Ulster YouthBuild getting $380,000 from state program

Ulster YouthBuild will receive $380,600 as part of the state’s Workforce Development Demonstration Project initiative to provide atrisk youths with alternatives to gang involvement, according to a state Sen. Jen Metzger’s office.

Ulster YouthBuild, based in Kingston, provides hands-on job training, education and leadership development to low-income at at-risk youths and young adults from the surrounding communities, teaching vocational and life skills, Metzger’s office said in a press release.

“In January, I met with some of the students from Ulster YouthBuild, and I was incredibly impressed with their drive and commitment, and with the enormous impact that YouthBuild has had not only on their lives but the lives of those in the surrounding community,” Metzger, D-Rosendale, said in the release. “This funding is an important investment in the future of young people who might not otherwise have opportunities to learn trades, and the hands-on training YouthBuild provides results in tangible improvements to neighborhoods and communities.”

YouthBuild works with out-of-school young people between the ages of 16 and 24. Applicants for the program are required to attend a three-week Mental Toughness Orientation before they can be enrolled, according to the YouthBuild website. Once enrolled, the youths spend half their time in the YouthBuild classroom, where they prepare to take the state high school equivalency test, and half their time being trained in construction skills at project sites.

For more than 20 years, YouthBuild has served more than 500 young people and has rehabilitated and constructed homes, teen centers and waterfront structures, according to the release. The YouthBuild participants also have built accessibility ramps for people with disabilities, put a new roof on a Veterans of Foreign Wars center, and replaced the floors at a local center for the homeless. They also rehabilitated a building to house the SUNY Ulster Clean Energy Technology Training center.