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Schuylkill Community Action

By Schuylkill Hub editorial · Published July 21, 2026

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Schuylkill Community Action is Schuylkill County’s Community Action Agency — the private, nonprofit body set up to bring federal anti-poverty funds to low-income residents of the county. It was incorporated in 1965 as The Economic Opportunity Cabinet of Schuylkill County, in the first years of President Johnson’s War on Poverty, and it has carried its present name since July 1, 2000. From a cluster of offices in downtown Pottsville — its program office in the old corner building at 225 North Centre Street — it runs housing, food, utility, and self-sufficiency programs across the county.

Markers: verified · corroborated · single-source or open. This is a modern, active organization: the account below rests on the agency’s own published record (read July 2026), on federal and Pennsylvania government sources and standard references, and on IRS filings — each cited where it is used and dated in the text.

At a glance

A quick map of the article; each point is sourced in the sections that follow.

  • What it is: the county’s Community Action Agency — a private nonprofit, funded chiefly by the federal Community Services Block Grant, serving low-income residents.
  • Founded: incorporated 1965 as The Economic Opportunity Cabinet of Schuylkill County, from the merger of two community-action grant programs — one run by the City of Pottsville, one by the county.
  • Renamed: to Schuylkill Community Action, effective July 1, 2000.
  • Federal lineage: the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 → the Office of Economic Opportunity → the Community Services Block Grant, its core funding since 1981.
  • Seat: Pottsville — administrative office at 206 North Second Street, program office at 225 North Centre Street — with outreach offices in Mahanoy City and Tamaqua.
  • Today: led by executive director and chief executive David R. Young; one of 43 Community Action Agencies in Pennsylvania.

The War on Poverty comes to a coal county

Schuylkill County had been built on a single industry, and by the middle of the twentieth century that industry was in retreat. Anthracite mining — the industry the county was built on — declined for decades, and by the mid-1960s the deep mines had largely closed; the skilled workforce they had supported faced steady unemployment, and many families left the county for work elsewhere. Communities hit hardest by the loss of a defining industry were the kind the federal government’s new anti-poverty programs were written for.

On August 20, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the law that launched the War on Poverty. Its Title II created Community Action Agencies — locally governed nonprofits that could receive federal anti-poverty money directly and were required to plan and run their programs with the participation of the low-income people they served (Congressional Research Service, RL32872). The Act framed that requirement in a phrase that became famous, and for a time controversial — the “maximum feasible participation” of the poor (Community Action Agencies). Each agency answered to a tripartite board — by federal design, one-third representatives of the low-income community, one-third public officials, and the rest from other community interests — a structure that survives in Community Action today (CRS RL32872).

Founded in 1965: the Economic Opportunity Cabinet

Schuylkill County organized its own agency the year after the Act. Schuylkill Community Action’s own history records that it “was initially incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 1965 … under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” as “The Economic Opportunity Cabinet of Schuylkill County” (SCA, Mission & History). The Cabinet was formed, that history adds, “as a result of the combination of two community action grant programs operated by the City of Pottsville and Schuylkill County” — two local efforts consolidated into one county-wide agency (Mission & History). The Internal Revenue Service recognized it as tax-exempt in October 1967 (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, EIN 23-1670456). SCA dates itself simply to 1965; the exact charter date within that year is not fixed in the sources gathered here.

From the start the Cabinet was the county’s sole conduit for federal Community Action money — a private nonprofit rather than an arm of county government. Its homepage still carries the founding year as a motto: “Serving the County Since 1965” (schuylkillcommunityaction.com).

The funding, from War on Poverty to block grant

The federal machinery the Cabinet drew on changed shape over the decades, and its funding followed. The 1964 Act created the Office of Economic Opportunity to run the War on Poverty; in 1975 that office was renamed the Community Services Administration; and in 1981 that agency was abolished and its work folded into the new Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), run through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (CRS RL32872). CSBG became — and remains — the agency’s core funding source (grant CFDA 93.569, from the Office of Community Services) (SCA, Mission & History; schuylkillcommunityaction.com).

In Pennsylvania those funds pass through the state Department of Community & Economic Development, which distributes them among the Commonwealth’s 43 Community Action Agencies; Schuylkill Community Action is the one for Schuylkill County (PA DCED, CSBG Agency List).

Becoming Schuylkill Community Action (2000)

For thirty-five years the agency kept its founding name. On July 1, 2000, “The Economic Opportunity Cabinet of Schuylkill County” officially became “Schuylkill Community Action” (SCA, Mission & History). The new name aligned it with the national “Community Action” network it had belonged to since 1965. Its older name survives in the record — in the newspaper notices of the early-1990s rehabilitation of 225 North Centre Street, described below.

