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Spending any time with Shamar McCray lets you know how focused he is on success.
As a formerly incarcerated person who left the prison system in 2016, McCray understood that finding employment was a necessary step to keep his life moving forward. An important stop on his way was Green Visions—a workforce development program started 12 years ago that offers gardening work in the JOSANA neighborhood to low-experienced young adults under age 24 who are not in school.
McCray was a quick study, easily grasping an irrigation concept the garden installed during his time there. He graduated from the program but still returns to help out when time allows. Since Green Visions, McCray has secured a future in his dream field with an electrician’s apprenticeship.
“The No.1 thing you have is your work, so if you’re going to show up and do a job, then do the job well,” McCray says.
Youth workforce development efforts, which the current city administration has taken a special interest in, include many programs with relatively small enrollment numbers, like Green Visions.
Some, like the Rochester Police Department’s Workforce Development Program, are laser-focused on preparing for employment above all. Others combine elements of job preparedness with other life skills.
“Connecting to the earth, understanding who you are as a person, I prefer a holistic approach. I don’t like funneling into systems that just see value in you as a worker alone,” says Carter Remy, director of The Next Generation and You youth program.
Without proper support in these other ways, young adults have a greater chance of failure when they do have employment opportunities, says the director of Area U: The Ubuntu Project, Kareem-Ba McCullough.
Credit for success is often given solely to the program itself and all too often undercuts the dedication of the youth, says Morgan Barry, executive director of Green Visions.
“There’s this narrative that people want to write for these kids that’s like ‘They start the program with nothing, then they graduate with everything.’ That’s just not true,” he says. “I interview 20 to 30 kids every year. If they don’t get into my program, they’re still looking. We need to start giving them more credit.”
Data in context
According to American Community Survey data, labor participation in 2023 from ages 16 to 19 and 20 to 24 is unsurprisingly lower than other age groups in Monroe County.
Geographically, there is nuance in the region. For example, the east and west sides of the city of Rochester have labor participation rates of 36 and 30 percent for the 16-to-19 age range, both lower than the countywide average of 42 percent.
For 20- to 24-year-olds, the city does better, with 79 and 76 percent labor participation on the east and west sides. Those values are higher than the southern part of Monroe County (which includes the towns of Brighton, Henrietta, Pittsford and Perinton), where labor participation is at 69 percent. It still lags other towns in the area, with the eastern section of the county (which includes Irondequoit, Webster and Penfield) at 92 percent labor participation in this age group.
Data like these are the reason the city is focusing on youth workforce development. The city and RochesterWorks, the regional workforce development agency, measure success with Summer of Opportunity Program and Summer Youth Employment Program, which employ youth ages 14 to 20 in summer jobs. While there has been some fluctuation, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, these programs generally have 700 to 800 job placements.
Full-year offerings
Green Visions, on the other hand, runs two separate sessions for year-round opportunities. Its summer section, stretching over 22 weeks from late spring to early fall, covers the entire growing process: preparing the site, planting, maintaining, harvesting, arranging and selling flower bouquets at places such as Wegmans Food Markets or the Rochester Public Market.
Green Visions has held a winter section for about half of the summer session, but a new building recently opened earlier this year that could double enrollment, Barry estimates. This capital improvement goes along with its already onsite storage facility and climate-controlled room for storing flowers.
Although Area U is focused on developing and healing a younger population (14 to 16 years old) through alternative therapy methods, it too runs year-round. While McCullough says he is planning certain changes to the program calendar (to bring it more in line with the school year), it was important for him to offer it throughout the year.
Zahyir Kent is a Rochester area high schooler who returned for a second year with Area U. He says he already sees the value in that approach, particularly as it related to preparing his application with SOOP and SYEP last summer.
“Every day that we’re here, we’re learning life skills and work skills as well,” says Kent, who is looking to go into higher education with an eye on the medical field. “So going through this, it’s not like you’re going to be clueless when you try to get a job. You have financial literacy lessons, you know how to have an interview, how to dress like a professional for work.”
Through his summer work, Kent participated with Remy through Rochester Ecology Partners, whose work program focuses on environmental issues and the natural world. While summer sessions have a greater number of hours, Remy holds sessions during the school year as well.
Inspired by his own connection to the earth while growing up in Haiti, Remy aims to create a space for more people of color to be involved in environmental science through exposure and studying the natural world.
“I grew up seeing a second sun at night and remember playing football under the moon and the stars,” he recalls. “I was just enjoying my childhood. I didn’t know that other societies didn’t do such a thing. I didn’t know that people grew up with light pollution, not being able to see the sky.”
