05/02/2021
Help me establish WVT-Workforce Vocational Training Co.
Introduction
As a direct result of observing, living, and experiencing social and economic injustice and global climate change, I created this Community Engagement Initiative (CEI) to help mitigate, combat, and overcome these social injustices within marginalized communities.
To fight these social injustices my CEI requires startup funding. The best source for funding is the Small Business Administration (SBA) 7(a) loan program. I have spoken with the Vice President of Business Banking at Sandy Spring Bank. In discussing the 7(a) loan program he confirmed that a loan of $3,250,000.00, will require an investment down payment of 10%. He also stated that the $325,000.00 could come from anyone, and then suggested I start a crowdfunding web page. Therefore, I am appealing to you for your financial support to help me mitigate, combat, and overcome social injustices in all communities across the nation.
About Me
First, I should let you know for the past 30 years or so I have been dealing with agoraphobia, severe depression, and anxiety. But over the last 4 years I have received counseling and medication to help me manage my illness. To my amazement the treatment plan has had an incredible result. I am feeling great like I can take on the world. And my goal is to do exactly that, take on the world on my own terms.
Community Engagement Initiative (CEI) Overview
I am the Director of Programs for WVT - Workforce Vocational Training (WVT) Co., WVT is a disadvantaged minority owned for-profit small business community empowerment organization, in Prince Georges County, Maryland. I have developed a Community Engagement Initiative (CEI) that will be of a great interest to community and country at large.
This CEI is an end-to-end community engagement that incorporates a comprehensive framework that will deliver programs, services and community wide strategic planning with smart program design and management, along with comprehensive cognitive and psychometric assessments and continuous improvement for the professional development of a workforce for the advancement of the social welfare of historically disenfranchised and underserved population(s).
The Research Problem “How can historically marginalized communities overcome the life cycle effects of Economic Disenfranchisement and improve their Social Determinant of Health (SDOH)”.
WVT Solution/Hypothesis- If individuals within a disenfranchised community were recruited into a setting designed for workforce and family development that delivered individual and family assessments that pinpoint(s) positive pathways for academic and skill set development. If so, will the measurable outcomes mitigate the life cycle effects of social injustice. By eliminating the dependency on social services, reducing high unemployment and incarceration rate, and lowing the dependency on alcohol and/or drugs, while also improving self-sustainability, health care literacy, raising the standards of living, and developing the employable skill set of the community client.
A donation to WVT will aid in creating an in the field end to end research environment to deliver a mentored research program for undergraduate, graduate & doctoral mentored student at an institution of higher learning. This would permit academic coursework, case management, delivering interventions and supportive services for the training and certification of entry-level apprenticeship for mid to high growth jobs, expanding continuous educational opportunities, fulltime employment for green manufacturing jobs, and community soft skills orientation classes for low-income residents.
We are overly concerned with the social inequities within our communities. To address these inequities, this initiative is designed to establish baselines data sets, collect continuous life cycle research data on education & training, with the overall goal of creating a blueprint on how to transform underserved individuals and families into responsible and productive members of society.
Community Clients (C/C)
Targeted Program Population Base
Our targeted Community Clients (C/C) are the extended disadvantaged unemployed head of households, extended unemployed, the moderately disabled, veterans, ex-offenders, and the semi-retired. Most of whom should be recipients of social warfare programs, including but not limited to SNAP, TANF, foster care, SSI & SSDI, public housing, and Medicaid. The clients should have a powerful desire to advance themselves and/or their family’s employable skill set through higher learning. It is imperative that our workforce applicant has a cooperative positive mental attitude with a powerful desire to improve their current social and economic condition.
Recruitment of Service Area Residents (Community Clients (C/C)
We recruit through P.G. County one stop, Department of Human Resources (DHS), Department of Juvenile Service (DJS), unemployment agencies, print ads, and over time by word of mouth. After the prospective C/C has expressed an interest in pursuing educational and/or employment training with our organization, they will be instructed to log on our CSC (web site) and create a user profile, after which the user assessment will begin. After the online assessment is complete, the user will receive their individual WAP, then the intake team leader will contact the user to schedule an intake session.
Family Sustainability
To financially support our CEI programs and services we will manufacture Energy Star homes and employ 40 marginalized individuals who are expertly trained to work alongside our 150 highly degreed and seasoned home builders. The revenue generated from the sale of our homes will allow us to become a financially self-sustaining community empowerment organization, capable of expanding throughout the country.
