YinzVote.com: Pittsburgh specific election information

Why Pittsburgh specific election information?

Information for Pittsburghers. There are so many websites about the election. So much information. Most of it is good. Some of them are great. Some of the sites are not so great. Information is being shared at the national level, at the state level and at the county level. The Pennsylvania Department of State is doing an amazing job sharing election information online. (Please make sure to follow @PAstatedept on Instagram.) The information Pittsburghers need is at the county level. For example, the state and national websites do not always have specific information about where Pittsburghers can drop off mail-in ballots before the election.
Searching for Pittsburgh information. If there is one thing I know from almost two decades of blogging about Pittsburgh, it is about Pittsburgh search info. Almost every single election-related website says “Allegheny County,” but most people sit down and search where they live. If Yinz Vote can help one voter searching for info get to their polling place, then the site was worth it.
Black & Gold > red or blue.

Black & Gold > red or blue.

About a month ago, I was sitting on the patio at Cafe Raymond in the Strip District, feeling a little distraught about the state of things in the world. It was the perfect Pittsburgh Sunday morning. Sunny, unseasonably warm, and Penn Ave. was crawling with Steelers fans decked in their best black and gold. (Ok, there were a few Cowboys fans on the street, too. )

Seeing the sea of Steelers fans gave me some hope. Earlier in the week, I was listening to a podcast about how it would take an act of war to bring the country together. I thought there has to be another way to bring people together.

And I am grateful to have been born in Steeler Country. Even if you aren’t a fan of the game of football, you can enjoy the community of Steelers fans. When I tell someone I am from Pittsburgh, and they ask me if I am a Steelers fan. My answer is, of course, that I was born into it, and I say I am a fan of the fans.

So, I’ve been thinking about the upcoming election. If you live in Pittsburgh, you can’t not think about the election. Then I was listening to a podcast about pre-suasion, which talked about the importance of unity.

I phoned a friend and asked, “How do we make this election fun.” Thankfully, as Pittsburghers we have sports teams to bring us together. Even if you don’t love the sports, it is hard not to be a fan of the fans.

So, Yinz Vote was born. This election has been something. Pennsylvania, living up to its name as the keystone state, is the key to this election.

Please follow & share Yinz Vote with your friends

YinzVote Facebook page (this was the old Vote PGH Facebook page, I dusted it off and gave it a facelift.)
Instagram @yinzvote
www.YinzVote.com

And… we are back!

Help Serve A Free Thanksgiving-Eve Dinner

Thanksgiving, well Thanksgiving-Eve, has become my favorite holiday of the year. I’ve posted about this a few times over the years, so I will try to summarize…

In 2012, I was asked via a Facebook post from a friend to volunteer to serve food at a free Thanksgiving dinner. I had no idea when I walked into the kitchen, that I was walking into much more than a dinner.

In 2014, this is what I posted to Facebook after volunteering at the Thanksgiving-Eve dinner:

There are so many amazing people in this city that are Pittsburghers. Sometimes I am lucky enough to get to spend some a few moments with those people. Tonight, I helped a friend clean up from the community dinner that has been organized at the Albright United Methodist Church since the 1970s. The volunteers were led by a man that is 75 and has worked at Ritters for over 40 years. Earlier this year, he left Ritters and now works at Dennys. Today he cooked 9 turkeys and all of the fixings. Tomorrow he will feed 35 people at his house, then go to work at Dennys at 5pm. I have helped with the clean up for this dinner for the past 4 years and never had the chance to hear this story. I’ll gladly wash the pots and pans, and mop the floor any night of the week if I get to spend time with Pittsburghers like this.

On top of that, another kind Pittsburgher saw my post on Reddit about volunteering a the dinner and showed up to volunteer with out having heard of me or my blog. He had taken a quiz on Facebook and learned that today was his 10,000th day alive. To celebrate that, he spent the evening helping a few strangers.

That is just a little slice of Pittsburgh for you.

This year is the 45th Annual Albright Thanksgiving-Eve dinner. It is a free meal, cooked and served by volunteers. The guest are neighbors from across the city – some are hungry, some are lonely, some are there to take home some turkey to eat on Thanksgiving.

Help make the 45th Annual Albright Thanksgiving-Eve Dinner a success

1. Spread the word! Please invite your friends, neighbors, community groups and anyone else in Pittsburgh who needs some food & fellowship to attend. Here is a Facebook event you can share.

2. Donate $10. I’ve set a goal of getting 45 people to contribute to the GoFundMe in honor of this being the 45th annual meal. Click here to donate to the GoFundMe page (Friends of Albright is a project of New Sun Rising). We’ve just crossed the half-way mark and it would be great to get 20 more donors before next week!

3. Volunteer. This meal is 100% volunteers from the cooking to the cleaning. I’m incredibly proud that thanks to volunteers we are now able to use real plates and silverware and have significantly reduced the amount of trash that we produced when the meal was served on paper plates. Sign up to volunteer here.

The 2019 Dirty Dozen Bike Race is this Saturday, October 26

June 1: Mexican War Streets Yard Sale & Local x Global Northside

A quick reminder that this Saturday, June 1, 2019, is the annual Mexican War Streets Yard Sale. I’m told this is one of the best neighborhood yard sales in Pittsburgh.