “ripple effect” –– the concept that targeted investments in underserved communities generate returns far beyond the initial funding. According to the organization, every dollar invested has yielded about $1.63 in economic return. From the initial $3.5 million investment, this has translated into an estimated $5.7 million in local economic impact.

What makes this approach particularly meaningful is where the money goes –– and where it stays. By investing in locally owned, BIPOC businesses, Diverse Erie ensures that capital circulates within the community, contributing to long-term growth rather than short-term gain.

“So, when you invest in businesses of color,” Lee emphasized, “everyone wins.”

A central element of Diverse Erie’s strategy lies in its targeted funding programs, specifically designed to address the unique barriers faced by entrepreneurs of color.

One of its flagship initiatives, the Small Business Fund, has distributed $1.7 million in loans to local businesses. This funding has generated $5.7 million, created 65 new jobs, and retained 123 existing positions. The program operates on a multiplier effect: by providing initial capital, it enables business owners to attract additional investors, expand operations, and build long-term sustainability.

Beyond loans, Diverse Erie offers grant-based support through programs such as the Mini-Grant Program. The initiative awards between $5,000 and $25,000 to entrepreneurs of color.

“These grants are our way of saying, ‘We believe in you. You can do it,’” Lee said.

In addition, Diverse Erie has what it deems “generational investments” that address health and wellness. In late 2025, $650,000 was invested to organizations and programs including the Birth Root Community Doula, Saint Vincent Hospital’s talent attraction program, the Multi-Cultural Health Evaluation Delivery System, The Decade Project, and Sight Center of Northwestern Pennsylvania. According to Lee, these health-focused initiatives are projected to generate about $1.2 million in returns.

Diverse Erie uses the IMPLAN expenditure analysis, which captures the ripple effect of dollars moving through businesses and households. So, the $1.2 million return on investment isn’t tied to a specific year on a calendar, it reflects the economic activity generated at the moment those grant dollars are fully deployed and spent, which must be done by Dec. 31 this year. The impact of the spending from the grants would be through 2026, but the economic transformation for the BIPOC community is meant to continue for many generations.

Diverse Erie’s work unfolds within a broader national context, in which diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are undergoing significant shifts. Across the United States, many companies and institutions have begun scaling back or restructuring their DEI efforts in response to mounting political, legal, and economic pressures. At the same time, officials have established numerous task forces, commissions, and public bodies to tackle these challenges, though their impact and authority often remain limited.

Against this backdrop, Erie County’s approach stands out. Diverse Erie functions as an independent entity with direct authority to invest in businesses and drive economic growth. Lee said that most entities report to a mayor or governor, which makes Diverse Erie’s model a standout as it can decide where it invests money.

As it moves into the second quarter of 2026, Diverse Erie has outlined several priorities aimed at expanding its impact. These include increasing access to capital through additional rounds of funding, strengthening partnerships with workforce development organizations, enhancing data systems to better measure outcomes, and continuing to drive inclusive economic growth.

At the heart of these plans is a belief that economic development should benefit everyone, not just a select few.

Ultimately, Diverse Erie’s work is about more than dollars and jobs –– it is about redefining what economic success can look like in a community long shaped by inequality. The organization is helping to build a model of prosperity that benefits everyone by investing in BIPOC-owned businesses, supporting entrepreneurs, and fostering inclusive growth.

Lee emphasized, “There is more than enough for everyone.”

This article was written and published as part of a collaboration between the Jefferson Educational Society and Gannon University. Through Gannon’s Community News program, in partnership with the University of Vermont’s Center for Community News, student journalists are partnered with local publishers to provide impactful news coverage throughout Erie County, Pennsylvania, and increase civic and community engagement.

This incident took place at the home next door to mine on Erie’s northwest bayfront. It was a legendary World War II event, retold by dozens of neighbors who watched as it happened. It occurred after I was born but before I was old enough to recall, so my understanding is second-hand. It was told by the family who experienced the trauma as well as several neighbors. I have recently taken time to fact-check the details with people who were alive at the time of the amazing story.

