GTECH held its first volunteer day of the season this past weekend, hosting about 60 student volunteers from Students Today Leaders Forever. For this group of high school students, GTECH was just one stop on the organization’s “Pay it Forward” tour this February, a five-day servant leadership trip during which young adults in middle school, high school and college volunteer during the morning and participate in leadership activities during the day. We are thankful that these young leaders lent so…

By now you're back in the office, the chili bowls are empty and the Seahawks have been crowned Super Bowl champs. Besides discovering that Seattle has one heck of a defense, we can glean a few lessons from last night's gridiron matchup:   Host more get togethers. According to Opower's 2012 analysis of residential energy usage, consumption dropped up to 5 percent below average during the Super Bowl. Why? More eyes on fewer televisions. Don't wait until the next major…

This Valentine's Day why not fall in love with your community? At GTECH, we believe that environmental, economic and social problems degrade the health of our communities and create barriers to progress. The only way to conquer these issues is to speak up for the future of your neighborhood. That's why we want you to show and spread the love you have for your community.  Share photos that inspire others with the best of what your neighborhood has to offer. It's…

Our office closed for the holiday break, giving us an opportunity to spend time with friends and family. Just as quickly as you could say, “Happy 2014,” the past few weeks flew by. We took a moment to reflect on the year — five themes emerged as staff shared favorite memories. 1. Sharing the community-development limelight "So many wonderful moments, memories, and events from 2013.  One that certainly tops the list is the opportunity to share the stage at Green…

Noah, a current student at Dartmouth University, is visiting family here is Pittsburgh. He decided to spend part of his holiday break interning with us, so we decided to ask him some questions about what he is working on. [one_half] [one_half] [one_half_last] Noah Rickerich year: Sophmore school: Dartmouth major: Economics and Philosophy [/one_half_last] GTECH: Where are you from originally? NOAH: I've lived in York, Maine my whole life G: So why are you here in Pittsburgh and interning with GTECH…

Recently, GTECH was invited to attend the Bruner Loeb Forum in Detroit for two days of discussion on vacancy and the associated issues currently being addressed in our nation's legacy cities. Designers, government officials, forward thinkers, funders and nonprofit leaders participated in a series of neighborhood tours, panel discussions, facilitated small group sessions and presentations. As the Director of ReClaim, I was interested in unearthing some lessons that other cities can teach Pittsburgh when it comes to issues of vacant…

Here at GTECH, we help turn waste into something useful.We jumped at the chance to see one of the most popular ways people do this: recycling! On Monday, we toured Waste Management's Greenstar Recycling Center with Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse. If you are a Pittsburgher or a resident of Allegheny County, you know all of your recyclables go into one big, blue bin. This is called single-stream recycling. After touring the facility on Neville Island, we came away with…