Dear Friends,
As many of you know, Fresh Start Pallet Products tested and launched a new program initiative called the Fresh Start Academy about 18 months ago. With assistance from Capital Workforce Partners (a state funded program focusing on assisting non-profits who train second chance individuals in the construction trades) Fresh Start is currently finishing its sixth class. During December of 2022 we were fortunate enough to receive additional funding from the Richard P. Garmany Fund. In conjunction with the Fund, we decided to formally name our academy after Richard P. Garmany. In essence we rebranded the Fresh Start Academy in his honor. To further the goals of the Academy as our dedicated teaching arm, we have produced a new short mission film directed and produced by Steve Havira, who is a member of our GlobalGiving team here in Hartford, CT.
With continued support from Capital Workforce Partners, donors like you, and the Richard P. Garmany Foundation, we are striving to ensure the long term sustainability of what we now proudly refer to as the RICHARD P. GARMANY FRESH START ACADEMY.
We anticipate for the remainder of 2023 the Academy will train another 42 individuals in learning new carpentry skills!
Please scroll down the page to view this brief but informative video of our shop and Academy Students in action.
Links:
Our work during the late summer and fall has demonstrated further growth, new opportunities and exciting developments. Many of our activities have focused on acquiring new staff, and furthering the progress of training five more individuals who have entered the Fresh Start Academy (FSA). We are also evaluating off-site carpentry experiences which include: volunteers, FSA students and existing staff.
As most of you know, we have been working with three refugees for a number of years. These three individuals (two from Syria and one from the Sudan) have grown and assimilated into the american workforce in truly inspirational ways. Not only have they honed their furniture building skills, they have increased their mastery of english, steadily increased their wages, and are celebrating the fact they have now become U.S. citizens.
Three months ago we hired our first refugee from Afghanistan. Khan was employed by the United States military as a carpenter. His military unit assisted in processing his move to the Hartford, CT area. He and his wife have seven children who are now attending school and settling into their new neighborhood. Khan has quickly demostrated his carpentry skills and is learning how to master our machinery and tools also while making new friends within our workforce. His 90-day review was outstanding! We are looking forward to supporting him as he learns new skills and advancing his opportunity for a new career in Hartford. Kahn is supported by a West Hartford community volunteer group (JSSFS) associated with IRIS located in New Haven.
The current class attending the Fresh Start Academy has finished all classroom curriculum and modules. They have been working on the shop floor getting experience by applying what they learned in the classroom. Each student has focused on reading blueprints to build a product that includes custom dovetail joinery. Next week they will be a part of a team that will demolish and replace a porch and roof at a neighborhood victorian home as part of their field experience.
Have a great Holiday season!
From the Crew at Fresh Start Pallet Products
Fesh Start Highlights
Fresh Academy
Historic Preservation
Looking forward
Fresh Start teams up with Community Solutions To Create Furnishings for the Swift Factory
It certainly was exciting when Patrick McKenna, Senior Project Manager for Community Solutions and licensed architect reached out to Anne O’Brien and Rich Carman from Fresh Start to build furnishings for this exciting, landmark project, the Swift Factory property conversion.
Working closely with Patrick’s team, the Fresh Start crew designed custom conference tables, dining tables, coffee tables and an impressive reception desk. These furniture designs incorporated the old wooden timbers found during the factory’s renovation as well as parts from the gold plating machinery. This afforded a creative way to have the history of the building to be usefully on display, a story that The Swift Factory intended to preserve. When the exterior courtyard was being built, McKenna ordered some Fresh Start comfort chairs and benches for its delightful atrium garden that allows tenants to relax & enjoy a meal in comfort.
The Swift Factory, once the largest gold leafing manufacturer in the country and part of the City’s economic heart employing over 300 residents, fell to the late 20th century industrial decline. Closing in 2005, the 100 plus-year-old site sat vacant, facing demolition. The local NRZ community group with Hartford Preservation Alliance rallied to save the buildings. The Swift Family donated the entire campus to Community Solutions in 2010, which was later added to the National Register of Historic Places.
After an extensive community engagement, Community Solutions has now achieved its goal of transforming the Swift Factory into a multi-purpose community and entrepreneurial hub.
Given our strategic goal to find community based human service partners we are proud to find another organization in our neighborhood that exemplifies how working together can make a difference in changing lives and improving disadvantaged communities.
It has been a busy mid-summer and Fall at Fresh Start.
In this report we want to share with friends, customers and donors our recent work on behalf of those we support in our production carpentry shop and the outcomes of our new effort to scale up our training initiative; Fresh Start Academy.
We are pleased to report that we have been working steadily in the production of furniture in all three areas of sales and production (core products, custom and contract work.) see pictures in the report.
Fresh Start was fortunate to receive a contract for over thirty items from Grace Lutheran Church on Woodland Street in the Asylum Hill neighborhood of Hartford. Pastor Rick Kremer has been involved in a year long project to update their historic church, from solar energy to mechanicals as well as outdoor furniture to provide seating for the many guests who use the church in their community ministry.
Soul de Cuba Cafe partnered with Fresh Start to update their interior seating with custom benches for their restaurant one block from the Yale campus.
In addition, we were chosen by a design group to provide new furniture and other amenities for the lobby in a midcentury condominium at The Woodland in Hartford.
Fresh Start Academy graduated six who have returned to the community after incarceration. Instruction is provided by by Colin Green of our staff. Five of the six now have employment. The next class starts on December 1. Our goal is to provide training for 24 additional individuals in 2022.
We have also added a permanent new employee/trainee from Youth Challenge.
It is important to remember that these outcomes could not be achieved without our dedicated core of volunteers, customers, and donors. As a Social Business Fresh Starts depends on these heroes. We applaud them.
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