That connection to the earth inspired Remy to become an environmental educator. He was often the only person of color in the room at conferences or in workplaces.
Similar to McCullough, he also focuses on teens, generally ages 14 to 18. With a younger generation, these concepts have more time to take root.
“At that time and that age, they’re questioning a lot of things about the world and themselves. It’s a tough age to be young,” Remy says. “(My program is) a reminder that, ‘You can and do belong here. This earth is for everyone to experience.’”
“These kids right here,” McCray says, gesturing to several Green Visions participants at a work day last month. “Most of them are youth who are angry, who are holding on to a lot of other things without understanding how they feel. They don’t even know what they want to be. This space, it gives them a place to be and find that direction.”
On the other hand, the RPD Workforce Development Program, begun three years ago, is aimed at preparing 19- to 24-year-olds to meet physical, mental and psychological standards through a supportive cohort model.
Participants meet in person every other week for skill development in areas such as fitness, agility, financial literacy, teamwork and conflict resolution. Other weeks, they check in and communicate with their cohort through a social media app.
Sgt. Justin Collins, director of recruitment and workforce development at the RPD, has found that interest in the police department comes at different times for individuals, and some may be further along than others due to civil service exam schedules. To benefit everyone, the program runs all year long.
“Being in the group, you get a certain type of intent that other people don’t get. So I think it was important to be with people with the same mindset; we all want to be in law enforcement, so that will motivate you to do even better,” says program participant Natalie Gonzalez in a video produced about the program.
“People with interest would ask, ‘What do I do next?’ and in the past we’d tell them, ‘Go buy a book’ or ‘Do some sit-ups and push-ups.’ It was a very isolating experience,” Collins says. “So now we’re putting together a group of people who are a great representation of this community … where they can develop culture and grow these bonds.”
Of the 10 job offers recently handed out, six graduated from workforce development, he says. This tracks with what the department has seen since it started the initiative, with about 60 to 70 percent of job offers going to program participants.
While participation does not guarantee a job offer, Collins and RPD leadership want to keep interested candidates engaged in the process. For example, they offer additional support where needed for candidates from different countries, hiring one of their first officers from Nepal after they went through the program.
They have also helped hire participants with civilian jobs in the department, like Gonzalez, who works in city records as a police information clerk after two years in the program.
Smaller efforts
At the other end, Green Visions typically has 15 to 20 people in a cohort. Area U has 15 students, and Remy has found about 12 young people to be a good number for his activities.
Those values might seem small in comparison to the need, but there are also benefits to the smaller numbers, both operators and youth have noticed.
“Originally I was also thinking like other people with ‘Grow grow grow’ when it came to numbers. But I found that it was the ideal amount. You can make connections in a way that you can’t if there’s too many people,” Remy says.
Kent agrees, calling his time in Area U the creation of a “brotherhood” among the other people in the group.
“There’s a lot of assumptions on kids’ mental health and well-being, and adults assume just because they’re kids, it’s all good,” he adds. “Building a community like this, with people you can trust, that’s important.”
The RPD Workforce Development Program is huge in comparison to those programs, with close to 100 in the current group. Because they are all at different stages in the training process, and many voluntarily take on leadership roles, managing it is easier than it might seem at first glance, he says.
“We want to make sure we have the right people for the job, people who have a heart for service,” Collins says, citing the mandatory volunteer work required for the workforce program. “We’re aiming for great quality over a lot of quantity.”
Barry is proud of Green Visions’ results: Participants have employment five days a week with a steady paycheck, earn multiple workplace certifications such as landscaping, and receive support with things as varied as earning a driver’s license, creating a resume and gaining financial literacy skills, sometimes with partners such as RochesterWorks.
Simultaneously, he pushes back when people question the relatively small cohorts.
“One-hundred-fifty kids have graduated through here. That’s 150 kids with six months of work experience, the certification for landscaping and financial literacy, an interest-focused resume— 150 new workers ready for the workforce,” Barry says. “To me, that’s a huge number.”
The right approach
Seeking input from others and being effective leaders are other important qualities that link these workforce development programs.
For example, although Area U’s main focus is not work-based, McCullough says interest in his group after a field trip to a local T-shirt company led to a unique entrepreneurial effort. So, the director incorporated it into his curriculum, guiding his group to research what it takes to start a business.
