Girard man and his wife dedicate their lives to helping others
Correspondent photo / Maurita Hoffman Mandy and Scott Forestal of Steel City Warriors pose inside their Girard home. Although Forestal and much of his family reside in Girard, Steel City Warriors is involved with many area school districts, including Liberty, Girard, Niles, Trumbull Career & Technical Center, McDonald, Youngstown and Austintown.
GIRARD — Scott Forestal summed up his view of helping others and how people should behave by saying, “stop worrying about what the Joneses down the street have; step back and do what’s best for everyone, not just yourself.”
Forestal and his wife, Mandy, have put that vision into practice, spending much of their time collecting food and clothing to help others. They also host events to raise money to replenish donated supplies.
Forestal said the seed for helping was planted about 10 years ago while he was at Pleasant Valley Church with his mother. At that service, he recalled that Allison Glass of Summit Academy in Warren spoke of the needs of the families and children in her school. Forestal said that hearing about their needs inspired him to do something to help.
After the service, Forestal reached out to family and friends, asking for donations of food, clothing and money to buy supplies. He said, “I talked to a lot of people, picked up stuff and dropped it off at the church.”
Forestal continued helping and in 2019, he established Steel City Warriors as a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization, dedicated to helping less fortunate people. Steel City Warriors’ mission statement reads, in part “we can make our community better and stronger, and we can accomplish this goal by raising money, contributing resources and providing help to those in need.”
Although Forestal and much of his family reside in Girard, Steel City Warriors is involved with many area school districts, including Liberty, Girard, Niles, Trumbull Career & Technical Center, McDonald, Youngstown and Austintown. Steel City Warriors can provide specific items as Forestal collaborates with teachers and school personnel to determine what is needed. He explained neither he nor the people who help and donate know the names of families they are helping.
“We do not want people feeling uncomfortable or being bullied,” he said.
Forestal said the entire family is involved in the organization and noted, “two years ago, we got all my nieces and nephews involved by having them put together bags of food or clothing; We had an assembly line going in the garage.” He noted that he feels it is important to teach everyone to “pay it forward and the kids need to see what they have and realize others are not as fortunate.”
Forestal said in 2025, the group donated 2,500 Thanksgiving dinners — complete dinners for four people, and if it was a larger family, two complete dinners were donated. Steel City Warriors has two storage facilities that also stock clothing to distribute to schools.
“This is the time we get calls for kids who need coats or hats and gloves,” he said.
The Steel City Warriors also make sure there are toys for children in the local schools who would not receive much for Christmas were it not for these donations.
However, the schools are not the only beneficiaries of the goodness of Steel City Warriors.
“Recently we have gotten involved in helping people with medical issues by making baskets to help cancer patients,” Forestal said.
He said the group also has worked with the family and friends of patients to “step in and provide clothing, etc.”
Forestal spoke of the generous donations of family, friends and businesses and noted, “I can reach out to several people on the phone at any time and tell them we need something and it is provided.”
Forestal believes “now more than ever, we need to be supporting small businesses in the area.” Acknowledging that this area has fallen onto hard times, he said, “drive past a baseball field and you don’t see a lot of corporate sponsorships, it’s a majority of small businesses that sponsor the teams.”
Forestal believes people need to do their part to support the businesses that support the people in the Valley.
According to Forestal, he and a group of friends each month “pick out a small business that has supported us and we go get dinner or drinks.”
“We always share the events that a business is hosting on our Facebook page. We put every small business that has supported us this past year on the cover of our programs for Night At The Races and we post contributing businesses’ events on the Steel City Warriors Facebook page,” Forestal said.
Steel City Warriors hosts two fundraisers a year — a pancake breakfast and a Night at the Races.
“The first Night at The Races we had maybe seven, maybe eight people attend.” he said with a laugh. “Last year, there were over 600 people there.”
These fundraisers enable Steel City Warriors to have items on hand when an emergency comes up.
“We can get food to the teachers,” Forestal said. He said he tells the people at the schools, “if you guys are short on something, let us know” and they provide it.
Scott, a delivery driver for UPS, and Mandy, an emergency room nurse, have two children, Saralynn and Bobby, and are happily awaiting the arrival of their first grandchild.
On Sept. 8, 2019, Forestal was honored as the coin toss captain during the Cleveland Browns’ home opener. The Browns have a program, the Cleveland Browns First and Ten Movement, which honors fans who contribute positively to their communities. Forestal said he does not know who nominated him for the honor but admitted, “we were treated royally, parked in the team lot, got to meet the team, it was a lot of fun.”
Forestal advised anyone who is interested in setting up a program to help others to “find what you want to do, don’t set expectations, learn to crawl before you walk.”
He added it is easy to become overwhelmed, but he feels it is important to pray on it. “We’ve been blessed with a good group of people, doing whatever needs done, day in and day out,” Forestal said.
Forestal believes that “if you give $1 or $1,000, your charity is still making a difference in someone’s life.”
He said his involvement in Steel City Warriors has “been a humbling experience. It’s one thing to see news reports of people that are hungry and not clothed. Quite a bit different to see it in your own community. People need to step back and do what’s right for everyone.”
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