Southport Magazine

Volunteer group teaches kids wood working skills and entrepreneurial spirit

Story by JIMMY PIERCE

Kids Making It serves over 500 kids (boys and girls) annually from ages seven through early adulthood who are at-risk of juvenile delinquency, low-income, court-involved, or victims of crime. Inspired by the birth of his son, the program’s founder, who was then practicing law full-time, started Kids Making It as a volunteer effort in 1994. 

He ultimately left the practice of law to develop Kids Making It into a full-time program, and began in 2000 with a hand-tools program for young public housing kids. KMI has grown steadily over the years and now serves youth in five distinct programs, all of which are designed to help connect work to income. Our goal is for all of the kids we serve to stay in school, stay out of trouble, graduate and go on to a successful adulthood through jobs or college.

Programs

In our Introductory Woodworking Classes for pre-teens, we introduce kids to hand tools and teach them to build a project, such as a birdhouse or a box, which they get to keep. We give them a tour of our shop and tell them that when they turn 13, they can come every day to our afterschool program.

In our teen Vocational and Entrepreneurial Program, we teach employable vocational skills in a complete woodworking shop. In our gift shop, our teens can sell their products, and; earn 100 percent of the profits from their sales, receiving checks monthly. This micro-enterprise introduction to the free market system offers at-risk teens long-term mentorship, vocational instruction, & entrepreneurial experience along with job placement, college admissions assistance, and, through a strengths-based social work component, and Individual Developmental Plans for each teen. Many come for years on end, and we are there for them and with them every step of the way to help them succeed through adolescence and into adulthood.

In our KMI Apprenticeship Program, we offer part-time, paid on-the-job training positions as a stepping stone to employment in the private sector for older transitioning students, who complete larger production orders for the general public. This is the first real job for most of them, providing them with a solid work reference for future employment, as they are held to workplace standards regarding work ethic, scheduling and quality control. In this program we use not only our traditional woodworking machinery, but a CNC Router; a Laser Engraver (digital fabrication technology), and a Hydraulic Copy Lathe as well.

With these tools, our Apprentices can complete production orders for laser engraved ornaments and jewelry, name badges, awards and plaques, custom crafted clocks and pens, corporate gifts, and other items.

In 2015, in partnership with the City of Wilmington, we started a Summer Jobs Program to provide employment to low-income, at-risk teens, as a result of which 30 teens had employment that summer. We are now partnering in this program with the Blue Ribbon Commission and Educational Data Solutions, Inc. (EDSI). EDSI is a local Workforce Innovation; Opportunity Act agency that channels federal funding to place teens in summer jobs.

These students do not become employees of KMI, but rather, through their funding, EDSI pays the students’ wages and provides all of their worker’s comp. insurance. This summer we had 43 teens in various paying jobs across the city. We are especially proud of our “KMI Crew”.

Each summer, we offer a handful of jobs for our older teens to work on Habitat for Humanity jobsites (constructing new HFH homes for deserving families) and Wilmington Area Rebuilding Ministry jobsites (doing much-needed home repairs for low-income homeowners who can no longer afford to have a wheelchair ramp built, or rotting porch floor boards replaced, etc.) And although we have had a zero drop-out rate for years, and all of our teens have graduated from high school, unfortunately far too many of them do not have an educational foundation solid enough for them to go on to college. Too many are faced with the lure of fast money on the streets vs. the reality of low-paying fast food jobs. To meet this need we are beginning a new Skilled Trades Program, to teach the basics of the construction trades to our older teens who will soon be facing these choices, as the beginning of a pathway into a career that can provide a lifetime of meaningful work and a good income. Professional contractors will help teach introductory classes in the construction trades, such as electrical, plumbing, masonry, construction carpentry, and HVAC. Construction is booming in our area, and the jobs are there.

Through this program, and our relationships with local contractors, we will place those students who have developed an interest in a career in the trades in entry-level positions on jobsites, to start earning a paycheck and get a taste for what it is like to work on a jobsite and be part of a team constructing a home or building. As our district informed us, “nothing stops a bullet like a paycheck”.

Further, a local family foundation wants to offer scholarships to Cape Fear Community College for our transitioning students. And with 53 vo-tech programs, CFCC is well- positioned to provide further training in the trades as a hands-on educational stepping- stone into the workforce.

Outcomes & Data

We track demographics, correlations and outcomes for the kids we serve, for as long as we have them in the program. Studies show a strong correlation between poverty, delinquency, mental health issues, and victimization. All of our teens are at-risk of juvenile delinquency or court-involved, the vast majority are low income, the majority have a mental health diagnosis, 75% have been a crime victim, and most are from high crime neighborhoods and from single- (or no-) parent households.

Although 20 percent of our local teenagers do not graduate with their class on time (25 percent of our minority teens do not), we have had a zero dropout rate for many years, and most all of our kids graduate on time.

We also track what we call our “getting in trouble” rate. We provide a community service placement site for our juvenile court, and in this role we not only let youth in the system complete their community service at our shop, but we also offer a space in our teen program for them as well, and most then become a “KMI Teen.” For any teen who is court-involved upon entry, our goal is for them to work through their involvement successfully, and not recidivate. If he or she is not in the system upon entry, our goal is for them to stay out of trouble and out of the system. Our “getting in trouble” rate for all of our teens, year in and year out, is typically 2 percent.

Long-Term Impact

Many of the marginalized youth we serve are in families that are caught up in generational cycles of poverty, unemployment (or underemployment), lack of education, broken homes, long-term dependence on government assistance for the basics of life and, often, involvement in the criminal justice system or incarceration. These cycles can only be broken if the kids in these families, in spite of their environment and their family’s struggles, can finish high school and either enter the workforce in meaningful, sustaining employment or go on to higher education.

We believe that for every kid who comes through Kids Making It, who can thereby make the transition successfully out of high school and become a contributing, successful adult, these cycles are broken. And, by extension, and to that extent, their success will be helping to drive improvements in areas such as poverty, welfare entitlements, and dependence on the government and our institutions for income, food, shelter and health care, and in the crime and incarceration rates. We count success one kid at a time, but the benefits to society of one teenager’s success becomes multiplied down through the generations, beginning with his or her own family.

For further information regarding Kids Making It, please contact:

Jimmy Pierce, Founder and Executive Director

Kids Making It

617 Castle Street

Wilmington, NC

jimmy@kidsmakingit.org; 

www.kidsmakingit.org

(910) 763 – 6001