A $1.5 million federal grant will provide free job training to 66 young adults in the greater Bridgeport area.
The grant is for the youth job training service The WorkPlace. They offer a program called YouthBuild, where teenagers get academic support, career readiness training, and help with job placement.
They also offer a path to certification in carpentry, electrical, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. Dominique Nerette went through the program.
“I dropped out of high school around 17, going from job to job: Planet Fitness, Price Right, things like that,” Nerette said. “And I mean, those jobs are cool and whatnot, but they’re not careers. And I wanted that, you know, I wanted to have the opportunity to really make my family proud, friends, community. And YouthBuild gave me the opportunity.”
A big part of the YouthBuild program is community service. For the grant, The WorkPlace partnered with the New Haven and Bridgeport housing authorities — and the 66 young people chosen will help build affordable housing for those communities.
The WorkPlace’s CEO, Joe Carbone, said now is the time to get Connecticut’s young adults on the path to success.
“We have the lowest unemployment rate in history,” Carbone said. “The job development, the economic movement, has never been stronger than it is right now. In terms of moving people from without a high school diploma, from lacking or from having a lot of challenges, to where they can be on a pathway to middle-class America — there has never been a better time.”
Advocates have said tens of thousands of youths are ‘disconnected’ in Connecticut. That means they’re not in school or work and aren’t trying to get there.
Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim (D) said he hopes the grant will lead to connections for the people in the program and those around them.
“Somewhere along the way, we've had those kinds of days, those moments, those meetings, those encounters that hopefully had an impact, that maybe put us in one direction or another,” Ganim said. “And I got to believe that these 66 and plus that you're impacting will have those moments, and then their careers and lives will be the next generation, the foundation, to continue the work and success for The WorkPlace and so many others.”
