Diane Belitskus oversaw the construction of 20 homes over 16 years as the first director of Allegheny Valley Habitat for Humanity from 1997 to 2013.
Bryan Heyl’s home in Arnold, completed in December 2011, was one of them. He met Belitskus in 2009, the same year he started working at the group’s ReStore in New Kensington.
They became friends.
“I was usually down there on my day off. She and I would work together,” he said. “She was a great teacher and a great mentor. I’m one of those people that always has questions and wants to learn something. That is how I got my great love for Habitat, just hanging out with her.
“She had all the stories about the families before me, working with the international, things like that,” he said. “She always had so much energy. She would do things she wouldn’t let the volunteers do because she didn’t want anyone getting hurt.”
Belitskus died Oct. 23 at St. Joseph Candler Hospital in Savannah, Ga. She was 76.
Belitskus left Habitat in August 2013, a few months before she and her husband, David, retired from New Kensington to Georgia, where they lived in a home they built on Tybee Island, near Savannah.
“She was enjoying a little bit of retirement, for sure,” said Debra Belitskus, her only daughter and youngest of four who lives in Savannah. “She loved to go to the beach and share videos and pictures from the beach. She loved watching those cargo ships going in and out.
“Her favorite thing was to host visitors and have family and cook huge meals,” she said. “She liked to cook and bake for everybody. I was blessed to have leftovers all the time.”
Diane Belitskus met her husband, who Debra described as an “old country boy” from Cuddy, at Alcoa, where they both worked. She said they were married for more than 50 years.
The Allegheny Valley Habitat chapter started in 1996; Diane Belitskus came on a year later.
Debra Belitskus said her mother loved helping and caring about people and showing them love, whether she knew them or not.
“She was an angel on earth,” she said. “People just aren’t that good. But she was.”
Debra Belitskus said the family was planning on having a small service down South, with a larger service in this area sometime next year.
“She touched more people in her lifetime than you can even imagine,” she said of her mother’s work with Habitat. “She started it from nothing. There was an organization on a piece of paper and that was it.”
John Tamiggi became executive director of Habitat in January 2016.
Although he did not know her well, “I can say she certainly has laid down an amazing foundation for everything that we do currently to today and into the future,” he said. “Her effort and passion have really left a legacy as we move forward serving the Allegheny Valley.”
Tamiggi said the Habitat board is considering ways to honor Belitskus, possibly with a volunteer award in her name.
Belitskus was “a real cheerleader for the City of New Kensington,” Mayor Tom Guzzo said.
“Her work with Habitat was incredible,” Guzzo said. “She sincerely cared about those who may have needed a step up and helped to make sure that they were heard and taken care of. Even after she moved she continued to support our city and kept regular tabs on everything that is going on.”
Heyl was a Habitat board member for four to five years before becoming manager of the ReStore in October 2018. He said Belitskus always sent him a Christmas card; after they moved, he saw her once at a Habitat function in the fall of 2016.
“I didn’t know she was in town,” he said. “I about exploded. I was so excited to see her.”
News of her passing was rough. “She was just such a force of nature,” he said. “You don’t expect her not to be there.”
Heyl said her passion for Habitat is what will stay with him.
“During the application process and during construction, she really was very incredibly supportive of my son and I and she fought for us,” he said. “If I ever had an issue where I was getting emotional about something, I knew all I had to do was go talk to her and it was all taken care of. She was a rock.”
Something Belitskus always did for Habitat homeowners was to buy them something anonymously, such as a piece of furniture or some fixture they really wanted. Heyl said she did that for him — he wouldn’t say what it was.
“That’s reflective of who she is,” he said. “She wanted to do something and not be recognized for it.”