Community Heart & Soul and PA Humanities Celebrate 10 Years of Driving Community Progress in Pennsylvania
A decade ago, Community Heart & Soul and PA Humanities partnered to help residents of Pennsylvania towns focus on what matters most in their communities and to envision and plan their futures together. Today, more than 160,000 residents throughout the commonwealth have been impacted by the work. Recently, Community Heart & Soul, PA Humanities, local and state-level partners, and residents from these communities gathered to celebrate the milestone and share stories about the successes and challenges in their towns.
Standing in front of a crowd of over 60 people who’d gathered in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on a warm mid-May Monday evening, Rick Vilello, Deputy Secretary of Community Affairs and Development at the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, extended his arm, gesturing leftward toward a trio of folks from nearby Dillsburg who had been called to the front of the reception room to be recognized. “This is really the perfect example of a small group of people making a difference,” Vilello said, pointing to Heidi and Isaac Tucker and Jim Burgess.
“We need this in the places we live,” Vilello continued. “It’s because of your dedication that a small group of people is changing the place where they live to make it better. That’s what we’re celebrating today.”
The “this” Vilello was referring to is Community Heart & Soul, the innovative, ongoing community development model that engages the entire population of a town in identifying what they love most about their community, what future they want for it, and how to achieve it. Dillsburg’s recognition as an official PA Heart & Soul Community kicked off a two-day celebration marking the 10-year anniversary of Community Heart & Soul’s partnership with PA Humanities, Pennsylvania’s statewide humanities council.
Representatives from Community Heart & Soul; PA Humanities; local and state-level partners, like Department of Community and Economic Development, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and the PA Route 6 Alliance; elected officials; and community leaders gathered in the commonwealth’s capital to celebrate the milestone. They also discussed ideas and best practices to help inform communities still early in the Heart & Soul process and continue the work of those focused on the program’s ongoing practice.
The celebration and idea-sharing continued the following day with a legislative event featuring speeches from the Capitol Rotunda steps, the reading of a proclamation from Governor Josh Shapiro, and a Learning and Impact Summit at the Civic Club of Harrisburg.
“PA Heart & Soul is so much more than a community planning program. It helps people bridge divides, build common ground, making lasting connections through neighborhood conversations,” Laurie Zierer, the Executive Director of PA Humanities, said from the steps of the Capitol Rotunda. “It gets people excited to roll up their sleeves and make a difference in their community. Together, they develop practical action plans reflecting their hopes for their community. The result: stronger, more connected and more resilient Pennsylvania communities. The work is deeply aligned with PA Humanities. We just celebrated our 50th year anniversary, and we have been putting humanities in action, and PA Heart & Soul is emblematic of what that looks like in communities across Pennsylvania.”
“What started in just a handful of towns a decade ago has since grown to 17 communities participating in the resident-driven approach to planning and revitalization,” Zierer said, crediting the power of partnership for the growth.
“The partnership that Laurie is speaking about has been rooted in connecting people – a mutual desire to make a difference, based on involving everybody, focusing on what matters most, and playing the long game,” said Mark Sherman, the President of Community Heart & Soul, who took to the podium following Zierer. “I did a little math and added up the populations of those 17 communities, and this work is impacting over 160,000 Pennsylvanians. That is really impressive. That’s the number of people that have already benefited from the program, and we hope that many, many more communities will join our network, and that that number will grow.”
“Including Pennsylvania, over 130 communities across the United States have been engaged in the Heart & Soul process,” Sherman added.
Following Sherman, PA Representatives Rob Matzie (District 16) and R. Lee James (District 64) and the mayors of Carbondale and Meadville—Michele Bannon and Jaime Kinder—spoke about the impact they’ve seen in their districts and towns statewide. A common thread in their observations: Helping residents know the power of their voices through the act of listening.
To close out the legislative event, Safronia Perry — a PA Humanities board member and former member of the Heart & Soul team in Carlisle —took the microphone. She read a proclamation from Governor Josh Shapiro declaring May 13, 2025, as Community Heart & Soul Day. The proclamation honored “10 years of this unique partnership and the hard work of Pennsylvania municipalities,” and encouraged all Pennsylvanians to “learn more about the Community Heart & Soul process to improve the quality of life in their community.”
Following the event at the Capitol attendees engaged in a Learning and Impact Summit at the Civic Club of Harrisburg. There, folks heard from Cindy Dunn, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and Rick Vilello representing the Department of Community and Economic Development. Both agencies have championed the work of PA Heart & Soul, and Dunn and Vilello each spoke about the increase in civic pride, preservation efforts, and new ideas that have emerged in the towns they have worked with – from greater community participation in town meetings, to the installation of public art, to restoration of landmark locations, to supporting existing and new businesses.
