Father-daughter founders move growing Brightside Project into larger location in Salem
Lisa Vittorio and her dad, Scott Lewis, started The Brightside Project to help children and youth in Columbiana and rural Mahoning County.
The focus was to help children and young adults reach their fullest potentials.
Lewis and Vittorio found their calling bringing food, clothing, school supplies, mental health resources, transportation and community engagement to local children in low-income and underserved families.
So far in 2024, thousands of kids in the area between the ages of three and 18 years old have participated in programs at the Brightside Project.
Volunteers distributed over 600 backpacks to students for back-to-school season this fall, visited schools in the area to connect with students and run the Imagination Library.
The Brightside Project assists kids with tutoring and making healthy and hygienic choices as they grow up.
“This year alone, we’re at over 15,000. For us to have maximum impact in a child’s life, we count every time, every event, every child that comes through, said Vittorio. “So over 15,000 between all of our programs, Sunshine Bus, etc., and it just keeps going up. We have a big volunteer team that they do one-on-one work with the kids.”
New home on N. Ellsworth Avenue
This year, Vittorio said the number of program participants was increasing and the Brightside Project needed to expand to a larger space.
“From where we came from, our old building, we definitely didn’t have space for this, but what we found at our old location is that kids just want to be around each other,” she said. “I have two teenage daughters who play a part in that, but they would all just want to congregate during our events, and we didn’t have space for them to hang out.”
The Brightside Project found a new home at 1909 N. Ellsworth Ave. in Salem across from Habitat ReStore.
“This building has so much rich history in this town,” said Vittorio. “It was a church and a former IGA grocery store. We’ve come into contact with so many people who said ‘I used to work there,’ or ‘I remember shopping there when I was a kid.’”
This week, renovations are wrapping up at the new building, complete with the signature blue and orange logos and a picture of Sunny Sunshine the program’s wellness mascot.
“We raised exactly the amount of money pretty much to purchase this facility in full and all the renovations,” said Vittorio. “We did new flooring, exterior painting, the mold remediation, and now we’re out of money, so we have to, we got to get back to the drawing board to get things like the gaming systems.”
Several new additions are nearing completion at the new Brightside Project, including a food pantry, kitchen, waiting and lounge area for middle and high schoolers.
The teen lounge room is already set up with comfortable seats, table tennis and air hockey, with a pool table and TV coming soon.
“A lot of our programming naturally accommodates the needs of the younger kids, but we are seeing more and more teenagers come here, and so we want them to have a place that’s cool and trendy,” said Vittorio.
The Brightside Project plans to host a career fair and youth summit in 2025.
“The summit is a free, one-day event; it is faith based, our organization, and we have guest speakers, and we’ll be able to hold it here this year,” she said.
Upcoming events, how to help The Brightside Project
Bright Christmas at the Brightside Project is Dec. 14 from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. at 1909 N. Ellsworth Ave. in Salem.
Columbiana County kids and their parents will get to pick out their own toys and meet Santa and Mrs. Claus.
The youth summit is March 15, 2025. Learn more online about upcoming events, donating and volunteer opportunities to help the Brightside Project continue onto the next phase of the expansion.
“We don’t receive any federal or state funding here,” said Vittorio. “We did get a grant from Governor Dewine, he has a faith based and community initiative grant, so we’ve received that a few times. I’m so thankful for that, because it gives us smaller organizations an opportunity to compete.”
This story was originally published November 16, 2024 at 6:03 AM.
