YouthBuild Teaches Construction Skills While Helping Refurbish Homes

Teens and young adults in Illinois from Thurgood Marshall Learning Center and Rock Island High School, in Rock Island, and from Black Hawk College Adult Ed, in Moline, are gaining skills while serving their communities as they participate in YouthBuild Quad Cities, a youth and community development program. The students are rebuilding and refurbishing homes to create a safe place for women who are experiencing domestic violence and women transitioning their lives for better outcomes, OurQuadCities.com reports.

YouthBuild Quad Cities provides vocational training for individuals aged 16 to 24 who have not completed their high school diploma or GED. For 1 to 3 hours per day, four to five days a week, participants work with community action agency Project Now, in Rock Island, to refurbish homes while gaining skills in carpentry, heating and air conditioning, plumbing, and drywall.  

“The students are learning essential career and life skills, both of which ensure a life with more opportunities,” said Dwight Ford, Executive Director of Project NOW.

YouthBuild Quad Cities Executive Director, Rufus Greer, Jr., said the program benefits everyone; participants learn valuable skills while rehabbing homes for low-to-mid income families. “Our model at YouthBuild is ‘success.’  We define ‘success’ as the progressive realization of a worthy goal. They have to start somewhere…then determine the direction they want to go…and work the plan—be goal oriented.”

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