Welcome to Episode 16 of "The Innovators Den"! In this episode, we had the privilege of sitting down with Roman Woodson, the Director of the New Settlement YouthBuild Program, based in the heart of the Bronx. Roman and his team are on a mission to transform the lives of young adults in the Bronx community by providing them with the education and certifications they need to succeed in the world of construction, carpentry, and more.
Located in the vibrant and diverse borough of the Bronx, the New Settlement YouthBuild Program is making a significant impact. Roman shares inspiring stories of how the program empowers young adults to obtain their GEDs and gain essential certifications like OSHA, opening up a world of opportunities they might not have thought possible. Through dedication and mentorship, the New Settlement YouthBuild Program is breaking down barriers and building a brighter future for the youth they serve.
In this episode, we delve deep into the program's impact, its success stories, and how it's creating pathways to success for young individuals in the Bronx community. If you're passionate about education, empowerment, and changing lives in the Bronx and beyond, you won't want to miss this enlightening conversation.
Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to stay updated with our latest episodes. Share this video with friends and colleagues who believe in the power of education, youth empowerment, and supporting initiatives that make a difference in communities like the Bronx.
Connect with us on social media to join the discussion and stay informed about our future episodes. Thank you for being a part of "The Innovators Den" community, where we shine a spotlight on innovators and changemakers, especially those making a positive impact right here in the Bronx.
Welcome to Episode 16 of "The Innovators Den"! In this episode, we had the privilege of sitting down with Roman Woodson, the Director of the New Settlement YouthBuild Program, based in the heart of the Bronx. Roman and his team are on a mission to transform the lives of young adults in the Bronx community by providing them with the education and certifications they need to succeed in the world of construction, carpentry, and more.
Located in the vibrant and diverse borough of the Bronx, the New Settlement YouthBuild Program is making a significant impact. Roman shares inspiring stories of how the program empowers young adults to obtain their GEDs and gain essential certifications like OSHA, opening up a world of opportunities they might not have thought possible. Through dedication and mentorship, the New Settlement YouthBuild Program is breaking down barriers and building a brighter future for the youth they serve.
In this episode, we delve deep into the program's impact, its success stories, and how it's creating pathways to success for young individuals in the Bronx community. If you're passionate about education, empowerment, and changing lives in the Bronx and beyond, you won't want to miss this enlightening conversation.
Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to stay updated with our latest episodes. Share this video with friends and colleagues who believe in the power of education, youth empowerment, and supporting initiatives that make a difference in communities like the Bronx.
Connect with us on social media to join the discussion and stay informed about our future episodes. Thank you for being a part of "The Innovators Den" community, where we shine a spotlight on innovators and changemakers, especially those making a positive impact right here in the Bronx.
What's going on everyone? Welcome back to the innovators, then. I am forming it on us hashtag on Instagram. Also follow us on YouTube.
Speaker 2:I'm over here with Steve, all business, and we got the special Roman Woodson. What's up? You hear, we just trying to fill it, fill in and get comfortable, but there's a special guest for us today because we shot it with one of his, with his students. Actually, we talked to his students and we communicated with them. You've built and right now we're currently at the new settlement community center. New settlement community center is a state of the art facility here in the Bronx and we just here to highlight it and start this conversation with Roman. What's up, roman?
Speaker 3:stop, man. Thank you for having me. I mean, this is really. This is exciting for me because I get to talk about what I love, and what I love is helping young people grow, and when I say young people, we work with young people. Well, here at the community center, where we're physically at right now, we work with individuals from the time they're born to. There's no limit, right? We work with youth, children and adults, and we have programs and services, but there's one program, if you don't mind, that I really want to talk to you about, and it's the one that I represent. Okay, it's called youth build, and youth build is an international organization. We're all over the world. We're in 23 different countries. We're in New York City, right, there's three youth build programs in the Bronx. There's 19 in New York City. There's at least one in each of the five boroughs, and there's 19 across New York State and over 270 all across the country. There's 44 in California alone, right?
Speaker 1:before we go into, like the details on youth build, can you tell us about? Last time we were here we did something called temperature check can you tell us? What that is.
Speaker 3:Tell our folks what that was so temperature check is part of our culture. We call ourselves a family, we're a community, and what? The temperature check is a way to tell other people how you're doing without saying anything right. So we go from fist to five right anywhere from here to here. There's no three right because we want people to think about how they're feeling. So it's either here one, two, four or five.
