YouthBuild Boston

CONTACT:

504 Dudley Street
Boston, MA 02119-2767
617-445-8887
www.ybboston.org

Kenneth G. Smith, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

YouthBuild Boston began in 1990, the first replication of a model program conceived in East Harlem in 1978 by Dorothy Stoneman, Harvard graduate and later MacArthur Award Winner. YB is a public-private partnership program that recruits unemployed and out-of-school youths ages 16-24 to assist in community development by helping to rebuild dilapidated structures for low-cost housing and other community purposes. The youths learn construction and other work skills, while also resuming schooling toward high school graduation or GED certification. YBBoston also has a Technology program to distribute computers and train youths in computer-related skills; its “Project Advantage” helps out-of-school upper teens identify career paths. YB's slogan is “Rebuilding Communities, Transforming Lives.” YBBoston has "transformed" over 550 unemployed and underemployed young people, has built 65 units of affordable and needed housing, and has remodeled and enhanced many community facilities so that other organizations could flourish. The YBB model went national with a HUD YouthBuild Initiative in 1991. Today YBUSA is headquartered in Somerville, and includes over 200 local programs in 44 states. Massachusetts has 10 chapters — Attleboro, Boston (Roxbury), Brockton, Cambridge, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, Quincy, Springfield, and Worcester. Local chapters are all self-supporting through philanthropy. Boston and Massachusetts need our YouthBuild programs, and they need your support.

(2004: HUMAN SERVICES: Children and Youth: General)