The agency today

As of mid-2026 SCA’s executive director and chief executive is David R. Young, named in both the state CSBG directory and the agency’s IRS filings (PA DCED; ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer). Its stated mission is “to coordinate and focus all available resources upon the needs of low-income Schuylkill County residents,” which, the agency says, “enables them to obtain adequate, affordable housing and to secure opportunities to achieve self-sufficiency” (Mission & History).

That mission runs through a broad portfolio of programs, listed on SCA’s own site (schuylkillcommunityaction.com):

  • Bridge House — transitional housing.
  • Weatherization — energy-efficiency improvements for income-eligible households.
  • Utility Assistance — help with heating and other utility costs.
  • Schuylkill Food Network — the agency’s food-pantry network, run from 200 North Second Street.
  • Housing & Mortgage Counseling — foreclosure, homebuyer, and related counseling.
  • Housing Repair — home-repair and rehabilitation programs.
  • Financial Education — budgeting and financial-coaching services.
  • Emergency Services — short-term help for households in crisis.

Its scale rises and falls with the emergency programs it administers. The agency’s federal Form 990 filings show a pandemic-era peak near $11.8 million in the fiscal year ending June 2022 — when it was administering emergency rental, food, and energy assistance — settling to about $4.7 million by the fiscal year ending June 2025 (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, EIN 23-1670456).

The work runs from several downtown Pottsville addresses — the administrative office at 206 North Second Street, the program office at 225 North Centre Street, the Schuylkill Food Network at 200 North Second Street, and a weatherization office at 500 North Centre Street — with outreach offices beyond the county seat in Mahanoy City and Tamaqua (SCA, Offices).

The program office at 225 North Centre Street

The corner building at 225 North Centre Street, at Centre and Race, is a nineteenth-century Italianate store-and-apartments block that had held a grocery, a hatter, a J.C. Penney store, and a work-clothes store before downtown’s trade fell away. In September 1992 the agency — then still the Economic Opportunity Cabinet of Schuylkill County — applied to the state Housing Development Fund to rehabilitate it “to create six affordable two bedroom apartments” (Pottsville Republican, Sept. 16, 1992). A limited partnership formed with the agency bought the building in 1993, and the historic renovation followed in 1994 (225 North Centre Street). Since then the storefront has been SCA’s program office, below the six apartments the work created (SCA, Offices).

Across the same 200 block of North Centre, the Salvation Army — at work in the county since 1885 — has long run its Pottsville thrift store, a neighbor a century older in the same work. And through every tenant since the 1880s, 225 has kept one shape — rooms above, a storefront below; today the rooms are affordable apartments, and the storefront is the office of the county agency that made them.

Towns: Pottsville, Mahanoy City, Tamaqua

Sources

Frequently asked

What is Schuylkill Community Action?
Schuylkill Community Action (SCA) is Schuylkill County's Community Action Agency — a private, nonprofit organization funded chiefly by the federal Community Services Block Grant to serve low-income county residents. It runs housing, food, utility-assistance, weatherization, and financial-education programs from offices in Pottsville, Mahanoy City, and Tamaqua. It was founded in 1965 and carried the name 'The Economic Opportunity Cabinet of Schuylkill County' until July 1, 2000.
When was Schuylkill Community Action founded?
It was incorporated in 1965, under Pennsylvania law, as 'The Economic Opportunity Cabinet of Schuylkill County' — formed by combining two community-action grant programs, one operated by the City of Pottsville and one by Schuylkill County, into a single county-wide agency. It changed its name to 'Schuylkill Community Action' effective July 1, 2000.
What does Schuylkill Community Action do?
As of mid-2026 its programs include Bridge House transitional housing, weatherization, utility assistance, the Schuylkill Food Network, housing and mortgage counseling, housing-repair programs, financial-education coaching, and emergency services. Its stated mission is 'to coordinate and focus all available resources upon the needs of low-income Schuylkill County residents,' enabling them, the agency says, to 'obtain adequate, affordable housing and to secure opportunities to achieve self-sufficiency.'
Where is Schuylkill Community Action located?
Its administrative office is at 206 North Second Street in Pottsville and its program office is at 225 North Centre Street, with the Schuylkill Food Network at 200 North Second Street and a weatherization office at 500 North Centre Street. It also keeps outreach offices in Mahanoy City and Tamaqua.
Is Schuylkill Community Action a government agency?
No. It is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization — the model set by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which let local nonprofits receive federal anti-poverty funds directly. It is the Community Action Agency designated for Schuylkill County, one of 43 such agencies in Pennsylvania, and is governed by a tripartite board that includes low-income, public-sector, and private-sector members. As of mid-2026 its executive director and chief executive is David R. Young.