WORKING TOGETHER — Beth Rupert-Warren, community service coordinator for the Jefferson County Resource Network, says the goal of the organization is to bring people together. -- Ross Gallabrese

STEUBENVILLE — Beth Rupert-Warren says the secret to the success and continued growth of the Jefferson County Resource Network is fairly simple.

“We’re just trying to get the community working together,” Rupert-Warren, the network’s community service coordinator, explained.

Started in 2023 as a website that was designed to offer people a one-stop location where they could access information about resources available in the community, the network has expanded to include an app, a newsletter, a series of meetings and more.

It’s grown to offer 74 categories, more than the double the 32 it offered at its launch.

That expansion has even come as a bit of a surprise to Rupert-Warren.

“I thought this was something that we were just going to get started and maintain, but it has become a whole program,” Rupert-Warren said.

Many ideas and programs have been launched because of the work of the network. That includes the Community Connections meetings, which offer discussion about how to close gaps in services across the county.

The next meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. March 25 at the Center for Hope at Wintersville Methodist Church. The topic will be transportation, and Rupert-Warren said the discussion will include representatives from the Brooke-Hancock-Jefferson Metropolitan Planning Commission and Steel Valley Regional Transit Authority.

“We talk about how we can work together as a community to address these issues,” she said.

Originally funded by the Jefferson County commissioners using American Rescue Plan money, the list of the network’s partners has grown to include the Jefferson County General Health District, the Jefferson County Board of Developmental Disabilities, the Jefferson County Educational Service Center and the Jefferson County Prevention and Recovery Board.

It’s all about bringing people and resources together, Rupert-Warren explained.

She cited several examples, including the need for support for area families who are involved in foster care, adoptive care and kinship care. That led to the creation of Caregiver Cafe, which meets from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month at the board of developmental disabilities on John Scott Highway.

“We have dinner for the parents and childcare for the kids and a speaker,” Rupert-Warren said of the program, which is run by the Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development for Kids. “It’s amazing to see how these families have developed relationships. The kids are all forming relationships because they are all playing together. It’s really cool to see this.”

Another example of collaboration she discussed was the area’s lack of available parenting classes, an issue pointed out by Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge Michelle Miller. Rupert-Warren said the AIM Women’s Center now plans to expand its existing series of parenting classes to cover additional topics.

Having an easy place to learn how to get access to services makes the community more welcoming, Rupert-Warren said, while relating how that led to a woman thanking her for being the “resource lady.”

The woman said she and her husband had just moved to town because of the Franciscan University of Steubenville and she didn’t know where anything was. She asked employees at Leonardo’s Coffee Shop — the Fourth Street location where Rupert-Warren, who does not have an office, can often be found working — if they knew where she could get something notarized. They showed her one of the resource network’s fliers and helped her use the QR code to get everything set up.

“She said, ‘I use this all of the time — whenever we have moved, I was always so stressed because I didn’t know where to go — it was where’s this and where’s that. Now, I just go in this app,'” Rupert-Warren said. “It could be somebody moving here who needs to know where the resources are. It could be somebody who’s in a time of difficulty or crisis.”

That app and the website — which can be accessed at jcresourcenetwork.org — are assets that help to make the area a more welcoming place.

“If I was somebody who was looking to bring a business here or looking to move here, I’d want to come to a community that works together,” Rupert-Warren said. “That’s what this is: This really shows how well our community comes together. We always hear the negatives, but our community always comes together.”

That’s something, she added, important to keep in mind.

“You see negative comments, but that’s not what our community is all about,” Rupert-Warren said. “It’s about coming together and working together. That’s when change happens.”