Triangle charity helps women train, find construction jobs

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WNCN) — Anywhere you look around central North Carolina, it’s pretty easy to find a construction project, but the industry is constantly looking for workers.

A North Carolina non-profit is working to provide women and gender-expansive individuals with a training program to enter the construction industry while also offering services to help older adults age in place in the homes they have always lived in.

Hope Renovations launched in 2020 and is the first and only program in the United States that combines a trades training program for women and non-binary individuals with repairs and renovations for elderly and disabled to age safely in their home.

This June, Hope Renovations was the CBS 17 3° Guarantee charity. Every day the CBS 17 storm team gets the forecast correct, they donate $100. At the end of the month, they hand over the grand total donated in the form of a giant check.

Women currently make up only 4% of those working in the skilled trades and construction industry. Since 2020, approximately 100 individuals have graduated from their training program and 70% got a job in construction within one year of graduating.  In 2024, more than 70 trainees will graduate from the construction training program.

Hope Renovations offer a nine-week free training program to women and gender-expansive individuals. These trainees include low-wage earners, the recently unemployed or those seeking a career transition. Most who enter the program also do so for free and even get a living wage.

Another important part of what Hope Renovations does is helping aging seniors remain in their homes by having the construction students complete projects. Since 2020, Hope Renovations has completed more than 250 projects to keep seniors in their homes.

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Hope Renovations primarily serves the Triangle and Chatham Counties.

Learn more about the work they do here.

Thanks to Bill Jensen and Billum Video, Inc for helping to tell this story and providing video support.