HPCC Light Up Night – This Saturday, Dec 3rd from 5-7pm!
The HPCC Dictionary
Do you know your HPCC from your HPCDC from your HPGC?
Whether you’re new to Highland Park or you’ve been here for a few years, you’ve probably encountered a term or acronym used in the neighborhood that you didn’t immediately recognize. Here’s a guide to help clarify the different entities and spaces that come up when you live in Highland Park.
HPCC ➡ Highland Park Community Council
We are the oldest continually operating neighborhood organization in the City of Pittsburgh and are run completely by volunteers. We host monthly community events, publish a monthly newsletter and this blog. Our mission is to take a leading role in the community activities that address issues of common interest and concern and that promote a safe and healthy neighborhood for the diverse residents of Highland Park. Learn more on our website.
HPCDC ➡ Highland Park Community Development Corporation
The HPCDC works to develop vacant and idle lots around Highland Park. They have had a huge hand in the revitalization of the Highland Park business district on Bryant St. The HPCC often works with the HPCDC, but the two organizations are separate entities. Learn more on its website.
HPGC ➡ Highland Park Garden Club
The HPGC supports individual gardeners, promotes garden education, and provides neighborhood garden and horticultural activities. Learn more on its website.
HPELBPC ➡ Highland Park/East Liberty Bike Ped Committee
The HPELBPC is a group of residents dedicated to supporting infrastructural improvements for bikers and pedestrians. Learn more on its Facebook page.
MACC ➡ Morningside Area Community Council
MACC is the mirror neighborhood organization to the HPCC for the neighboring Morningside neighborhood. Like the HPCC, MACC is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to improving and supporting the Morningside community. Learn more on its website.
BGC ➡ The Garfield-Bloomfield Corporation
The Garfield-Bloomfeild Corporation is a community organization founded in 1976 to address physical and economic declines in the neighborhood. It has a strong focus on ensuring affordable housing in neighboring Garfield and runs a number of programs to support low-income families. Learn more on the website.
ELDI ➡ East Liberty Development Inc.
The East Liberty Development Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to revitalizing East Liberty. It is involved in development projects in the neighborhood and invests in and supports projects aimed at supporting and creating benefit to residents of East Liberty. Read more about the projects ELDI supports on its website.
EECM ➡ East End Cooperative Ministry
On the border of Highland Park and East Liberty, the East End Cooperative Ministry provides food for people who need it, runs a shelter and other housing programs, and offers programs to enable people to secure steady employment. Additional details are available on its website.
The ListServ
This long-standing email-based mailing list is run by a neighborhood volunteer. It is one of the most active ways neighbors communicate digitally with each other. Though it’s not run by the HPCC, all HPCC public communication is posted to this list. To sign up, go to mail.highlandparkpa.com
The Parklet or Bryant St. Parklet
In 2020, the HPCC worked with the HPCDC and Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority to set aside a corner lot at Bryant St. and N. Euclid St. as a community green space. The HPCC leases this property from the URA, and HPCC volunteers provide its ongoing maintenance.
Flynn Parklet
There is also a space called Flynn Parklet at Bunkerhill St. and N Saint Clair St. which is a tennis/hockey/basketball court area operated by the City of Pittsburgh.
The Farmhouse
This refers to the large building next to the Farmhouse Playground and baseball field on Farmhouse Dr. in the northeast corner of the neighborhood, adjacent to Highland Park.
The Fountain
This refers to the large fountain in the front entrance garden in Highland Park (the city park).
The Super Playground
This refers to the large playground on Reservoir Drive, visible up the hill from Bunker Hill Street.
What have we missed? Send your suggestions to hpcceditor.com and we’ll update the list!
HPCC November Virtual Community Meeting 11/17/2022 @ 7:00PM
Greetings,
The November Community meeting will be virtual.
In addition to updates from the HPCC and Zone 5, our guest this month will be Ross Chapman from the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy (PPC) who’ll talk about the PPC’s current commitments, and future plans, and provide an update on parks funding in the current city budget.
What: September HPCC Community Meeting
When: November 17, 2022 7:00 PM Eastern Time
You MUST register in advance for this meeting by clicking this link.
