News And Stories
YouthBuild: Building Homes and Friendships
You know friendship when you hear it. In the case of Tree Trust’s summer YouthBuild crew, friendship expresses itself in lighthearted teases and taunts. The young men in the program throw good-natured barbs at each other as they re-roof the garage at 3223 Dupont Avenue North. Each crew member gives as good as he gets, and their pointed remarks reveal that they know each other well.
All of them are members of Tree Trust’s first three YouthBuild crews, and they joined together this summer to continue Tree Trust’s partnership with the Minnesota Internship Charter School and Urban Homeworks.
YouthBuild participants complete their high school education while earning a wage, learning basic construction skills and creating affordable housing opportunities in low-income neighborhoods.
The summer group includes recent YouthBuild high school graduates and some who will graduate this fall.
Six group members saved some of their own money and participated in a YouthBuild sponsored service trip to Mississippi earlier this year. YouthBuild crew members worked for the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project 2008 with Habitat for Humanity. In Mississippi, crew members used the skills they learned building and/or refurbishing homes in Minneapolis to serve Mississippians in need of affordable housing.
The home they are rehabbing on Dupont Avenue North contained lead based paint. The YouthBuild participants received special training and mastered the specific safety measures required to remove lead-based paint from a home.
In addition to rehabbing the Dupont home, the summer YouthBuild crew is putting the finishing touches on 2130 Bryant Avenue North, a house completely destroyed by arson that YouthBuild participants recently rebuilt. After the fire, the Bryant Avenue home needed to be gutted and entirely reconstructed from its foundation.
When they started work on the house last year, the YouthBuild crew members may not have realized that they were beginning to lay an entirely different kind of foundation as well. They built a house while they built friendships.
Tree Trust
2350 Wycliff Street Suite 200
Saint Paul, MN 55114
Phone: 651-644-5800
Fax: 651-644-1469