The event was originally related to me by Ceil Modica, mother of Jimmy Modica of local Channel 12 television fame. Jim was the saxophonist for the Tune Toppers Band, which regularly appeared on Channel 12’s “Let’s Be Friends” show, hosted by Paul Dwyer. Ceil’s other children included John Modica, who left Erie to establish the football program at Wilmington, Delaware’s Brandywine High School and Gerry “Trixy” (nee Modica) Trucilla, who served as Erie County courtroom tipstaff for many years. It was verified years ago by talking with John Modica and Gerry Trucilla.

Neighborhood legend suggests that James Modica’s earlier involvement in Prohibition was the reason that he became a World War II target. He had a local reputation for being a gangster. And to make matters worse, he ran an Italian social club in the basement of the apartment building on the north side of the block where there was a perpetual high-stakes card game as well as unlicensed drinking. Most of the club members were Italian. The event in question happened in 1944. We were at war against Germany, Italy, and Japan at the time.

From my naïve perspective, growing up after the war had ended, the Modica family seemed to be a model of “Americana.” Mrs. Modica (Ceil) was gregarious and welcoming, always offering delicious food to everyone, especially neighborhood kids. She was always gifting us with delicious cookies that had been freshly baked. Her children were amazingly talented. The oldest son, Jim, was a famous local saxophone player who had become a television fixture. Her younger son, John, was a star athlete who played football at Edinboro, where he earned a degree, and her daughter, Gerry, was a stunningly attractive high schooler who was the neighborhood’s most sought-after babysitter. How could the government have persecuted such an amazing family?

During pre-television days of World War II, a prized possession for most neighbors, my family included, was a large wooden, floor-model radio suitable for high-end living rooms. Those early machines boasted amazing sound quality and had tone knobs that could be manipulated to add base or treble. They were also multiband, featuring AM, FM, and short-wave broadcasts. For adventuresome kids, like myself, short-wave radio was a gateway to the world. It could be used to tune in broadcasts from countless countries. When “allowed” to control the dial of the family radio, I was perpetually exploring the mysteries of shortwave. Sometimes I would find programs broadcast from international locations in unfamiliar languages. At other times, there would be strange but interesting international broadcasts and wonderful conversations. Short-wave was an inspiration, and I often made hand-written notes, identifying the precise dial locations of broadcasts where I had encountered the most interesting stuff.

There were several places on the dial where Morse code signals were transmitted, and I began to learn code so that I could translate. Although I eventually developed a rudimentary understanding of Morse code, most of the signals on the family radio were much too fast for me to translate.

It was Mrs. Modica, herself, who first related the story of their family radio and its demise. I was seated at her kitchen table, eating cookies and drinking hot chocolate one day when she began to complain about television. Even though her son, Jim, was a local television star, she told us that radio had been a much better family entertainment tool. She preferred radio because it did not demand as much attention as television. She described her family radio as more of a background media. Every living room chair did not have to be pointed toward it, nor was it essential to pay strict attention at all times when it was “on.”

Then, Ceil Modica described the sad day in the 1940s when a large government truck with agents pulled into their driveway, knocked aggressively on the front door, and demanded to search the home. Government agents who were there to enforce the “alien sedition act” announced that they had received a tip about suspicious activities connected to James V. Modica. He was not home at the time, which made the experience even more traumatic for Mrs. Modica and her children.

Government men combed through the house, examining loose papers that they found in drawers, and sifting through closets, looking for “whatever.” Finally, they announced that Italians were not permitted to be in possession of a radio that could be used to listen to suspicious short-wave broadcasts. Although those grand old radios could not be used to transmit messages, they could “theoretically” have been used to receive direct or coded “instructions.”