Speaker 3:So if somebody in the circle puts the fist up, that means that they don't want to be here, they don't want to be on this planet. They might not want to kill themselves, but they're having such a hard time struggling with whatever it is, because our young people have some real issues. You know, I tell people thank God I'm not a young person right now, because some of the things that they're dealing with just I'm glad I don't have to deal with. So a fist means I don't want to be on this planet, I'm hurting, I'm in pain. A one is it's a really bad day and I don't know when it's gonna get any better. Two is a bad day, but I know it's gonna get better. Four is a good day and five is the best day I've ever had right and we want to get a couple of these together this is pretty good right now
Speaker 1:and I feel like that it's good because you know you kind of check one, check in on each other and you're able to kind of get conversations happening yeah, right get them talking to each other rather than just exactly.
Speaker 3:And the next part of that is we've already discussed this part of our program is how do you want people around you to move when you're having a bad day? So there's three different categories, right? We have one young person who feels if I'm having a bad day, just leave me alone. I need my own space. I'm self-aware, I know I'm not good around other people. So that's one category. Another category is you know what, if we cool, if we talk to each other, then I want you around me. And then the other category and our students kind of make a decision is it doesn't matter who you are. If we are chill or not, let's talk, let's.
Speaker 3:I want to get out of my bad faith so it's really good to know how to respond to somebody, and that's where what we are about. We're about understanding, trying to understand the needs of the young people, because it's changed, right? You know, as I just said, the things that young people have to deal with and unfortunately, sometimes schools have not adapted and adjusted to the changes in the world and what's going on and the needs of the young people. So at youth build, what we do is we're education and paid job training program. Okay, all right.
Speaker 3:Our primary focus is education because, as we know, you have to finish school. You need to finish school. No matter how you do it, you have to finish school. If you don't finish high school or get a GED, people are either going to take advantage of you, not give you the opportunity, like you can't even get a city job, you can't go to college, you can't do certain things. So we focus on the education piece, but then we also focus on skills training, because the older you get maybe you guys get a test to this you need to have some skills. Yeah, when you're young, when you're 18 and 19, you get a pass. You could tell an employer I'm young, I'm energetic, you know training. But when you're getting your 20s, they expect you to have some certifications, some experience some sort of when you get like yeah you know, in your 30s supposed to have more 40s, right?
Speaker 3:so we want to give young people and we primarily work with people in communities like this, in urban communities, low-income communities we want to give them a leg to stand on. We want to help level the playing field, because education is the biggest equalizer, no matter where you come from and what you do. So, with that said, we help them get some skills, some certifications, so that they can graduate. And what graduation looks like for us is when they get these credentials and we help them get a job or we help them go to college, or we help them go into the unions or an apprenticeship or an internship or something, an advanced training program. That's what success looks like for us.
Speaker 3:When somebody's able to become self-sufficient and take care of themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I was speaking to you about it. I got my GED in a similar program and I took the route of like getting my GED in a program like this and then I went on to get my SATs and I went on to college from there. But there's just so many different opportunities that that opens up, like you were saying.
Speaker 2:And they're not all so accessible either. So now there's a company like Youvbuild that are popping up in other places and they're communicating and they're doing the marketing, like you said, in a different strategy, to connect with the students, to connect with their parents, because not everybody knows about these programs. So it's about also gathering the information on how do we target this community to help them right, exactly.
Speaker 3:And let me tell you, our biggest referral source are grandmothers right, wow? And mothers and, believe it or not, probation officers and parole officers and guidance counselors, people that realize that there are young people that just need a chance, they just need an opportunity. And that's why we're here. We're here to help navigate you know them to navigate systems and bureaucracies and processes.
Speaker 1:Just the struggles of being a youth. Just the struggles, yeah, in the inner city.
Speaker 3:We were talking today because we have a new group of students and I might want to add this right now that we're enrolling. Right, we're enrolling the time of the year. We are enrolling, we're welcoming young people. Come to us, check us out, see what we're about. That's all we ask. Meet other young people who are having similar experiences and similar issues, because we're like I said, we're a community. So at the orientation, somebody was afraid of what if I come here and I get bullied? What do I do? Right?
