Golden String Inc. gains with additional office space at Oakhill

July 15, 2016 at 12:02a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County officials have entered into a six-month lease agreement with Golden String Inc. to provide the agency with additional office space at Oakhill Renaissance Place on the South Side.

The move will mean about 2,000 extra square feet for the nonprofit organization, which offers recreational activities to adults and children with special needs, Jimmy Sutman explained during Thursday’s meeting of the county commissioners.

The cost for the lease is $1,147 per month.

Sutman, executive director of Iron and String Life Enhancement, which operates Golden String, noted that the extra space will be used for day programs that include vocational training, art and music. In addition, between 15 and 20 clients are employed at Gallagher’s Lunch Bucket, a caf that opened about two years ago in the Oakhill building’s basement and serves breakfast and lunch, Sutman continued.

The added space is vital also because in a few months, ISLE is to begin providing services for three clients with the Youngstown Developmental Center in Mineral Ridge, which is slated to close next summer.

The YDC serves adults in 14 Northeast Ohio counties who have profound and severe challenges. The facility provides assistance mainly with health-care needs, social skills and daily-living tasks.

Also during the session, commissioners entered into an agreement with the Area Agency on Aging 11 Inc. to form a five-member advisory council to oversee the allocation and spending of funds that will start being collected next year, courtesy of the passage of a 1-mill, five-year real-estate tax levy last March.

The money will provide services to those age 60 and older, such as home repair and maintenance, medication management, home-delivered meals, guardianships and personal-care and homemaker needs, noted Joseph Rossi, the Niles agency’s chief executive officer.

The advisory panel will consist of one member from Austintown and one from Boardman, who will alternate every other year; one representative from another Mahoning County township; one from the city of Youngstown that the mayor will nominate; one from a Mahoning County city other than Youngstown; and one county commissioner, noted Audrey Tillis, the commissioners’ executive director.

In other business, the Mahoning County Green Team’s Recycling Division announced a residential tire collection, set for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Canfield Fairgrounds.

The collection is open to Mahoning County residents only, and those interested are asked to enter through Gate 9 off state Route 46. The first eight passenger tires are free per person, noted Lou Vega, the Solid Waste Management District’s director.

The next commissioners’ meeting is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Green Township Community Building, 12184 Lisbon Road, Greenford.