Staff photo / Daniel Newman Prostate cancer survivors Don Shiley, left, and Tim Monroe, right, watch from below as fellow Man Up Mahoning Valley members Joe Mazerik, middle, Rich Pacholec, back middle, and Steve Burbank, back left, begin replacing Vivian Siefert’s porch at 107 Euclid Blvd.

LIBERTY — A group of eight men from Man Up Mahoning Valley took action Tuesday, rebuilding a front porch for the family of a fallen friend.

Larry Siefert of Liberty died in September 2022 from prostate cancer. He was involved with Man Up Mahoning Valley, a group that focuses on spreading awareness for early detection of prostate cancer and guiding area men in their battles with the disease.

Member Steve Burbank rounded up seven friends to reconstruct a front porch for Siefert’s wife of four decades after she shared safety concerns for her 1- and 3-year-old granddaughters, Mackenzie and Amelia, who live next door.

“We’ve been in this house for 27 years,” Vivian Siefert said. “The porch is as old as this house. I think it was original, and this house was built in 1955. We started noticing that it was deteriorating and last summer, before my husband took a turn for the worse, he was planning on rebuilding the porch.

“Steve brought over some Man Up tickets to us for a Scrappers game when I just happened to mention that we would try to get it taken care of because I have two small grandchildren living next door. But then I didn’t think anything of it after the fact.”

Last Saturday, which would have been the Sieferts’ 45th wedding anniversary, Burbank surprised her with a call and told her that the porch rebuilding had been planned for months.

“He called and told me that he got a group together to come out, tear down the porch and build it new to make it safer,” Vivian said.

Man Up raised $500 with donations from the Mercy Health Foundation to complete the project. It also received confirmation from Mercy Health that more money will be offered, if the group needs it.

All from the Valley, Joe Mazerik, Larry Restivo, Tim Monroe, Rich Pacholec, Jim Lowers, Don Shiley and Mark Pesut showed up with Burbank for the first day of the rebuild. Monroe, Shiley and Burbank are prostate cancer survivors, with Burbank being a two-time survivor.

Vivian said Larry was diagnosed with a rare form of prostate cancer in February 2021. It progressed quickly. “Not too many men in the country actually have it,” she said.

He was in and out of the hospital between August 2021 and September 2022, with hospice, and died on Sept. 10, 2022.

“As part of our group, he (Larry) wanted to do more for our group and become a member of Man Up Mahoning Valley,” Burbank said. “We always have a bunch of volunteers get together for events and free screenings throughout the year. I said ‘When you get better, you can come and be a part of the group.'”

Burbank said the plan to rebuild the porch started to come together once he noticed its condition.

“It took a little time, from July to now,” Burbank said. “We decided once the weather got nice for a few days, we were going to come and build this deck. I didn’t know it was going to be their anniversary last Saturday, but the weather didn’t cooperate. So here we are today, doing what we wanted to do. Hopefully, in the next couple of days, we’ll have a brand new porch here.”

Laura Boomhower, the group’s liaison through Mercy Health, arrived at noon with pizza for the group, and played a role in helping attain funds for the project.

The group meets at Yellow Brick Place on Canfield Road in Youngstown, and Boomhower mentioned many speaking engagements and programs in which the group invests time to speak about men’s health.

“The fact that these guys got together to support one of their fellow prostate cancer survivors who passed away is just a great thing,” Boomhower said. “This is just something that shows you, when you go through something like this, you have the support.”

Burbank said everybody in the group can do different things. Some guys will haul wood and garbage while others are more intricate with details. “Whatever we can do to help out,” he said.

“We wanted to be a part of this. And we thought ‘what a perfect thing for us,’ to recognize us a little bit, and also of course to help them out a bit,” Burbank said. “I think he’s watching from above today, and I think it’s a good thing.”

dnewman@vindy.com