HUBBARD, Ohio – When James Chaney coached youth sports teams as his children grew up, he did what so many coaches do – paid out of pocket and traveled miles with the team to find places to practice.
“All of our coaches did that because we just didn’t have the resources in this community to accommodate,” Chaney said.
But with resourcefulness and a lot of community support, Chaney and others managed to find and create the needed space – The Roosevelt Student Wellness Center.
Now senior citizens are participating in drumming classes, playing pickleball and lifting weights through programs like Silver Sneakers and Renew Fitness during the day.
Students from Hubbard schools use the center after school.
Young adults on the autism spectrum and a nearby group home for those with intellectual disabilities use the space for programs, as well.
Baseball and softball teams are practicing at the center to get in their swings in batting cages. Birthday parties and coaches meetings are held in the multipurpose room upstairs, where parents can look down upon youth sports practices held in the gym.
“One of the greatest things I think about this is our youth sports teams in Hubbard use it for free,” Chaney said. “There is no charge for the coaches. There’s no charge for the kids.”
And it’s available for rent for those from out of town – that is, if it’s still available. Since it opened in September with 25 bookings that month, the center has already had more than 1,200 bookings.
A Health and Wellness Expo is scheduled at the center May 10, with 50 vendors planning to attend. A trading card show is in the works for July. On Good Friday, 70 children were there for a wrestling clinic with a Penn State wrestler, followed by 35 other children who used the gym for a workout Friday night.
“I loved it because those kids could have been doing a lot of different things on a Friday night, but they chose to be here,” Chaney said. “They chose to be doing something positive. They chose to be around other kids that were like-minded and wanted to do better. It’s such a great thing.”
Rentals are handled through the website of the Roosevelt Student Wellness Center, which is managed and marketed by the nonprofit Roosevelt Community Partnership, along with volunteers.
A Little History
Constructed as a 1939 public works project as the Hubbard High School, eventually the building served as Roosevelt Elementary until 2011. The school was torn down, but Chaney said thanks to then Superintendent Rich Buchenic, the decision was made to keep the gymnasium.
Yet it sat mostly empty, with only a wrestling team practicing there.
Chaney said when he was hired as a strength and conditioning coach for the school, he had not seen the building since his son went to elementary school there. But he was “shocked at how good a condition it was in and the fact that it was underutilized.”
Formed in 2020, the nonprofit Hubbard Youth Coalition set about to revitalize the gym. After eight months of working to persuade the board of education, which still owns the building and now rents it to the organization for $1 per year, fundraising efforts began.
It took nearly two years before enough money was raised for the first phase of the project, but then things started to snowball. The Lauretta Foundation offered to do a matching donation campaign, and the four interior phases were able to be completed within a year.
“We did grassroots fundraising from individuals for a long time, but when the businesses got fully behind it, that’s when everything really took off,” said Chaney, who is president of the HYC.
Pallante Concrete Construction of Youngstown agreed to help during its slow season. So the organization quickened the pace and worked on the first two phases simultaneously because Phase Two involved a lot of concrete work, Chaney said.
Without all of the small monetary donations, assistance from community groups and organizations like the VFW and Rotary, and the larger monetary and in-kind donations from businesses, the project would still be far from ready to use. But not only is the gym renovation completed, the lobby and multipurpose room upstairs are open as well.
The project has raised $400,000 in donations and in-kind assistance.
Volunteers from the community, as well as the HYC Helping Hands community service program, helped and continue to take care of the facility.
“I think that it’s a testament to the community, the school system, our nonprofit organization, the way everything came together,” Chaney said.
It Takes a Community
Jay Crafton, a registered architect and retired partner of BSHM Architects, attended the elementary school and had his gym classes there.
Crafton was involved in the feasibility study and the redesign of the balcony spaces on both sides to allow both a wider, flat space for activities on top and more headroom for the weight and cardio equipment under it.
Maximizing space and making it as flexible as possible is one of the hallmarks of BSHM Architects, which has been in the business of helping schools for 60 years, according to Crafton.
