On Thursday, May 16, 2019, 23 men and women from North Philadelphia, and other low-to-moderate income neighborhoods across the City, graduated from the Richard Allen New Generation (RANG)/Post Brothers Pre-Apprenticeship Training Program, which had been conducted, over an 80-hour period, at the JEVS/Orleans Technical College, in Northeast Philadelphia.
 
In addition to RANG and Post Bothers, other partners in

the program were JEVS/Orleans Technical College and the

Association of Builders + Contractors, Eastern PA.
 
Speakers included RANG chair A. Bruce Crawley; JEVS/Orleans

Director of Business Development Nandi Jones-Clement; Orleans

Technical College Director of Academic Affairs Anna Bogdanov;

and program graduates Summer Woods and Everette Burk.

Outstanding Tradesman Awards were presented to trainees

Wilbert Halley, Kathleen Yancey and Everett Burk.
 
The event had a distinct family and community feeling, with graduates’ parents, significant others and children sprinkled prominently throughout the audience.
 
During the week of May 20th, the pre-apprenticeship graduates will be introduced, in an apprenticeship job fair, to subcontractors who have been engaged to work on Post Brothers’ Poplar Apartments, a 285-unit rehabilitation project, at Ninth and Poplar Streets, in North Philadelphia.
 
RANG and its partners believe programs such as diverse and inclusive construction industry pre-apprenticeship training, will help to decrease unemployment and increase economic stability in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, while improving property values and reducing community gentrification rates.  According to U.S. Census data, only 1.2 percent of the workforce members in the
RANG/West Poplar footprint are currently employed in the construction industry.