YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – An event Saturday will celebrate the 100th anniversary of an East Side institution and mark the kickoff of its revitalization fundraising campaign.
The McGuffey Centre started in 1926.
“It started out with Ms. [Birdie] Welcher saying there’s a need [for change in the community], a group of people agreeing that it’s a need,” said Cirell Howard, the center’s CEO.
The center started in a house but moved in 1961 into its building at 1649 Jacobs Road. It provides services to families and individuals. The center, once a thriving community organization, shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic, and Howard, who’s been CEO since August 2025, said it’s in a rebuilding phase.
Fundraising Campaign
That rebuilding requires funding. The center has received grants and assistance from other organizations, including the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley and the United Way of Youngstown and Mahoning County, and Saturday’s event will kick off a fundraising campaign along with celebrating the centennial. The goal is to raise $100,000 to support center operations.
McGuffey Day, set for 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, at the center, will include food trucks, activities for children and opportunities for center alumni to share memories. County, city and state elected officials are expected to attend.
The fundraising campaign will begin with a community challenge to find 100 individuals, families, businesses, center alumni and organizations to give at least $100 each in honor of the center’s anniversary. That would provide the foundation for the $100,000 campaign, which organizers hope will continue through more donations, corporate sponsorships, recurring contributions and other gifts.
“This is only going to continue to be successful if everybody believes that you can change it,” Howard said. “Nobody’s coming to save us. That is something we’ve learned in every space. So what I need the community to do is to come in this building, bring your children and let’s do the work.”
Larry Williams, McGuffey board president, grew up in the city and participated in the center’s programming.
“I grew up at the McGuffey Centre,” said Williams, who lives in Florida. “I watched what it did for me and the people when I was young. I watched the older people who were family – mothers and fathers – volunteer their time to younger people, and what they did for us. I went to college, got a scholarship for football from North High School, but the foundation was set at McGuffey Centre.”
Center Impact
Williams played football at the center and was part of the Boy Scout troop there. He says he and other youth at the center learned perseverance.
“When things don’t go your way, you know what you do? You don’t go backwards,” Williams said. “You persevere. You roll your sleeves up and you make things happen.”
He graduated college with an education degree and taught in K-12 as well as post-secondary levels.
Williams said the decline of the center started when the steel mills closed and people had to move to find work.
Because it played such a critical role in his life, Williams wanted to give back and help others, just as the adults at the center had done for him when he was a child and teenager. He was among those who provided monetary support and guidance to help McGuffey reopen and get back on financial and organizational footing after the pandemic.
He believes it’s coming back.
“We have programming for children now,” Williams said. “We have programming for adults now. We have activities. Now to see the activities, children, people moving around at the center, having activities at the center is just a wonderful thing, and it’s needed because the city needs the center. As the center needs the city, the city needs the center.”
Changes Underway
The revitalization is underway with cosmetic improvements to the building, tutoring for school children and ongoing fitness, line dancing, boxing, taekwondo and other classes for the community. This summer, McGuffey hosted a summer camp for children ages 6 to 12 for the first time in several years, and older children helped lead the camp.
Northeast Homeowners and Concerned Citizens Association, which operates the youth and young adult groundskeeping and landscaping technician program, works with the center, and Intentional Development Group offers help for small businesses. The Youngstown Health Department has an office at McGuffey to help residents access resources.
Howard has more plans. Her career has been in social services. She previously worked at the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services and at the Mahoning Youngstown Community Action Partnership. She also grew up on the East Side, and both she and her son participated in and benefited from center programming.
Her son, 27, runs a business and honed his entrepreneurial skills at McGuffey.
Howard envisions a one-stop operation where other organizations that help seniors, families, children and individuals work together with the center to provide access to resources for residents in what she views as an underserved community. She pointed to the lack of businesses, services and housing on the East Side.
“It should not have to be that somebody who lives on this side of town has to drive to go to something so far away from here,” Howard said.
That includes workforce development, a food and personal hygiene pantry, mentorship and government and other services. It will take a community effort to make it a reality.
“When there were sewing classes, when there were mentorships, it was the community and the parents being here,” Howard said. “When there is workforce development, no matter what you want to call it, there has to be workforce development in everything we do, preparing our children and any seniors there, anybody that needs the help in the middle – the family as a whole. You can’t eat if you can’t pay for it.”
Williams added that the center isn’t for only one side of town.
“What we’re doing, it’s not just about the East Side,” he said. “It’s about the whole entire Valley because we service everybody.”
Pictured at top: Cirell Howard, CEO of the McGuffey Centre, stands next to the cornerstone of the Jacobs Road community center.