Speaker 2:That's big in the community it is right, it was social media.
Speaker 3:We didn't have that. Yeah, definitely. You guys are a lot younger than I am.
Speaker 1:I didn't have it to this level. I don't know Exactly.
Speaker 3:So, and public speaking is a thing. They want to be streamers, they want to understand digital media and marketing and entrepreneurship and things like that. So what we do is offer them those skills and those, the knowledge and the tools that they need so that they can work in different spaces. Our primary focus to be completely transparent has always been in the 40 years YouthBuild has existed, construction and carpentry. Like each YouthBuild program offers a construction and carpentry pathway, so they learn such things as painting, how to paint, how to plaster, how to put down floors, how to put up a ceiling, plumbing and electrical work. Just if I could just call your attention to right behind us is a garden of flower garden that our YouthBuild students worked on. Hydroponics, too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hydroponics, that's how we do it in a bit Exactly.
Speaker 3:So they learn skills and at the same time, they give back to the community. About a year ago we worked in this is a really good story. We worked in a homeless shelter for young mothers and pregnant women right here in our community. So the young people went there and built a huge flower garden for the women who were in the homeless shelter because they wanted that garden therapy. So the women in the shelter wanted to give back and we were trying to give to them, but they didn't have anything to give. They're in a shelter, but what they did say is they can cook. So they cooked for our young people and they all ate together. And that's what it's about. I tell people, if you ever want to feel good about your situation, do something for somebody who's less fortunate than you. Then you'll realize that you know what. I don't have it that bad, but that's what we're about. We're about giving back to the community, helping the community and helping our young people realize their full potential.
Speaker 2:So here, students, boys, all girls can come and get served. What are the ages?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we work with 17 to 24. Got it. And yes, certifications, some of the certifications they get. They'll get their OSHA 30-hour construction, health and safety Right. They'll get their flagger credential. They'll get their scaffolding credential. They'll get either their high school diploma or high school equivalency. It used to be a GED. Right, when you went, it was a GED. Now it's a high school equivalency. It's a little tougher now. The test is a little tougher.
Speaker 1:I heard it got tougher.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because the US Department of Education don't want people dropping out Is there tutoring programs too. Absolutely so. We have Department of Education teachers. They're really good at what they do, but we also have tutors and we meet people where they are, because there's different levels and the worst thing is to have a young person go into a classroom that's too fast for them or too slow for them. So we want to meet them where they are. I'm glad you asked that.
Speaker 2:And the onboarding process for a parent or a student. If they want to come on their own, they don't have to come with a parent. If they don't, no, they don't.
Speaker 3:Now I love to see a parent, a guardian, a friend, because it absolutely takes a village to raise a child. So I want to know who your support system is and if you have support. So if you are a mother, a grandmother, a caregiver, even a foster parent or a guidance counselor or a social worker, come check us out, have a conversation. One thing that we pride ourselves on is nobody leaves here with nothing. You're going to leave here, either enrolling in the program or referral to another resource or more information, more information.
Speaker 3:Because that's where the knowledge is, that's where the power is and information, and sometimes people just don't know us out there.
Speaker 1:Right, you didn't know about the hydroponic before you came no, and in general a lot of our youth don't think that there's a way out, so to speak, sometimes. So that's really important to understand that there are ways to go about it. There's not just like.
Speaker 3:There's options.
Speaker 1:There's options exactly Like when I was, one of my friends went into the military and he felt like that was the only thing available for him and I thought, about it, but I took a different route.
Speaker 3:That's unfortunate. You just made me think about. Why do you? What is? I just read this what's the number one? I'm gonna tell you, but I'm gonna ask you first what's the number one?
Speaker 2:reason you think why young people drop out of school, I would say the bullying or insecurities about themselves and their community.
Speaker 1:I think it's also like the style of learning.
Speaker 2:So we're kind of indoctrinated.
Speaker 1:We're kind of indoctrinated in just sitting in this classroom for X amount of hours and capturing that information Exactly one person just sees it Exactly. They're talking to us and we're just listening.
Speaker 2:We're not home to focus. So now you hear half the focus, but you was entrained at home to focus Exactly. So it's about here you can learn how to focus to get to your certifications, to get to your career.
