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HBI Job Corps Students Work to Make a Difference in Their Communities

Home Builders Institute (HBI) Job Corps students and instructors jumped into action to help their communities on Make a Difference Day on Oct. 23, which was sponsored by USA Weekend and the Points of Light Foundation. Many of the student teams devoted an entire week to community service and others are still working on more involved projects.

HBI’s electrical crew from the Delaware Valley Job Corps Center in Callicoon, NY, tied the event into its volunteer work for “Town Haul,” a six-part television series scheduled to air on The Learning Channel early next year.

The show’s designer, Genevieve Gorder, who made over living rooms in “Trading Spaces,” is this time giving a facelift to Jeffersonville, NY, population 500. Along with instructor Eugene Manguso, the Job Corps students are helping to paint, repair and re-face buildings in the town.

Other HBI Job Corps programs making a difference in their communities included:

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• HBI’s three trades from the Fred G. Acosta Job Corps Center helped the City of Tucson's Parks and Recreation beautify the Rose Garden at Reid Park, where a wedding was taking place the next day. They did such an outstanding job that the parks staff called to thank the members for their work.
• Members of the NAHB Student Chapter at the Cassadaga, NY, Job Corps Center worked with the Buffalo Niagara Builders Association and “Hammered for Habitat” to remove old fixtures and galvanized water pipes from a local home. The carpentry class put the final touches on a large dog kennel for the Dunkirk Animal Shelter, working on the structure’s insulation and paneling and finishing off the roof with asphalt shingles.
• On behalf of the Literacy Center, HBI’s carpentry class from the Penobscot, ME, Job Corps Center moved toys, books, furniture and computer accessories to a local store for the needy and repaired duct work to keep out vermin.
• Downtown Vergennes, VT, is seeing a transformation of its visitor's center on the town green as HBI students from the Northlands Job Corps Center gut the interior and refinish the exterior with new siding and a new door and transform the building from an L-shape to a rectangle.
• Students enrolled in HBI’s painting, facilities maintenance and electrical programs at the Roswell, NM, Job Corps Center helped convert the swimming pool at the Roswell Boys and Girls Club into a boxing training facility.
• Carpentry students at the Woodstock, MD, Job Corps Center helped the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in stripping and repairing roof boards and installing new shingles on four shelters at the Patapsco Valley State Park, and the center’s landscaping class helped refurbish the grounds of the Frederick Douglass Home in Washington, D.C.

HBI, the workforce development arm of NAHB, is celebrating its 30 years of collaboration with the Department of Labor’s Job Corps, which has enabled thousands of disadvantaged youths to become members of the nation’s residential construction workforce.

Job Corps is the nation’s largest federally funded residential job training and education program for at-risk youth ages16-24.

For more information on HBI’s Job Corps programs, e-mail Maria McIntyre at HBI, or call her at 800-795-7955 x8912.
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