What would residents like to see in their town?

Grocery tops list in recent survey

A grocery store is topping the list so far of what Millvale residents want most in their town, according to initial responses from borough residents when they were asked what they want, expect and need.

The Millvale Community Library has been working with the borough to knock on residents’ doors and talk to people at community events, such as church fairs, to find out what they would like to see in their neighborhood.

“This week we launched a new phase in our data collection by sending out a direct mail survey to all [1,800] addresses in the borough of Millvale,” including businesses, said Mallory Womble, president of the library board. “People will have an opportunity to fill out the survey in their own time and return it to us via prepaid postage. Residents can always stop by the Millvale Community Library to take the survey in person, or set up a time to take it by phone.”

The survey, the borough's first needs assessment survey since 1994, asks questions such as “Millvale needs a ___.”

So far, about 200 in-person responses have been received, with grocery store topping the list, Ms. Womble said. The borough has about 3,600 residents, based on census figures.

The survey also asked what residents like about living in Millvale, she said.

“Overwhelmingly, the most common answer so far has been the people,” Ms. Womble said. “Millvalians love their neighbors and that's been really heartening to see that sense of community backed up by the data.”

All answers are anonymous and will eventually be presented to the community. Ms. Womble and her volunteers have been using addresses to code the data to detect any trends.

Collection of data will continue through the end of August with the goal of sharing preliminary findings in the fall, she said.

“The ultimate goal is to create a coalition of organizations and individuals in Millvale that want to see our community continue to grow and thrive, and use the data from our Needs Assessment to [aid] their decisionmaking process moving forward.”

The effort is being funded with grants from the Hillman Foundation as well as GTECH through its Resilience Generation project, accordingto Ms. Womble.

To access the survey online: http://tiny.cc/ millvalecna.