Speaker 1:And at a different pace, based on how you learn right.
Speaker 2:Exactly right, Roman. One question so what inspired you to join the YouthBuild community?
Speaker 3:Oh, man, this movement. It's a movement and it's really powerful. So I worked for a time in the financial sector. I made one time, long time ago, I made some good money. Maybe not so much now, but as I started to get older, I realized that I'm not gonna be here forever. When I realized that I have more days behind me than ahead of me, I wanted to create a legacy. I wanted to give something back. So I started volunteering and I volunteered for this organization and met young people who they had the potential, but they just didn't have the guidance, they didn't have the mentoring, they didn't have the training, and I wanted to be a part of their growth and their journey. I wanted to help change lives, because at New Settlement, youthbuild and in YouthBuild programs all across New York, all across the world, we absolutely helped change lives. So when I realized the importance of this job, that's when I made the move and realized that this was my calling. This is where I'm supposed to be. I'm right where I'm supposed to be.
Speaker 1:And if somebody feels that way, we have quite a lot of guests in the show. If somebody feels like they wanna give back through YouthBuild, how can they go about that?
Speaker 3:That's wonderful. I would encourage them to call us visit our website. Could I say it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, tell us right now.
Speaker 3:It's newsettlementorg slash youthbuild. So we're part of the larger organization New Settlement and we are YouthBuild. We are always looking for not just young people but for superstars like you guys in the community, because you guys have something to offer. You can tell your story and somebody that's gonna touch somebody. There's a young person out there right now who needs to hear what you've been through. So we're looking for business leaders to come in and just tell their story. How do they get through whatever they went through to get to where they are and it's gonna touch someone else. I believe young people they need exposure to different things. They don't know all of the I still don't know all of the different opportunities out there, the different jobs out there, the different possibilities out there. So we're looking for mentors, we're looking for coaches, we're looking for people who want to impact young people in our community.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. Well, me and Danny, we've been thinking already about creating a curriculum after we've been working with the YouthBuild. We're like how can we create a curriculum to not only educate students but also anybody who wanna learn? About marketing and take a step for themselves or a company they're working for. So you guys inspired us to do that, oh man.
Speaker 3:I feel fortunate that the young people got an opportunity to meet you, because, let me tell you, after you left, there was a ton of questions. It's like, how do we get to do what they do? And that's how you should know that you are changing lives by the work that you're doing here, because when somebody sees it and they start asking questions, how could I do it? That's when you know there's a need. So I would love to be a part of that and help you guys get funding or get whatever resources or capital that you need, so you can do that, because we need to own our own businesses, we need to take control of our community, we need to help each other out. That's what we do, that's what you do. There's no reason why we shouldn't do it together. Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:That's powerful.
Speaker 1:One major thing you just said we spark some brains. When we were here last time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And that's incredible for me because I think I mentioned it to you my brother was the person that sparked my brain because he wanted to become a physician and he knew that he was going to be a physician. So knowing that we sparked somebody's mind to create their own business or to go into digital marketing, whatever the case is I think it's awesome.
Speaker 3:They absolutely said when are you guys coming back? So you might not need to tell me right now I can't.
Speaker 2:Definitely that would be an honor to circle back and connect with the students and the community as well. I know you guys have events coming up Now that the school year has started.
Speaker 1:One major thing is that we're also from here.
Speaker 2:Right, we're from here. I came from the.
Speaker 1:Dominican Republic. I lived in Walton in 167. Man, I could throw a rock, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's right here. Yeah, it's right here. So you know the community. Yeah, this is what I'm from you know, the needs of the community.
Speaker 3:You know what's going on here and what's happening, and sometimes our young people just don't have anything to do and that boredom creates issues and it creates problems and that's when people get in trouble. And we want to give them something to do, we want to engage them.
Speaker 1:Especially now. We live in an age that they're so much like trying to pull your attention with social media. There's like TikToks, the Instagrams, the YouTube, the Twitch.
Speaker 2:They're highlight there but they don't put their real life there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like comparing yourself to different type of lifestyles.
Speaker 2:With other students or other people's lifestyles and they come to school and they feel less than when. That's not the real world. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And in reality, you just want to be a better version of yourself, rather than just somebody else's version of who they portray that they are.