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Note: You may also receive an invitation via the HPCC ListServ. Please register only once.
Thank you,
Stephanie Walsh,
President
Thanksgiving Food Drive for Vintage!
Hello Neighbors! We’re asking you to show your generosity once again to help the seniors receiving services at Vintage on Highland Ave.celebrate Thanksgiving: It’s the HPCC’s 3rd Annual Thanksgiving Food Drive. Once again, Vintage will be providing turkeys and we’ll provide the trimmings. This year they need more baskets than ever: 120 total! Please drop off your donation of food or Giant Eagle gift cards by Nov 15 at 1315 N. Sheridan Ave. Specifically, we’re collecting:
- Cranberry sauce
- Stuffing mix
- Cornbread mix
- Turkey gravy
- Canned yams
Thank you!
Meet Your Neighbor: Dr. Asa Lee, President of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
By Diane Averill
The first thing you notice as you enter the office of the Reverend Dr. Asa J. Lee—who prefers to be called, simply, Asa—is the sizable calabash that sits on the floor in front of his desk. Burnt orange in color, it is ornamented by the image of the mythical Sankofa bird, picked out in tiny beads of pink, white and dark blue. The bird’s feet face forward, while its head is turned to look backwards.
“It symbolizes using the past as a guide for planning the future,” Asa explains.
The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, at S. Highland Avenue and St. Marie Street, chose Asa to guide the institution into the future as its seventh president. Inaugurated in the Fall of 2021, he represents a considerable step forward from the past in that he is an ordained Baptist minister heading up a seminary affiliated with the Presbyterian Church USA, and he is the first African American to do so.
In their march forward, both Asa and the seminary sustain long traditions, such as the learning of Greek and Hebrew, which Asa demonstrates when he pulls a Greek New Testament from the bookcase. Flipping through the pages covered in the Greek alphabet, he reads aloud, in Greek, a portion of the Lord’s Prayer.
While ecumenism abounds at PTS, where the student body represents a number of different faiths, it thrives as well at the Lee family home on Jackson Street, where Asa’s wife, Chenda, is an ordained clergy member of the United Methodist Church and works as director of clergy and congregational development for the UMC’s western Pennsylvania conference. The Lees’ four daughters, ranging in age from six to 13, attend Catholic school.
A Maryland native, Asa obtained his bachelor’s degree in music education from Hampton University with a major in trumpet and a piano/organ minor. Growing up, he had played organ in church and after four years teaching in private and public schools, he decided to heed the call to the ministry that he had felt as a teen. It was at Wesley Theological Seminary that he met Chenda.
Music remains an integral part of Asa’s life, much in the form of his children, who play flute, guitar and piano. Three of them play ukulele, and one is the family vocalist. Chenda, he says, would not call herself musical but she has a beautiful singing voice.
Back in June of 2021, after first arriving in Pittsburgh, Asa spent a lot of time getting out to meet “anyone and everyone,” he says, to get a feel for who were his neighbors and where connections could be made.
“Neighbor is a spiritual concept,” he says, and one that is fraught with contradiction. As neighbors looking out for each other, it’s easy, he explains, to send a check to a favorite charity or an international appeal for help, “…but what about the homeless guy that you just passed on the street? It’s hard to help who’s right in front of you.” He observes a caution in Pittsburgh’s emphasis on named and defined neighborhoods, in that it can create boundaries that keep people apart.
Transcending boundaries and building relationships for the good of the city are the foundational goals of the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation, an interfaith organization for which Asa sits on the board of directors. The foundation’s Amen to Action project, now in its fifth year, will package one million meals in November, to be distributed by the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Ten sites in the metro area will each produce 100,000 meals, paid for by donations and packaged by volunteers. On November 12, Asa and PTS will host one such event, staffed from churches of all faiths in the surrounding East End. (To make a donation, go to amentoaction.org.)
While there are still more neighbors to meet and things to learn about the city he now calls home, Asa Lee has made up his mind quite firmly about one of Pittsburgh’s signature culinary concepts: On sandwiches and salads, he says, with his signature ready smile, “Please, I’ll take my fries on the side!”