“After this workshop, we had so much interest, and then going out into the community, telling them about Area U and what we were doing, I got a lot of inquiries about T-shirts, like are they for sale? So there was interest on both sides,” says McCullough. “It really was initiated by (the students), and they were willing to do the work to get things started.”
Similarly, Green Visions’ origin story starts with conversations and support from Charles Settlement House, a nonprofit with over 100 years of experience in the area. Greentopia, the umbrella organization for Green Visions, wanted to expand into youth outreach, but desired to work with the community to create a program that fit their needs.
“We didn’t want to just plunk our flag down and say, ‘This is what we’re doing.’ We wanted to know from them what was going on. The neighbors told us, ‘We have acres of vacant lots and a high school graduation rate that’s despicable,’” Barry recalls. “‘There’s no jobs or training opportunities here in the neighborhood, especially if you’re a high school dropout with no work experience.’”
From that feedback, Green Visions settled on growing flowers due to the ease of city permits as well as a perceived gap in the market. Since then, the garden has become a point of pride for neighbors and the gardeners themselves.
Although Barry likes to give credit to program participants, McCray is quick to give it right back, citing his dedication and genuine care as special qualities. He notes that the Green Visions director trusted his people quickly, bringing on graduates as assistants as early as year two of the program.
“That’s what a lot of these new guys don’t appreciate. They always tell me, ‘Morgan asks a lot of questions.’ He does ask so many, but it’s going to get to the point where you really can’t lie to him and you really feel bad if you lie to him,” McCray says.
“He’s a great guy. He always wants to see you moving forward, no matter what that is,” he adds. “When I was stumbling, wondering, ‘What am I going to do?’, he’d never let me fall through the cracks as far as what my next plan, my next step was.”
Kent echoes those comments about his mentors.
“(McCullough) has helped us reach many opportunities to get employment. He introduced all of us to the Summer of Opportunity Program. I wouldn’t have known about it,” he says.
“Carter Remy is a very understanding guy. I have a lot of respect for him,” Kent adds. “Yeah, he’s an adult, but he understands how it is to be a teenager. It was almost like he wasn’t a boss, but he was a mentor. He was a leader without being pushy.”
Doing more with less
As positively as leaders and participants feel about their development programs, there are still problems that worry them.
For example, Barry says he has seen the competition for workforce development dollars heighten over recent years. Funding for smaller programs like Green Visions is both extremely valuable and hard to come by.
“The other people who are applying for those grants (we’re applying for), before they were organizations like Center for Youth or Foodlink. It was enough for me to compete with them. Now it’s MCC, RIT, UR, all these colleges who have gotten into certificate-based training programs. They have staff and resources, so they’re able to navigate these grants effectively.”
Even the RPD, which does not have the same funding concerns, created its Workforce Development Program in part due to increased competition.The department has witnessed this with town law enforcement and the sheriff’s department, as well as regionally, with the city of Buffalo. Applications to law enforcement have also declined as well.
“Instead of 4,000 applicants, now we’re looking at more like 400 for instance,” says Collins.
Directors of smaller programs also describe an undeniable frustration at constantly being asked to prove their success. Remy says he avoids even trying for certain grants should they be too exclusive.
His ideal, but still modest, program would build on what he has already developed. Outside of sharing the load on the operations end, a staff of three for programming and grant writing would be the “chef’s kiss.” Tools, resources, upkeep on a permanent space and payment for both staff and students alike could easily run a budget up high into six figures.
Barry concurs, saying he has to raise over $150,000 for stipends alone. This combination of expenses without unrestricted funding is part of what causes frustration.
“I would call myself someone who is an advocate for the next generation for multiple reasons, but for one, because I’m angry,” adds Remy.
“In all the cities I’ve been able to live in, folks always talk about giving it to the next generation through alleviating poverty or inequality. But year after year, things remain the same,” he says. “You see gatekeepers doing just enough for the next generation to say that they’re doing something, but when it comes to genuinely creating a pathway forward for them, there is very little that is actually done from that point.”
For example, he points to the continually high rates of child poverty in the city. According to ACT Rochester, around 10,000 children have been consistently living in poverty since 2010.
Even so, there is some optimism among organizations; Barry believes that the size and success prove Green Visions’ approach can be replicated anywhere.
“We are a model for the city,” he says. “We are a functioning, up-to-code, one-acre urban farm leading the way on how to do this. We took a vacant lot and created something beautiful in it.”
This Community Chronicles article was made possible by a grant from the ESL Charitable Foundation.
Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing [email protected].
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