Each Energy Star home we build will be rebranded as 3-EHomes. We rebrand them simply because our 3-EHomes are factory built with three energy savings systems:
1. Built to Energy Star prescriptive path that incorporates Icynene spray foam, advance framing, cooler roof design, energy efficient lighting,
2. Built-in PV solar system producing 2,200 watts (2.2 kW) of grid-tied electricity,
3. All homes are set on a monolithic slab with a 2 ½ (or) a 3-ton Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) for cooling and heating connected to a desuperheater for hot water through a 60-gallon hot water heater tank.
20 of the 40 Community Clients (C/C) employed as factory home builders will be enrolled as pre-apprentices in our carpentry program, and their family members will be enrolled in our family empowerment program.
Family Empowerment Workshops are for Single Parent Head of Households and family members with the goal of establishing or strengthen relationships with each other, and to improve long-term stability, and overcome obstacles and barriers that prohibit them from being the most effective, nurturing, and responsible family.
Family empowerment participants attend family workshops to educate them on Responsible Parenting, YouthBuild activities, Healthy Choices, Healthy Relationships, Building Strong Families and Dispute Resolution.
All children up to 3 years old enters our Early Head Start and Head Start Childhood (EHS/HS) program that serves pregnant women, infants, and toddlers, and are available until the child turns 3 years old and is ready to transition into our pre-K program. Prekindergarten is a program for 4-year-old children to helps children develop and maintain the basic skills necessary to be successful in school.
From the age of 5 to 18 years of age the child is enrolled in our K-12 S.T.E.M. core curriculums that offers.
1. Building Sciences - Associates Degree in Building Science/Renewable Energy
2. Renewable Energy - Associates Degree in Environmental Engineering
3. Internet Technology (IT) - Associates Degree in Information Technology.
In the fourth-grade students will undergo S.T.E.M. career identification, this identification will outline the curriculum the student should pursue to earn an associate degree within their career field prior to the student’s 12th grade graduation.
CEI Financial Sustainability
To financially support our CEI programs and services we will manufacture Energy star homes. The revenue generated from sales will allow us to become a financially self-sustaining community empowerment organization.
Assessments
All potential employees and Community Clients will be assessed through our Community S.T.E.M. Cloud (CSC). To do this we will Hire our IT expert, Educational Opportunity Center (EOC) director and engage Amazon’s Web Service (AWS) application designer who will develop our Community S.T.E.M. Cloud (CSC) on AWS platform allowing for the assessment and evaluation of all WVT employees and C/C’s. Our CSC will have the capability of disseminating program data on our CRT, CHP, MWP, EOC, C/C, performance, goals, metrics and other pertinent and/or relevant information to authorized users.
The AWS platform performs assessments, and contains intake documentation, case file, individual service contract, participant(s) progress notes, certifications, resume, and other data. Depending on the user access level the user can start an assessment, file reports, update reports, download reports, open, or close a case file.
This AWS platform will allow for the assessment of all employees and assemble this data into one report, we call it a Work Action Plan (WAP). The WAP summarizes data across four levels (Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, and Advanced) of general knowledge in academic literacy, skill set competencies and personality assessment for employer/employee compatibility. The assessment will allow us to hire highly degreed and seasoned professional administration and staff with a determination to solve problems and the skills to work in a team environment.
CRT Mentors and Mentees
WVT builds its CRT, CHP, and EOC capacity by forming a Core Research Team (CRT) that will mentor to graduate and undergraduates in their professional career development in education, social sciences, and healthcare. This CRT and mentees, will deliver, monitor, observe, and report on the life changing interventions delivered to our historically disenfranchised, underserved, and marginalized Community Clients (C/C) in a non-traditional setting that strives to produce a competent and capable workforce eager to begin, continue and complete an education or training curriculum.
Each month our CRT will assess, interview 30 new C/C’s and place them in one of three case management categories. At this time, the C/C will have an opportunity to receive a health assessment by our in-house physician or through our healthcare provider. Then the client is enrolled and attends our orientation classes that will consist of critical thinking, mindfulness meditation, soft skills, introduction to the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA), CPR, First Aid, and AED certifications, OSHA certifications, emergency preparedness, money management, diet and nutrition, Voters Rights, and 1st time homebuyer’s class, an employer sponsored curriculum could be added as an optional pre-apprenticeship orientation class component.
