A three-week visit from AmeriCorps workers has added a new dimension to North Hills Community Outreach's motto, People Helping People.

Eleven men and women, ranging in age from 18 to 24, spent three weeks in May hanging drywall at the agency's new Millvale satellite on Lincoln Avenue.

The $2.3 million project consists of a two-story addition and construction of a second floor on the Millvale community center, for a total of 14,000 square feet, said Jeff Bono, superintendent of Landau Building Co.

He expects the project to be finished by October, but he hopes to have the expanded first-floor community space, formerly the gymnasium of St. Ann's parish, ready for Millvale Days in September. Construction was delayed a year by the September 2004 flood.

	Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette AmeriCorps members Kyla Allen-Grant, left, of Bonney Lake, Wash., and Sam Henzy, of Newark, Del., muscle a sheet of drywall into place for the expansion and remodeling project at the Millvale Community Center. Click photo for larger image.

North Hills Community Outreach will occupy 13 offices on the second floor and is leading a fund-raising campaign for the project in exchange for a $1-a-year lease with Millvale for 33 years. As of April, the outreach organization had raised $1.2 million for the project.

While waiting for the building's roof to be completed, AmeriCorps members visited a business that is a partner with the outreach organization, Community Auto in Richland. A volunteer-run organization, the auto company repairs donated cars to sell at affordable prices to people in need.

The workers also spent a day helping with grounds upkeep at the Sisters of St. Francis at Mount Alvernia in Millvale. The sisters, businesses and caterers provided meals.

AmeriCorps workers take time out of their lives to help others. The government-sponsored program is part of the Corporation for National Service established in 1993. Participants usually serve for 10 months to a year, receive a modest living allowance and free health insurance. They get a $4,725 education award when they complete their service.

Garth Carson, 20, of Memphis, Tenn., interrupted his college education to re-evaluate his life by participating in AmeriCorps, he said.

"Before, I led a selfish, upper-middle-class existence, and this has helped me see what it means to live in tents," he said, explaining that he worked with Hurricane Katrina victims and learned to live on the $150 he receives every two weeks.

He will return to Memphis to pursue a medical degree when his year of service is finished.

Mr. Carson said the AmeriCorps workers were lucky because La Roche College in McCandless provided dorm space for them. He and team leader Jen Prall, 23, of Franklin, Ky., agreed that people here have been very welcoming.

This is Ms. Prall's second year with AmeriCorps. A graduate of Wake Forest University, she wants to return to Mississippi and work with a long-term recovery agency.

Her current group is based in Washington, D.C., one of five AmeriCorps locations in the United States. Other workers at the Millvale site were from Arkansas, California, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, Delaware, Illinois and Washington.

Virginia Giles, volunteer coordinator for the outreach agency, praised AmeriCorps.

"It's a great thing to take people out of their neighborhoods and see how people in other areas are coming together to make their communities stronger," she said.

The Millvale community has contributed to the center project by donating building materials, including paint, windows, doors, vinyl tile, fire extinguishers, cabinets and office furniture, said Don Breitbarth, capital campaign associate for the outreach agency.

"We're looking for parking lot bumpers and white ceiling tiles, and we're recruiting more volunteers for painting this summer and to move the office furniture in."

Millvale Manager Virginia Heller said the borough hoped to rent two other spaces on the second floor.

"They could be divided, if necessary, and will produce income to pay the utilities and maintenance at the community center," she said. The multipurpose room downstairs could be rented for weddings and other events.

The architectural firm of Ross Schonder Sterzinger and Cupcheck designed the floor plans, Mr. Bono said.

Maria Christina, Millvale manager for the outreach organization, said 2,574 people contacted the satellite for assistance last year in the 23 communities it serves.

The Millvale satellite also works with the Millvale Food Cupboard at Christ Lutheran Church and is part of the Millvale Ministerium, a group of churches and social service agencies.

"It will be nice to have a facility where all families and individuals can be served with a full measure of dignity," she said.

North Hills Community Outreach, an interfaith, nonprofit organization, was founded in 1987, a year after religious and community leaders joined to help victims of devastating flooding in parts of the North Hills.

Its headquarters are in Hampton. In addition to the Millvale satellite, the organization has two satellites in Bellevue -- in Emanuel's Lutheran Church on North Freemont Avenue and at the Suburban Campus of Allegheny General Hospital on Jackson Street -- and staff at the auto center in Richland.

For information on North Hills Community Outreach, which provides food, counseling, transportation, employment assistance and other services, call 412-487-6316.