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Our Grants At Work On The Ground: Rebuilding Together Pgh’s Jobs First Program

Jan 31, 2017

The Jobs First program provides Rebuilding Together Pittsburgh’s (RTP) with a reliable labor force while offering a paid skills-development opportunity to hard to employ community members. 

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Clyde, a crew member of the Homewood Jobs First crew assisting an alternative spring break volunteer from Idaho

Last year, we awarded a $15,000 grant to RTP to fully develop the Jobs First program so they would be able to more effectively recruit, train and place participants to serve as laborers on home repair projects while learning skills including drywall and plaster repair, flooring installation, painting, and landscaping. The program was developed to serve local community members who have, for various reasons been unable to find and/or maintain meaningful and long-term employment and provide them with valuable work experience in construction, including demolition, interior repairs, drywall patching, flooring installations and minor carpentry.

Our grant enabled RTP to make great strides in moving the program forward by developing an orientation process to ensure participants are fully prepared to become dependable, well-trained, long-term employees.

“Neighborhood Allies’ Small and Simple grant has greatly increased the success of Rebuilding Together’s Jobs First program. Through the Small and Simple grant RTP was able to focus on building a strong structure and support network to ensure the success of our participants — during the program and beyond their graduation.”

-Steve Hellner-Burris, Executive Director, Rebuilding Together Pittsburgh

The impact of this program is striking. In 2012, RTP was able to complete 23 projects in one neighborhood. In 2013 and 2014, the first community-based work crew enabled the organization to nearly double its production of home repair projects to 40 each year. Since its inception, 26 people have participated in Jobs First. All were previously unemployed, 90 percent were African-American, and three graduated to leadership positions within the Jobs First program. The impacts of Jobs First are currently measured by tracking the number of Core Home Repair projects completed, and the number of Jobs First participants that successfully complete the program and obtain outside employment.

For more information on RTP and the great work they are doing in Pittsburgh, visit their website

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Top Header Image Photo Credit: Prototyping Larimer Stories by artist John Peña, photo by OPA