When agents left the Modica home that day, they announced that it was fortunate that no one was being taken into custody or sent to a detention center. As they departed, however, they unplugged the family radio and took it with them. “Italians were not allowed to have such dangerous communications devices in their homes,” they said.

At the time that I heard that story from Mrs. Modica, about 1954, I found it both astonishing and preposterous. Why would the government take a beloved radio away from a nice family? By this time Jimmy Modica Sr. had passed away, John had moved to Delaware, Jim Jr. was married and raising his own family, and Gerry was working at General Telephone. To me, they were the best example of an ideal American family. I had learned about the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II, but I had no ideal of the persecution of German and Italian people much less a persecution in my own neighborhood.

The wartime experience of the Modica’s and other Italians in my neighborhood was made possible by the 1798 Alien Sedition Act, which allowed the federal government to incarcerate or deport immigrants who were deemed dangerous. President Franklin Roosevelt re-invoked this centuries old law during World War II and applied it to Italians, Germans, and Japanese. While Japanese people suffered the most from prosecution, a surprising number of Germans and Italians did, as well. More than 800 Italian people were arrested and moved to internment camps during the war. Unlike Japanese people who were sent to dedicated camps, Italians who were detained were sent to multipurpose compounds, often former Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps. One of those was near Erie in the Pennsylvania portion of the Allegheny National Forest, just a few miles east of Erie.

By the time I learned of the Modica’s wartime experience, we had studied the Japanese internment camps in school, but those events somehow seemed far removed from Erie. Ceil Modica’s story should have been a reminder of how unfair we could be to friends and neighbors based upon racial or ethnic identity. Could there be a lesson for contemporary times?

Historian and author David Frew, Ph.D., is a Scholar-in-Residence at the JES. An emeritus professor at Gannon University, he held a variety of administrative positions during a 33-year career. He is also emeritus director of the Erie County Historical Society/Hagen History Center and is president of his own management consulting business. Frew has written or cowritten 35 books and more than 100 articles, cases, and papers.

One year ago today, Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family welcomed 75 guests into the Pennsylvania governor’s residence for Passover Seder — an evening of prayer, feasting and fellowship rooted in one of Judaism’s most sacred traditions. Hours later, someone scaled the fence surrounding the residence, smashed windows in the reception room and dining room and threw Molotov cocktails inside.

Shapiro had already begun writing his memoir about four months prior, but everything changed in that moment. On Tuesday, Shapiro brought that story to Erie — a city he has called pivotal to his political career and the site of his final campaign stop as a gubernatorial candidate — for a discussion at the Jefferson Educational Society, a civic think tank dedicated to fostering community dialogue on issues of national significance. The occasion was his memoir, “Where We Keep the Light: Stories From a Life of Service,” and what it reveals about the current state of democracy.

Shapiro began writing the book in December 2024, amid what he described as a moment of deep political division. Traveling across Pennsylvania, he said he kept encountering something different from what he saw in Washington — volunteer fire departments, small business owners, neighbors showing up for each other. The book is a reflection of the light those people bring to their communities, and how he found his own light through public service and faith.

As pictures were flashed on screen of the charred inside of the residence following the arson, Shapiro explained, “what you don’t see pictures of is what happens in the moments after.”

In the moments after the attack on him and his family, Shapiro fielded calls from people like former Gov. Tom Ridge of Erie, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and even President Donald Trump, who he doesn’t typically see eye-to-eye with. Meanwhile, numerous volunteer firefighters, police officers, faith leaders, and neighbors banded together.

He told moderator Steve Scully, a Jefferson executive and host of “The Briefing” on Sirius XM, on Tuesday that he had never experienced so many various forms of prayer, and it made him see the through line of connection through religion — the humanity in it. That goodness was in stark contrast to the danger Shapiro’s family had just faced, making Shapiro believe that the only way to heal any difficult situation is through that shared humanity.

