2026 Convening Highlights

Saleem Ghubril, Executive Director of The Pittsburgh Promise

Saleem Ghubril is the Executive Director of The Pittsburgh Promise and a passionate advocate for the City of Pittsburgh. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he has devoted his life to serving the people of his community through outreach and education programs. From 1985 – 2008, Saleem founded and led The Pittsburgh Project, a community development organization that provides free home renovations to hundreds of vulnerable seniors each year, and also mentors, educates, and deploys thousands of youth in meaningful volunteer community service. In 2008, Ghubril assumed the leadership of The Pittsburgh Promise, which works for a future where all urban youth are equipped to reach post-secondary success, all public schools serve all children excellently, Pittsburgh is flourishing in all its neighborhoods, and our workforce is widely diverse and highly skilled to advance a region that is good and just for all. In the last 10 years, The Pittsburgh Promise has sent more than 8,800 urban youth to college and provided them with over $134 million in scholarships.

Ghubril is the volunteer pastor of Mosaic Community Church in Pittsburgh. He also serves on the boards of The Buhl Foundation, Vibrant Pittsburgh, and the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh.

Lighting Talks

Lighting Talks are short engaging talks (about 8-10 min.) that are packed full of great content and promise to inspire and capture your attention. We will have two speakers share their experiences of housing and neighboring and you won’t want to miss it!

This year you will hear from high school students from the Neighboring Academy at Steelton-Highspire who are pursuing promising pathways to homeownership to break cycles of poverty. You will also hear from…

Phil Smith, Author. Phil is the former director of HOPE International’s savings group program and co-author of the recently published book, The Way Back to One Another: How to Live As People Created for Community. In addition to giving a Lighting Talk at the convening that explores neighboring practices to build belonging and community through savings groups, Phil will also facilitate a savings simulation after lunch during the “Unconference” that you won’t want to miss!

Sarah Fischer, Associate Professor of Literacy Education at Messiah University. Sarah chose to become an elementary teacher, because she values the opportunity to teach all disciplines and is very interested in the ways children choose to use their increasing independence to explore the world around them. Sarah’s research in conjunction with the Fred Rogers Institute can help us gain better insights into neighboring as a construct. 

Neighboring Academy at Steelton-Highspire High School, Students. The mission of the Neighboring Academy is to break intergenerational cycles of poverty by creating pathways to homeownership that combine local neighborhood capital with 21st Century skills. Students will share what they are learning on their way to saving $25K by age 25.

Following lunch, we will host an “unconference” to share some of the collective wisdom that has been gathered at the convening. If you haven’t ever experienced an “Unconference” before, it is an organic way to invite participants to facilitate conversations on housing & neighboring topics they have experience with and think would be of interest to others. On the day of the convening, participants will be invited to sign up to facilitate a table discussion around a topic of their choice related to neighboring & housing after they have registered. To reserve a table, you need only to write the discussion topic by the table number on a large poster that will be provided. Table reservations are on a first come first served basis. Convening participants are invited to review the topics being proposed to see what discussion they would like to join following lunch. Given this organic approach, participants can come and go as they please and facilitators can decide how long they would like to have the table discussion last, however, all discussions must end by 3PM.

Following lunch, convening participants who register together are invited to either participate in the “Unconference” or use the afternoon time to work together on strategic planning. Organizations are encouraged to leverage this opportunity with their teams to make the most of the morning discussions and related resources into their future plans.

A moderated plenary panel composed of the following professionals will engaging housing and neighboring from diverse perspectives.

• Sharde Hardy, Director of Service-Learning and Community Engagement at Messiah University (Moderator)

• Darrel Reinford, Resident Director East Shore Harrisburg YMCA (Panelist)

• Wendell Hoover, Relator & Chairman of the Board of Eden Village (Panelist)

• Grant Eldridge, Strong Towns Harrisburg Chapter (Panelist)

Here is an overview of some of the panel themes…

Panelists will share concrete examples from their varied experiences of how neighboring principals can impact practice. These insights will help participants working to put theory into practice in their local contexts and diverse neighborhoods.

We hope to spark some catalytic conversations around housing and neighboring policy. Toward that end, we will offer some specific examples of where policy can be improved and how we can more effectively introduce change.

Panel participants will reflect on how philanthropists can respond to the changing landscape of housing & neighboring. While government funding is certainly a crucial component to address the housing crisis at scale, we will discuss some promising opportunities where philanthropists can engage in mutually beneficial and reciprocal partnerships.