In Bloomington, Ill., a project called Dreams are Possible is turning the vacant first floor of an 1880s neighborhood grocery store building into a training center for low-income women so they can learn basic skills and consider pursuing a career in the building trades, according to www.pantagraph.com.
The idea for the Dreams are Possible Training Center originated with Mary Campbell, a retired social worker from Normal, Ill., and Feli Sebastian, a psychologist from Bloomington.
“We work on efforts to give people a better opportunity for job security and housing,” Campbell says. “We focus on women who are working hard but can’t make ends meet. If you invest in women, you invest in their children and their communities.”
Women who are struggling financially in McLean County frequently are single mothers who work jobs that do not pay well. Dreams are Possible is meant to provide women with hands-on skills and knowledge of the building trades so they can determine whether they want to apply for apprenticeship programs for plumbers, sheet metal workers, laborers and other occupations.
“All those fields pay way better and have benefits,” Campbell says. “Women traditionally don’t think about those fields. It’s a culture thing. This would be a place to bridge that cultural gap.”
Using private, donated money, volunteers are renovating the first floor of the building into a training lab, computer room, play area for children and kitchen. Since January, about 40 people have volunteered for the renovation work, which will be completed later this summer.
In the meantime, Campbell and Sebastian are working with human service agencies to identify women who may be interested in training and with building trade representatives to provide training.
“There is a need for women in the building trades,” says Rich Veitengruber, president of the Livingston and McLean Counties Building and Construction Trades Council and business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 197. “The women that we do have are some of our best workers.”
