Homewood Resident Receives Promise Award

Pittsburgh, PA (PittsburghNewsWire.com) – Recently awarded The “Promise Award” by the Young Preservation Association of Pittsburgh for her commitment to Homewood, Dawn Webb Turner considers it an honor to represent her neighborhood.  “I am excited to be recognized as a person and organization undertaking a new preservation initiative representing great promise for advancing historic preservation in southwestern Pennsylvania,” says Webb Turner.

YPA officials say that Webb Turner’s work with YPA over the past year as a volunteer developing the Pittsburgh region’s first African American history tour guide, as well as her efforts to preserve the National Negro Opera Company first home, and her extensive experience, education, and community involvement makes her an ideal awardee.

In its fourth year, Webb Turner feels she is in good company with the other Promise Award winners. Successors include Tansy Michaud, a senior at Norwin High School (2008); Sandee Umbach, director of Wash Arts (2007); Braddock Mayor John Fetterman (2006); and The Union Project (2005).

The only organization of its kind in the United States, YPA is a regional provider of value-added preservation services that encourage the participation of young people in historic preservation. It provides events, tours, research, training, technical assistance, and special projects that encourage the next generation to take a leadership role in preserving their communities.

An educator by trade, Webb Turner is a third-grade teacher at the Pittsburgh Faison Arts Academy. A graduate of Westinghouse High School she received undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, graduating Cum Laude and has held positions as a Branch Manager for Three Rivers Bank and Assistant Vice President in Business Banking at PNC Bank. 

Concerned that youth of to day are not familiar with their history or economics, she operates Our House Development and is developing the George A. Webb Sr. Learning Institute that will teach financial education and entrepreneurship skills to elementary-school aged children and older.  Our House Development exists to help educate the youth in the communities of our true history and culture, science, math, business and finance.  She says its primary goal is to help prepare students to become young entrepreneurs, while utilizing the arts and culture as a positive medium to educate, promote, and reinstate self-pride.

Webb Turner is also the Steward of Homewood North under the Clean Pittsburgh Commission, and started the “Let’s Clean Up Our House Committee,” a group of youth, residents, and block club members who are dedicated to cleaning areas in the community.

    
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