Auberle will celebrate a successful 60th year of dealing with at-risk kids and their families at its annual meeting Monday in McKeesport.
The Rev. David A. Zubik, Catholic bishop of Pittsburgh, and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald are scheduled to attend the 4:30 p.m. event on Auberle's main campus along Hartman Street.
The gathering will feature a public report on the past year's efforts, including Auberle's recent receipt of Agency of the Year honors from the national Alliance for Children and Families.
“The fact that we launched 23 initiatives was stunning for them,” Auberle CEO John Lydon said after receiving the award from the alliance at a meeting in Florida.
Among the initiatives is the Girls Adjusting to Treatment & Education program at the former St. Pius X rectory along Versailles Avenue in McKeesport.
“It was groundbreaking,” Lydon said. “It brought a lot of partners and a lot of cooperation.”
Auberle officials said those initiatives improved service delivery to clients, enhanced facilities and expanded programming to vulnerable children and families.
Zubik has been a regular attendee at Auberle events. He continues more than half a century of diocesan ties to the McKeesport-based agency.
Those ties date to a 1948 donation to the diocese from Pauline Auberle's estate of land and money for the original Auberle home.
Fitzgerald will top a list of county officials scheduled to be on hand from throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania. Local dignitaries, community members and stakeholders are expected to attend.
The social service agency will receive a donation in honor of its 60th anniversary from Huntington Bank, which will honor a long-standing partnership between the two.
In September Huntington Bank sponsored Auberle's eighth annual Voices Carry event, which was attended by 750 people, including 46 volunteers and 92 first-time attendees, and raised $92,914.
Auberle's 60th year started off on a rough note, with what officials called “a major cloud on the horizon,” a proposed cut of funds to Allegheny County's Department of Human Services in Executive Dan Onorato's last budget.
Onorato proposed a $22 million reduction in funding for human service agencies that's covered by $5 million from county tax revenues, with matches from Washington and Harrisburg.
That cut in funds was resolved in the final county budget, which included a 21 percent increase in real estate millage from 4.69 to 5.69.
Patrick Cloonan is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-664-9161, ext. 1967, or pcloonan@tribweb.com.
