Councilman calls pastors to summit

Youngsters will be a focus of the East Side adopt-a-neighborhood push.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Churches are among the few anchors left in city neighborhoods.
That's why they're a resource a city council member wants to tap.
Rufus Hudson, D-2nd, said he will organize what he is calling an East Side pastors summit in the next few weeks.
At the gathering, where he also will invite East Side community groups, Hudson will ask spiritual leaders and others to adopt the neighborhoods around them.
Cleanup and ongoing maintenance are the goals.
"Use the assets in the community that we have," he said.
Reaching the young: In particular, Hudson will ask the groups to make their youngsters a part of the adopt-a-neighborhood plan.
Impressing the importance of citizenship and pride in the neighborhood on youth is a key to the future, he said. Kids raised to care will become adults who care.
"It's extremely important to make the youths the stakeholders," Hudson said.
East Side churches sit along -- and could help improve -- major thoroughfares such as Wardle Avenue, Liberty and McGuffey roads, Lansdowne Boulevard and Shehy Street, he said.
Hudson said he has been thinking of the idea years before he became a council member 20 months ago.
After wading through numerous other issues, now is the right time to call the meeting and press churches and other groups for commitments to their neighborhoods, he said.
rgsmith@vindy.com