It’s something Shapiro sees reflected every day in the portrait of William Penn that greets him as he walks into work — the state’s founder who built this state so that many faiths could coexist and prosper. It’s those values that Shapiro said he’s trying to carry into the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Shapiro’s faith is his compass in life, but it isn’t simple or uncritical for him. As a high schooler, he spent time in Israel doing a service project on an Israeli army base, and he has since defended Israel’s right to defend itself in war. However, he has leveled sharp criticism against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the growing antisemitism he sees across the world.

In 2024, when he was being vetted in vice presidential consideration for Kamala Harris, he refused when asked if he would apologize for his criticism of antisemitism on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus.

When talking with Scully before a crowd of about 400 at the JES on Tuesday, he said that his choice to withdraw from running mate consideration came down to two things: where he could have the most impact, and his family. He recalled his youngest child Rueben telling him that it seemed like he didn’t really want to be vice president. As someone who often values his family’s input above others, Shapiro agreed.

“It didn’t feel like a great fit or a great match,” he said, noting that he feels he still has work to do as governor.

In February, he signed into law a bill requiring private and public schools to integrate cursive writing back into the curriculum.

“We need to give our kids the tools necessary to compete and perform,” he said. “One of those skills is being able to read and write cursive.”

He also wants to bolster the education students receive about post-graduation options, whether that’s the military, trade school, or a four-year college. He said that success to him is having graduates going to a place that allows them to be productive members of society.

Shapiro has been an advocate for increasing public education funding since the state’s funding was ruled unconstitutional in 2023. He’s passed budgets that increase Erie Public Schools funding by 30% but still has a way to go until it’s deemed constitutional.

He is also pushing for an increased minimum wage of $15 an hour, a change that would gradually go into effect over the next few years and has passed the Democratic House but now faces an uphill battle in the Republican-led Senate.

Shapiro is known for being someone who will work across the aisle, sometimes diverging from his own party, like during the Covid-19 pandemic when he didn’t agree with Gov. Tom Wolf’s decision to shut down schools and businesses completely, or when the Democratic Party stood behind Biden in his reelection announcement. On Tuesday, he said he’s willing to work with Republicans to create a voter ID program on the state level, where elections are administered, but criticized the SAVE Act legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and establish new voter identification standards nationwide. The act came out of Trump’s unsupported accusations in 2024 that noncitizens were going to illegally vote and steal the election.

Critics of the act have said that having to show proof of citizenship, via birth certificate or passport, would make online and mail-in voter registration impossible and make it harder for rural citizens to register to vote, having to find transportation to their county voting office.

“(The act) is designed to make certain people not have access to the most powerful tool we have as Americans and that is the right to vote,” he said Tuesday.

He also called “unconstitutional” the executive order that Trump signed Tuesday to create a national list of eligible voters.

Shapiro said that he’s willing to work with people who don’t see the voter ID program as a weapon for suppression. The federal government currently has what he calls the three C’s: chaos, cruelty, and corruption.

His hope is that there will be a record number of people who turn out for the midterm elections as the nation looks to its future. When asked what the message for the Democratic Party should be heading into 2028, he said that is needs to return to the party of “getting stuff done” and “being a party of freedom and opportunity.”

He explained that it’s important for Democrats to “define the party in a way that doesn’t push people out but invites people in and focus on tangible solutions to real problems every day.”

Just as he started, Shapiro said that the 250th anniversary of the Declaration provides an important point of inflection, and that the brilliance of our founders was that they left the Declaration and the Constitution “incomplete.”

“By leaving that work somewhat incomplete, they left us with the privilege to carry that forward,” he said.

One year after fire was set to his home, Shapiro said he feels gratitude, purpose, and a far deeper connection to his faith than ever before and a renewed commitment to carrying that unfinished work forward.

Chloe Forbes is an award-winning local journalist with a bachelor’s degree in journalism communications who has written for numerous newspapers and magazines in Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio. She is currently a news editor and reporter at The Meadville Tribune, a contributing writer for the Erie Reader, and a copy editor at the Jefferson Educational Society.