‘The Learning and Impact Summit also featured two panel discussions, the first focused on “Sharing Stories about What We’ve Learned: A Conversation with PA Heart & Soul Communities.”
Mario Leone, the Borough Manager of Ambridge, which just completed the fourth phase of the process last year, called the Heart & Soul experience “transformational.”
Leone shared how the Heart & Soul process helped include residents who traditionally didn’t show up to council meetings or town halls. “Through Heart & Soul, we were able to meet people in the community,” adding that whether they gathered at the brewery, library, or elsewhere, the Ambridge Heart & Soul team was able to meet people “where they were, as opposed to trying to get them to come to the council chambers.”
Going to the people to listen and include them in conversations also helped change how residents of Upper Chichester looked at their community.
Township Manager of Upper Chichester George Needles explained how the Heart & Soul process helped his community address a longstanding challenge. “We have 13 different areas of different diverse people that really identify with their neighborhood,” he said.
The challenge: People weren’t quick to leave their neighborhood to talk to their Upper Chichester neighbors if they lived outside of their neighborhood.
“This program really gave us this bridge to get people together and bring them to the table in different venues, in different situations, and talk about how these distinct communities can become one Upper Chichester,” Needles said.
Carmen Janes, who was involved with Heart & Soul in Greater Carlisle and Mt. Holly Springs and serves on the Mt. Tabor Preservation Project, spoke about the importance of preservation and how the Heart & Soul process helped save an important part of the town’s history.
On Cedar Street stood a dilapidated building – once the Mt. Tabor AME Zion Church. Nearby, is a cemetery that, not widely known in the community, serves as the final resting place for seven African-American veterans of the Civil War.
The church has sat abandoned for nearly 50 years. But through the story-gathering process, more residents became more aware of the church and cemetery’s historical significance, which led to efforts to the Mt. Tabor Preservation Project and the restoration of the church and cemetery. “That piece of history may have been lost if it wasn’t for Heart & Soul,” James said.
Heart & Soul also helps communities plan toward their futures, as Meadville’s Jaime Kinder shared. When the process began, Kinder was a resident. Today, she’s Mayor, and in her leadership role, she isn’t just acting upon the town’s action plan, she’s ensuring public servants are continuing to listen.
“We keep listening, we keep instituting things that people want, and we never stop,” Kinder said. “We never say, ‘Oh, we’re done. We did it, right?’ Communities are living things. They are things that evolve, and we need to keep evolving with them; otherwise, we will stagnate, and they will go back to a dying organism. So that’s what we do: Keep people engaged. We are the solutions to our problems.”
Like Kinder, Autumn Vogel, who was involved in the My Meadville Heart & Soul process, is now an elected official. Vogel, who participated in the second panel, “Building Connections and Igniting Leadership,” shared that now, in addition to serving on Meadville City Council, she is the President of the Northwest Pennsylvania Investment Cooperative. “For me, both of those things are directly the result of the Heart & Soul process.”
Todd Pousley, the Project Coordinator for Carbondale Heart & Soul, another participant in the second panel, added the process helps bring government to the people. “Heart & Soul puts people first, truly engaging people,” he said. “In Carbondale, we intentionally try to embed our Heart & Soul Statements in everything that we do,” adding that the statements and the city council’s resolution adopting the process now serve as guiding principles for the community when it comes to making decisions.
For Lindsay Varner, who served as the Carlisle Heart & Soul Project Coordinator, the Heart & Soul process led to a different path to leadership. “Our Heart & Soul definitely inspired me to want to go into nonprofit leadership, which is not something I had ever considered before,” said the current Executive Director of the Cumberland County Historical Society.
Sometimes, it’s inspiring an idea and encouraging action.
“If someone has an idea for an initiative, give them space, and time, and a little bit of funding to take it on, and then that’s where the excitement comes in,” said Megan Tunon, one of the members of the Etna Heart & Soul core team. “Now that they see that their ideas matter, they can take charge, they can have a leadership position in the community.”
As the Summit drew to a close, attendees weren’t quick to leave to rush back to their towns. Some remained seated, exchanging more ideas and stories in half-circles. Others swapped contact information as they slowly made their way to the door.
17 Pennsylvania communities. Over 160,000 residents included. All powered by the partnership between Community Heart & Soul and PA Humanities, supported by local and state-level partners, and driven by a growing number of small groups of committed community members looking to improve their towns by listening to residents and telling their stories far and wide to inform progress – including gathering in the state capital to listen and learn from each other.
About the Author
Ben Speggen is a learner, writer, editor, interviewer, reporter, connector, researcher, educator, and administrator with one foot in the think tank world, with the Jefferson Educational Society, and the other in the journalism sector, with the Our Towns Civic Foundation, Erie Reader, Craftsmanship Magazine, among others. You’ll find more about him and his work on his Substack, Ben Here. Saw That.