Speaker 3:Exactly. That's a really good point, because for some people, when they see that they think it's true and, just like you said, they get depressed, they feel like they're not worthy or they'll never get to that point. So that's something that we need to address.
Speaker 1:How could I travel to Bali every other?
Speaker 3:week Exactly Right yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to be in Bali, but that obviously comes with some sort of funding, their influencers, that they're getting funded through the hotel, that they're staying in, the airline, et cetera. There's different ways to get there, but obviously they don't see that and they don't hear that aspect of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's talk about some of this. Let's talk about the action.
Speaker 3:There's a big organization and there's a lot of students dropping out Like you know, and we can't even fix that how we fix that, all right, so let's talk about, at 30,000 feet and then we're going to bring it closer to home. So all across the nation there's over 200. And 50,000 young people who are what we call disconnected. They're not working, they're not doing anything, not engaged. But here in New York City there's almost 140, 150,000. 17 to 24 who are not doing anything.
Speaker 3:And as they get older and don't do anything, then a couple things happen they end up getting in trouble, right Go into prison, they end up not working, not putting back in the community and they end up being a bane on their family and everything else. So the way to deal with that is to help them get a basic education and that, just like I'm sure you can talk about it, opens up doors, because if you don't have that basic education you won't get opportunities, people won't give you a chance or they'll take advantage of you. So that's our primary focus to help people finish school but then also get some skills.
Speaker 2:So you guys also do bilingual Spanish speaking as well, a little bit. We don't hear.
Speaker 3:But one beauty about the program is we've taken on what's called the holistic approach, which means that we address barriers to education and employment and, although we don't offer the program in Spanish, we have a partner that teaches ESL to help especially with the influx of immigrants that are coming over. So a young adult can go to one of our partners learn English to get at a basic level where they can take advantage of the program. That's awesome. So that's what helps us more than anything our partners. We can't do this by ourselves, so we have different partners to be able to address those needs that we don't have. We have a partner that helps out with mental health issues or substance use issues or housing issues. Somebody told me today that and they're just starting the program with us they don't know if they'll be here tomorrow because he's homeless and he rides the subway all night and he says by the time he gets here the next day he can't sit because his legs are hurting.
Speaker 2:And that's real from an 18-year-old.
Speaker 3:Wow. So we have to address those issues before we can deal with the basic needs, before we can talk about anything else.
Speaker 3:So youth programs address those needs 44 youth-built programs in the United States. There was this young adult who, he graduated the program, didn't have a job yet. He wanted not in the United States, in California. He wanted to go to California. He wanted to be a movie star. So I didn't want him to go because he had about $150 in his pocket and half of that was going to be the bus ticket. So we put him in touch with another youth-built program in Los Angeles that had a YMCA. They had housing there so he took the bus.
Speaker 3:I think it took about a week to get there, but he got to Los Angeles. He wanted to be a movie star. He got to Los Angeles. He connected with the other youth-built program where they were able to give him a place to sleep some money, helped him get a job. He did a training, because each youth-built program has different training pathways. He did a pest control training and he called me about six, seven months after he'd been there and he said Mr Woodson, I just want to let you know I'm doing OK and I hired six people, Wow.
Speaker 3:He has his own company. That's incredible. Sometimes it takes a change of scenery, a change of friends, a change of environment. So that's success to us Of course. Or somebody able to go from homeless to having their own place. That's success. So we've had plenty of success stories and we highlight them. We have about an 87% graduation rate, so about 8 out of 10 people who come to us, high school dropouts, end up getting their HSE, learning some skills and either getting a job or doing something positive in the community.
Speaker 1:Can you speak a little bit on the steps? Like, let's say, we bring a student in, what are the steps They'll get into one curriculum and then what's the steps after that?
Speaker 3:OK, all right, it's a full time program where young people come to us from 8.45 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon and our day is a mixture of there's the education piece and then some other pieces that we do during the day, or the vocational skills training, leadership development so we want them to build character in their soft skills and life skills and social skills, so we teach such things as time management, organization skills, public speaking, conflict resolution, public advocacy, you know how to speak up for themselves, and so that's the leadership development. There's college and career prep and then there's the counseling and case management where we work with them on a one-on-one basis or as a group to deal with those personal issues. And the program lasts about an academic school year. We run the same calendar as the school calendar, but some people finish in as quick as, I'd say, three to four months, but then we have some people who are still here two years later, because each person's journey is different and one person can't compare themselves to somebody else.