“The beauty of that project is that it’s almost in the center of the city and it’s walkable for many, many people – seniors, adults, students,” Crafton said. “It’s a beautiful gem in the middle of the city that really I’m happy people are taking an interest in, and James put the project on his back and is carrying it through, because it would be a shame to waste that opportunity.”
Chaney said the center is just over a mile from the current Hubbard Schools campus, which makes it walkable for students.
Eric Lamb, executive vice president of Hercules LED, who also attended the Roosevelt school as a child, has a 10-year-old daughter who plays softball. Lamb said the teams she and her friends played on struggled to find enough indoor space to practice during bad weather.
“I saw [Chaney’s] vision,” Lamb said. The company was able to help with roughly $50,000 in lighting, electrical work and labor. “He had a great vision and he’s an implementer. … We were 100% backing his vision.”
Jerry Harper, president of Connell Inc., a steel erection company, worked on the handrails and stairs, as well as other volunteer work on the project. Chaney said that with Harper’s help, they were able to reuse railing already in the building and adjust the height where necessary to bring it up to code.
Harper said he believes young people need positive things to do to keep them off the streets.
“I like to help people, and I like to do what I can do for the area,” Harper said, adding that giving back is what someone is supposed to do.
Steve Rotunno, new car manager at Greenwood’s Hubbard Chevrolet, was most recently involved, along with Hubbard Music and others, in installing the sound system for the center.
Rotunno said Chaney and his wife, Kim, have been the driving force behind the project, including helping the community see the possibility that was there. Through sponsorship of the gala fundraising event, a basket raffle and the Chevy All Stars program, the dealership had aided the project several times.
The Gary Stiver Golf Experience, a fundraising event in memory of a longtime Hubbard Chevrolet employee, is helping younger children gain a love for golf. The event also raises money for the HYC. One of the future plans is to add a golf simulator and an outdoor putting green to the facility.
Another donor is the Cody A. Pitts Foundation, which keeps alive the memory of Cody Pitts, the victim of an unsolved murder in the city.
“A lot of great people are involved in making that happen,” Rotunno said of the Roosevelt project. “We were happy to be involved. … It’s the community that rallies around it, and that’s what it takes. That’s why Hubbard’s a great town, because everybody cares about this town.”
More to Come
Stivers, the Lauretta Foundation and the Cody A. Pitts Foundation are among those recognized on the walls inside the Roosevelt Student Wellness Center. A long list of companies and donors that helped can be seen outside the building on three signs, thanks to Impression Media, which has been creating the signs.
Michael Hagyari, who co-owns Impression Media with his wife, Brandi, said he also is president of the Hubbard Touchdown Club and has an 11-year-old son who plays sports and is excited about using the facility.
“I know it sounds corny, but it is something bigger than just that building for us here in Hubbard,” Hagyari said. “A lot of hands went into helping. … The building was just sitting there, and as you can imagine, with a small community like ours, we had our share of naysayers.”
Hagyari credits the push by Chaney and many in the community coming together. Even more people are excited and now using the building in every demographic.
Phase Five of the project will involve the area outside the center and will include a playground, basketball and pickleball courts, a putting green and multipurpose field. Stacie Bacorn of the Autism Society of Mahoning Valley has been working with the organization to make the playground inclusive.
Pam and Joe Kerola of the Lauretta Foundation will help with the playground as well. Pam Kerola said they got involved because her father-in-law loved sports and wanted a center with things for children to do in the community, while her mother-in-law just loved all children. They would have “been over the moon” about what Chaney and his organization have created, she added.
“James has really fulfilled my father-in-law’s dream, so whatever we can do to help them is just a blessing,” Kerola said. “It’s truly been an honor for us, because it speaks to what my father-in-law envisioned and what my mother-in-law would have absolutely loved.”
Additional plans indoors include a golf simulator and netting to protect those using the workout equipment. Hagyari wants more signage in the lobby, like a mural that harkens back to the memory of the gym that once hosted sporting events and proms.
A whistle hangs from the framework holding one of the basketball hoops, placed there by the school’s custodians as a reminder of Chaney’s first-grade gym teacher, Jack Thiel, who retired after teaching there for 30 years.
The brick building is full of memories and history, and now it has a future.