Mass.-based nonprofit nets $1 million grant award

Serghino René

Dorothy Stoneman, president and founder of YouthBuild USA, a national program based in Somerville, was recently awarded the 2007 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

YouthBuild USA was one of 10 winners of the award, which honors and supports entrepreneurs whose organizations have the potential to resolve critical social issues through innovative and effective approaches.

In addition, YouthBuild USA will receive $1 million — a three-year grant of $330,000 per year — which will be used to raise public awareness about the potential of low-income youth, expand the program and encourage policymakers to use all options to reconnect at-risk youth to education, careers and service.

Founded in 1990, YouthBuild USA offers low-income youth ages 16 to 24 who have dropped out of high school a full-time opportunity to receive their GED or high school diploma. At the same time, the students earn job skills through building affordable housing for homeless and low-income people. The program supports a nationwide network of more than 225 local YouthBuild satellites to help diminish poverty in their communities and, sometimes, internationally.

“YouthBuild opens doors,” said Stoneman. “We get these kids on track for higher education, or for a career in construction [or] community service while emphasizing positive values. We’re helping them become leaders and we give them everything they are looking for in one place.”

Stoneman says these young people have great potential that has largely been misunderstood and overlooked.

“These are young people whose intelligence has been underutilized because they are in an education system that doesn’t support them,” said Stoneman. “It’s like a huge waste of human resources. [Seemingly], some of the systems in place only prepare them for low-wage, dead-end jobs. Someone has to respect their potential for them to plug in and want to give back.”

For some of these kids, a second chance is necessary. But for Lyle Oates, 18, of Cambridge, this was a final chance to get his life right.

About a year ago, Oates was expelled from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School. With nowhere to go, he started looking for jobs and a GED program. It didn’t take him long to decide that a GED wasn’t for him. He wanted his high school diploma.

“I wanted to better myself, but I just didn’t know how to go about getting it,” said Oates.

Oates found out about the program through a friend, a YouthBuild alum that convinced him to give it a shot. The rest, as they say, is history.

Oates has been in the program for about six months, alternating between classes and working at construction sites each week. He says he’s in a better position now than he ever thought possible.

“Being in YouthBuild is more of a privilege to me, not a right,” said Oates. “YouthBuild told me how to achieve what I wanted, but it takes a lot of hard work.”

About 90 percent of all YouthBuild students left school without earning a diploma. Seventy-two percent of YouthBuild participants are male, 48 percent are black, 22 percent Latino, 22 percent white and 8 percent self-identified in another racial or ethnic category.

President Bush’s budget request for the 2008 fiscal year does include $50 million for the federal YouthBuild program, but that amount still represents a cut in federal dollars. The budget cuts are forcing many YouthBuild programs to close their doors.

Each year, YouthBuild accepts about 8,000 students, but last year, they turned away 14,000 due to a lack of funding. Stoneman hopes the Skoll grant will help change that.

“These are young people who get turned away and won’t find an opportunity like this anywhere else,” said Stoneman. “We can only assume the program has reached its full scale when we have to go out to look for the youth ourselves.”

About 85 percent of students who complete the YouthBuild program secure a job, go on to post-secondary education or continue on the path of community service.

Dorchester resident Ben Moreno, 21, already had a high school diploma when he came to YouthBuild. He found out about the program though a friend and saw it as an opportunity to get a jumpstart in carpentry.

He has since graduated from the program and was recently accepted into a local Carpenter’s union. He is in the process of looking for a job, but in the meantime he continues to work with YouthBuild on a home for the homeless and disabled at 131 Ziegler Street in the Dudley neighborhood.

“YouthBuild taught me several job skills,” said Moreno. “I wouldn’t know how to cut wood properly or even build some things [without it]. It would have been harder to get into the union and make an impression.”

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., recently vowed to continue fighting for additional funding for YouthBuild.

“I am proud to continue to support YouthBuild in its efforts to change lives and empower communities,” said Kerry in a statement. “These grants will provide job training and leadership skills to hundreds of at-risk young people across Massachusetts, putting them back on a path toward graduation and helping low-income communities across our state build affordable housing.”

The Skoll Awards will be presented on March 30 at the third annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford in England.