Speaker 3:So if you tell me, let's say you, steve, tell me. You know, I got to the 12th grade, I had all my credits, I just couldn't pass one region. You might be here for a shorter period of time. But then if someone, daniel, if you come to me and say you know, I got to the ninth grade, I didn't have any credits, I got locked up three years ago and now I'm here, so it might be a little more ground to cover to get to the same result. So that's the path, and each person has what's called an individualized development plan. So you and I would talk about what are your personal goals, what are your career goals and what are your education goals, and how can we come together to help you reach them. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1:What if, like a kid, is watching the show right now and they want to be the next Roman right? What steps would you say they take to get there?
Speaker 3:I would say come in, give us a call, go to our website, send us an email, scan the QR code. We have a short application. Come in and talk to us. Come in and meet with us. We have a great team. We have a great marketing manager, a guy Moises. He's wonderful at what he does. You know, they might want to do the digital pathway. I'm not strong in that area. We have some educators. They might want to take that pathway. But the first step is to do something, is to take it.
Speaker 2:Walking the door. You got to do that right.
Speaker 1:It's a marathon, not a sprint, right?
Speaker 3:You have to take the first step. Our young people. Sometimes that's the hardest. There's a lot of anxiety over meeting somebody new. Somebody told me it took them three months just to come in. They kept rescheduling appointments and canceled appointments, but they told me that they're happy that they did. And that's what it's about. And it's the same person. I'm going to tell you one other thing. It's the same person that said you know, mr Woodson, you remind me of my father. And I'm like why Is he tall, dark and handsome too? And she said no silly, you remind me, or you make me think of what he would, what I would want in him if I knew him.
Speaker 1:She never met her father.
Speaker 3:Wow, and I felt blessed that I was able to be that person that she needed to be okay, to let her know that you know what a man needs to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not some point, yeah Well you leave by example and you've done a great job and you've inspired us and you've been doing a great job here at YouthBuilding. Thank you, it's appreciated.
Speaker 3:We have a good team, because I cannot do this without the whole team.
Speaker 1:How does a program like this get funding?
Speaker 3:That's good. So I'm going to sound like an infomercial right now, but we are primarily funded by the United States Department of Labor. So we are actually in the federal budget YouthBuild programs all across the US. So we get about YouthBuild programs. You know receive money each year from the federal government to be able to offer these services. How could I forget the most important thing we pay a stipend. The young people earn a paycheck while they're here.
Speaker 2:So I could like if I wanted to sign up as an outside student. I could get paid to come into. You earn a paycheck of guys $200.
Speaker 3:The plug, yeah, up to $200 every two weeks. Wow, it's amazing. We're showing up and I don't know how much you? Made when you were in high school. I didn't make no money.
Speaker 2:I didn't make any money either, right.
Speaker 3:But it's to help them, you know, be able to maintain Right. There's a couple of other perks they get metro cards, they get school lunch, they get, you know, we go on trips and do fun things, but they earn money. So how we're able to stay in existence because we are a nonprofit is we have federal government funding, their state government funding, and then our local city council also steps in. So our elected officials realize, you know, in our neighborhoods in New York that there's a need for this and there's a benefit to having a young person go to school versus going to prison, or go to school versus not doing anything. So it's city, state and federal, and also there's private funding, there's foundations, there's corporations. Burlington just sponsored us. You ever go to a store and they ask you I feel like everybody does Do you want to donate to this cause?
Speaker 2:Yes so.
Speaker 3:Burlington Coat Factory did it for youth bill programs. Oh, that's awesome and I forget how much money they raised, and I don't always donate when I'm asked, but somebody donates. I think about a million dollars or something.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. We appreciate you guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah we take donations too. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So let's say for kids, like let's say they come here and they take the courses and they want to start a business, you guys can turn around and become an incubator as well, that you guys can like almost raise grants for students that want to start or start a business, or at least connect with some sort of program like SBA or something.
Speaker 3:We do. We do work with small business services, new York City small business services. We work with workforce ones. Workforce ones is New York City's employment and training agency. They have what's called ITA grants or ITG grants to help people get advanced training and also help people start businesses. So we also offer a paid internship. So let's say we have a young adult who goes through our program and is not yet ready for their first job. Sometimes they need to do an internship just to get their feet wet, to get some more experience.
