YouthBuild North Central
Spring 2020 Newsletter
May 2020
Check Out What We Have Been Doing
It was a rainy and snowy first week for our new YouthBuild Crew. Despite the weather the crew showed up ready and willing to learn. Ready to start a new chapter in their lives. Ready to make a difference in our community. Ready to learn skills and get their TASC. Ready to find employment. Our staff was ready to greet them and help them achieve their personal goals.
Here are just a few pictures from those first days.
YouthBuild Lost a Member of its Work Family
Loren Fortney Passed Away April 12, 2020

With the help of the Tucker Community Foundation, YouthBuild North Central is raising a fund to support the program and its alumni into the future. With the gracious support of Anita Fortney, we have named the fund the Loren Fortney YouthBuild Fund, in honor of a great man and inspired teacher who taught hundreds of crew members from 2003-2015 and even came back to tutor 2017-2018. The Loren Fortney YouthBuild Fund will provide scholarships to YB grads and provide program support to protect it from federal funding uncertainty. If you would like to honor Loren with a contribution, no matter how large or small, please do!

To read more about Loren and how much he meant to YouthBuild CLICK HERE

Our New Crew Helped at the Camp Pioneer, Road Clean-Up and Cass

We arrive with smiles on our faces, we help, we clean, we undecorate and not even SNOW can stop us. Our new crew started at the end of January and they jumped right into volunteering in our local community with some incredible organizations. 4H Camp (Camp Pioneer) and Cass State Park to name a couple.

COVID-19 Does Not Stop YouthBuilders

YouthBuild crews are strong, adaptable, and tough. These traits are helping keep our crew engaged during this time of social distancing and business closures. When the Stay-At-Home order went into effect our team went into action and developed plans for moving studies and construction learning to an on-line format.
We had a few challenges, like some students did not have laptops/computer to engage. We solved that, with the help of our supporters, and were able to raise emergency funds to buy laptops for those who needed them.
Otto, our construction trainer, has become a master at teaching our PACT courses on-line.
Thomas has a daily video meeting with all crew members to talk about TASC prep, creative writing and the KHAN Academy.
The rest of team, Michelle, Tara, Doug and Sharell keep in contact with the crew via our social media accounts and phone conversations. Together our staff is preparing for the return of the crew to our building, with all the required social distancing and PPE that is needed.

We are excited for our crew coming back and getting back to our House Building, TASC test taking and community volunteering.

The YouthBuild North Central Program is funded from Federal Agency grants, local organizations and individual donors. We truly appreciate each and every donor, for we know that without your support we would have no YouthBuild. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT.