From ‘YaJagoff!’: A Joe of all trades helps his North Side neighbors

This story first published at “YaJagoff!”

Joe Glassbrenner is an IBEW Local 5 union electrician, a husband to Taylor, and father of Gabriel, Leo and Felix. He is a lifelong resident of the Brighton Heights neighborhood of Pittsburgh and is the current president of the Brighton Heights Citizens Federation. Most importantly, he brought the first “free fridge” — a refrigerator to provide fresh food to community members who need a little help — to a part of the city known as a dense suburb-like area where most residents own their homes.

Glassbrenner saw a recent Facebook post that read, with a negative connotation, “Wow, what is happening to Brighton Heights?” As a nonconfrontational, technologically simple man, with a flip phone, Glassbrenner proudly posted a statement of positivity. He can tell you a thing or two about the BH.

Growing up in that part of the North Side, Glassbrenner witnessed his share of vandalism, theft and even crime, as happens in many city communities. Moving out was never a consideration, so instead he dug his heels in to build a better living standard. He knew it would be a good place to raise a family because he was raised there with parks and baseball fields and local stores.

“I wanted my kids to know the area where I grew up, familiarize themselves with the Marmaduke Park slide that everyone talked about,” he said. “I figured that I would find a way to work on the neighborhood and put my energy into volunteering to make it better for the community overall.”

The roots of Glassbrenner’s passion for the Brighton Heights community is a natural progression, starting with his father, who was on the Brighton Heights Citizens Federation board of directors. At that point, Joe was involved as a volunteer on the various youth committees, including the annual Halloween parade. As an adult, still passionate about developing the Brighton Heights area, he found himself on the board of the Citizens Federation, which connects neighbors and creates opportunities for them to thrive socially and economically.

After 2½ years, there was an opening for president of the organization. In January 2020, when he began his first term, there were many challenges but nothing more challenging than navigating the COVID-19 pandemic just two months into his first term.

Glassbrenner worked with his board to continue the flow of resources, information and meetings without allowing any disconnect between residents and BHCF membership.
During his second term as president, he realized that you’re only as successful as the people on your team. That’s when he began to recruit and assemble a team whose passion aligned with the ideas and interests of what residents considered to be important.

This included officers and a maximum of 16 board members. These dedicated members chair and execute events for 13 committees that encompass safety, sustainability, cleanup initiatives, and fun favorites such as the Halloween parade and the house tour. One major deficit was the means to communicate the initiatives and progress to the community, so he appointed a communications chairperson to jump-start the organization’s communications.

Another missing piece was to establish a relationship with city leadership and officials to better understand operations and legal jargon. Glassbrenner and his team quickly had to learn how to work through land-use projects and the city Planning Department’s functionality. This meant adopting and managing a budget.

Being an electrician brought the necessary building skills to repair and update infrastructure within the community. He has been able to transfer his Local 5 skills through meetings and work process to enhance the committees and opportunities.
He wanted to educate teens and young adults about work opportunities in building trades — specifically how to earn a steady, respectable living.

He and his team created an annual event at which various members of the Western Pennsylvania building trades gather in a local park to demonstrate, with hands-on applications, their trade roles to local neighborhood kids.

“Students from the area gather to watch plumbers, carpenters and pipefitters demonstrate elements of their work. It is a hands-on experience that demonstrates the career opportunities are available to them,” he said proudly.

But tools are needed beyond hammers and nails. Learning Roberts Rules of Order and the legalese of being president of a nonprofit organization was at the top of the neighborhood to-do list.

Glassbrenner enlisted Elaine Glockner to spearhead the welcoming committee activities and fill the role of corresponding secretary. In the past 2½ years, they added just more than 120 participating members to the organization and eliminated old addresses. The membership is currently at 465 and growing every day.

Most recently, the federation, with the help of the Emma Munson Foundation, implemented a “free fridge” service. One of Glassbrenner’s connections, through his children’s previous day care services, asked if he could help place a free fridge in the community. This is a free service for community members to take advantage of healthy food. He not only started the initiative, but he also found the location and stocked it to get it going until the community caught on.

He researched similar projects in New York City and other locations. The challenge was the inability to place the fridge on city property, and to find a privately owned location that would be willing to take on the liability of hosting the fridge. The result was to house the fridge in a church driveway and commission a local artist to paint it.

“People know about the fridge now [and] they make a point to deliver fresh produce and healthier options regularly so others can take advantage of its resource,” said Glassbrenner.
The BHCF depends on the power of volunteers. Unlike other groups, it has no paid staff. It receives no formal funding. With the volunteer fundraising efforts and the businesses that sponsor its events, they have a long record of accomplishments.

In four short years, Glassbrenner started this ball of wax with an example of who led the way.

“I’ll say my hero is my dad. I credit my faith, family and friends to my dad. He worked, raised a family and was involved in the community with grace, respect, integrity and honesty. I can model that.”

“YaJagoff!” is a Pittsburgh-centric podcast, blog and video series dedicated to telling the positive stories of Pittsburgh and the surrounding communities. This story is one in a series on Western Pennsylvania doers from a partnership of about 30 regional newsrooms as part of an inaugural Newsapalooza event, Sept. 26-29. The collaborative series demonstrates the power of a story when networked through an entire community. Read more on the event and buy tickets at newsapalooza.org.

Others in the series: 

Faces of the Valley: Volunteering and firefighting is family affair for Lower Burrell woman (from TribLive.com)

She came back a different person to help people and live well (from Soul Pitt Quarterly)

Pittsburgh environmental activist’s ‘sustainability salons’ foster community (from The Allegheny Front)

A Penn Hills candy factory is making life sweeter for folks on the autism spectrum(from Pittsburgh Magazine)

‘Give Back King’: Go-getter Jamal Woodson a leader on and off the court (from Pittsburgh Union Progress)