Speaker 3:But, yes, we want young people to be entrepreneurs, but there's a process and there's steps that they need to go through.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's hard.
Speaker 1:A lot of steps. They want to be here. Everybody wants to start here. We don't want to be up there. Yeah, we don't want to start at 100.
Speaker 3:But that's why it's good for them to hear your stories so they know. You know this didn't happen overnight.
Speaker 2:And we're still learning, and that's another thing they need to hear Every day, you're growing.
Speaker 3:Every day you're learning new things, and it's good and it's part of the process, and it's okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's fine.
Speaker 2:We failed our way here guys. We always say that I like that.
Speaker 1:Because it's a fact. I think it was JFK had a quote like that, like about failure it's only the one that fails the most that actually reaches their goal, or something like that. And that's really how we failed our way, if you call the success.
Speaker 2:We failed our way here and we're still failing, and we learned from our last mistakes.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna give you credit for that, like the first two times.
Speaker 2:And then we failed our way here. That's good, and it's true. It's true.
Speaker 3:Because, you got knocked down and you got back up. Yes, you keep getting back up, and that's.
Speaker 1:You mentioned something as just like walking in the door. It's just like start with one task, finish that and then try to you gotta be on time for yourself.
Speaker 2:You gotta be on time for yourself.
Speaker 3:So many people feel like I have to have all the bullet points before I even start.
Speaker 1:Yes, but what?
Speaker 3:we tell them is you know what, Once you start, it's gonna take on the life of its own.
Speaker 1:So we went to an event, a spire event, and Barbara Cochran, I'm sure you heard of her.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the real estate, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mogul, yeah, she spoke about it. She said, like a lot of people wait to have all the other ducks in a row before that yeah, before they start. She's just like. My suggestion is to start yeah, and then you figure it out as you go, because that's really how she kind of started the Cochran group and look what she's become so Wow.
Speaker 2:A lot of people, like you said, they try to emulate the end, the final, the final result. But you know, me and Danny, we've been enjoying the journey right. The journey is where we've been learning and like we look at the success through the journey, not the end goal, because we're nowhere close to where we want to be.
Speaker 3:Wow, where do you?
Speaker 2:want to be, oh, really far from here, but we started here. You started here, right? We started in the Bronx, yeah, and we was raised here. So I think it's very important for us to highlight what you guys are doing and inspire the people watching, or the students watching, or the parents watching, that there's an opportunity for all of them Entrepreneurs watching someone that wants to help their community out.
Speaker 3:Oh we love to hear.
Speaker 1:We know a lot of people from the inner city and I think that it would be awesome to connect you guys with all these different people that we oh, we would love to.
Speaker 3:We would love to hear from the community. We need them. We can't do this by ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, guys, we had an amazing segment right now and the innovators done, we got a. Let's shout out the building. This building is very special the Lusettlement Community Center. Lusettlement Community Center it's a new state of the art facility here in the Bronx that you guys have access to come to if you guys want to be a part of it Swimming pool here Wait it's an Olympic size, oh man, Olympic size swimming pool Also.
Speaker 3:That addresses 1501.
Speaker 1:Jerome Avenue.
Speaker 3:Jerome Avenue, on the corner Right by the Fortrain, on the corner of let's tell you right here, second Street. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what's?
Speaker 3:the name of that, the Fortrain.
Speaker 2:No, that's 17. So now.
Speaker 3:Eden over there and 17-0 over here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are right between two train stations so it's a special location. They have a backyard garden rooftop here and you know you guys can embrace the location and connect with the community.
Speaker 3:Take, a class, there's dance classes, there's Samba, there's mixed martial arts. Oh, there you go, people of all ages.
Speaker 2:There you go. So you guys can find that on the YouthBuild website. Yeah, newsettlementorg.
Speaker 3:NewSettlementorg.
Speaker 1:Backslash YouthBuild.
Speaker 3:Right Backslash YouthBuild. Yeah, join us All.
Speaker 2:Right, so that's another episode on the innovators, then Been amazing. Make sure to follow, subscribe, share and like, like. Appreciate you guys. Appreciate you guys. It's a wrap.