INPERSON
B.O.B. Project Brings Out
the Best in Penn Hills
Tiny home
community for veterans
generates enormous
interest.
Amanda Graney of
Veterans Place and
Shawn O’Mahony
of the B.O.B. Project.
Together they work
to build tiny homes
for veterans.
S
hawn O’Mahony’s father, Robert, never talked about
his military service in the Marines. Instead, Shawn
found out from family members. And now, looking
back, he wonders if his father didn’t have some post-
traumatic stress related to his time in the armed forces.
So it’s no surprise that O’Mahony’s nonprofit, the B.O.B.
Project, is both named after his father and an acronym for
“Bring Out the Best.” It serves the needs of community
development and veterans in western PA. Currently, the
B.O.B. Project is designing tiny homes with OBA Design &
EcoCraft for a tiny home community in Penn Hills that will
house veterans.
The organization is growing by leaps and bounds in Penn
Hills and O’Mahony was just awarded a Jefferson Award for
10 724.942.0940 TO ADVERTISE | Penn Hills
his work. But like all good causes, the B.O.B. Project started
small, and was originally dedicated to gardening programs
and community development.
“The Community Development Corporation wanted to
start a community garden and I showed up to a planning
meeting with a plan,” O’Mahony says. “They, along with
Grow Pittsburgh, accepted the plan and it grew to 104
raised-bed plots, the largest community garden in western
PA. More importantly, it became a hub for the community.
You’d go to the garden and see someone testing solar cells
or something. It became an incubator for people’s thoughts.
People would connect who wouldn’t normally connect—
from janitors to engineers, ethnic and religious—and it
became something very special.”