With $1.5 Million Grant GRCCT Can Expand Its YouthBuild Program
Grand Rapids — The U.S. Department of Labor recently awarded $1.5 million to The Grand Rapids Center For Community Transformation (GRCCT) to extend its Youth- Build Program.
"It is a forty - month educational and vocational grant", said the center's Founder and Curator Justin Beene. "It is education and vocational award to serve high school drop - outs between the ages of eighteen and twenty - four.
The young people that go through this seven - week program and upon completion, they have earned their GED and a nationally recognized certificate in either construction, or hospitality.
The hospitality training is a mix of customer service, kitchen management, barrista certification. In addition, there is a day of leadership development and job shadowing.
"They will also have CPR First Aid training, be OSHA 10 certified and then they will get placed at a job," Beene said. "We place them at jobs and we have an access manager who is following up with them for twelve months."
Patrick Johnson started at the center about two years ago. He grew up in the neighborhood, got into banking and became a Branch Manager for Chase Bank. We went to high school together and over the years I had been trying to recruit him to Grand Rapids.
He came back and is running operations for the center, and he is a good hire to help with the management of this grant.
He continued, "There are five organizations housed in the center who are collaboratively working together: NAACP, Rising Grinds Café, Building Bridges Professional Services and Bethany Christian Services. Beene also said that the center is purchasing the building at Madison Square with plans to renovate it. "Our young people will be helping with the renovations. We are going to be putting in a full commercial kitchen where our young people can be trained on - site. It will be rented out for local food entrepreneurs and it has a banquet facility that will hold up to about 350 people right here in our neighborhood."
So what's the status of what is left to be done?
"We are in the middle of a $4 million dollar capital campaign and we have about $1.5 million dollars raised, not including this grant as part of the capital dollars needed to renovate the building. So we are expanding and growing and it is something that is intentional, Beene said."
For now, the USDL grant, the fourth for the center, is expanding the program. "This is an increase of $400,000. We will be serving 82 young people over the course of this grant. For sure, we sure want to get the word out so that other young people who need a program like this can sign up."
The GRCCT is located at 1530 Madison Avenue SE in Grand Rapids.
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