Programs
The CEI program components will be developed in two stages. with the Manufacturing Workforce Program (MWP) being the first to come online. Beyond the initial funding to implement our MWP, WVT will be able to self-fund the remaining CEI programs from the revenue generated from the selling of our 3-EHomes.
CEI Program Goals
• Develop the Case Managers Skill Set to Engage Marginalized Communities.
• Improve C/C Listening Skills.
• Improve Confidence, and Employable Skill Set.
• Increase C/C who Earn a GED During their Program Participation.
• Improve Academic Literacy of C/C.
• Develop the Financial Literacy and Financial Responsibility of C/C.
• Improve Health Awareness.
• Enroll 21 C/C monthly in a 2-Year College or Training Programs.
• Reduce Dependency on Social Services.
• Develop the Self- Resiliency and Self-Sustainability of the C/C.
Core Research Team (CRT) - The CRT mentors to undergraduates and graduate interns in their field of study of health care, social science, and education.
Community Healthcare Program (CHP) – The CHP is the heart of our CEI, this program delivers healthcare information, access to healthcare, healthcare assessments, and orientation programs.
Community Workforce Program (CWP) – The CWP offer all C/C’s an opportunity to start building their stackable degree career in any S.T.E.M apprenticeship trade.
IT Network Engineer (IT) – The IT program delivers education, training, and certification in the STEM field of IT network engineering.
Educational Opportunity Center (EOC) – The EOC is our hub of education, it offers K-12 S.T.E.M. education, GED education, remedial education, construction and S.T.E.M. math education, and online education for those who just want to brush up on various fields of education.
Manufacturing Workforce Program (MWP) – This program has several focus points: (1) it offers a one year apprenticeship program for carpenters, (2) it delivers financial sustainability for our CEI, (3) it delivers ultra-energy efficient renewable energy housing that aims to do its part in reducing a home carbon footprint, (4) it provides fulltime employment for marginalized individuals, (5) It delivers several family empowerments programs for Community Clients C/C.
The CEI program components will be developed in two stages. with the Manufacturing Workforce Program (MWP) being the first to come online. Beyond the initial funding to implement our MWP, WVT will be able to self-fund the remaining Core Research Team (CRT), Community Healthcare Program (CHP), and Educational Opportunity Center (EOC) programs and services.
Extended Education and Training
After graduating from orientation all C/C are eligible to enroll in a 2-year college, enroll at a State approved apprenticeship program, or stay with WVT and become a pre-apprentice in our PV Solar (electrical) program, Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) program, or become sponsored as a one-year on-the-job training as a carpenter’s apprentice in our Manufacturing Workforce Program (MWP) building Energy Star homes in our factory. During all client’s orientation, post-secondary education, pre-apprenticeship, and apprenticeship training we pay all tuitions, book, fees. and expenses, along with a stipend up to two years during their education or vocational training until the C/C graduates or is sponsored by an employer.
Expansion
Six months after this initial WVT-CEI HUB is up and running, my expansion goal is creating up to (10) ten WVT-CEI Hubs sequentially through the U.S.A. every eighth month to one year. After the third or fourth HUB is established, it is entirely possible to fund the remaining (six) 6 HUBS in one single year. Using our pool of funding generated from the sale of our 3-EHomes. WVT can complete all (10) ten HUBS in
3 to 4 years. Additional preferred locations include Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Michigan, Philadelphia, and other high unemployment areas around the country that are experiencing disenfranchisement and high unemployment of underserved communities.
My long-term expansion goal is to create at least two to five WVT-CEI HUBS in each state. Using the pool of expansion funding from the sales of our 3-EHomes. WVT certainly could establish 100 or more WVT-CEI HUBS throughout the country in less than ten years.
Conclusion
As you can see WVT is creating a innovate and unique workforce development concept, that will have several major benefits to the community and the country at large.
I am looking forward to working with you and receiving your donations that will serve as the 10% down payment investment required by the SBA to secure a 7(a) loan.
I would like to start developing the CEI as soon as possible, therefore, I am setting a three-month deadline to raise the $325,000.00 funding to apply for the SBA 7(a) loan. I would like to start operation before the end of summer or fall at the latest,
