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YouthBuild Institute
 This photograph of two YouthBuild trainees, taken by Dan Leibowitz, Isles' YouthBuild Institute program coordinator, won the national AmeriCorps Photo Contest this year. Isles is receiving $1,000, which trainees will use for an AIDS awareness event.
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 On Wednesday, June 11, Isles' YouthBuild Institute hosted Wal-Mart representatives, who presented a check for $30,000 to the institute. This contribution is part of a $5 million Wal-Mart Foundation grant to YouthBuild USA. This non-profit organization engages youth throughout the country in alternative educational programs. . The grant to Isles will help pay trainee stipends as they work toward their high school diplomas while rehabilitating homes in Trenton. Quadrie Peoples, 17, a YouthBuild trainee, spoke at the event. "Isles’ YouthBuild Institute has helped me learn that young people can be part of the solution to the problems our society is facing.I am proud of the accomplishments my classmates and I have already achieved together. Click here for Trenton Times article.
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 Trainees from Isles' YouthBuild Insitute were in Gulfport, Miss. in March, rebuilding homes left damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Click here to hear a radio interview that aired on WCTC-AM in New Brunswick. Click here to see the text of a TV story that ran on WLOX ABC in Biloxi. Isles’ YouthBuild Institute is helping to counter some powerful trends by offering young adults the opportunity to gain high-school diplomas and job skills.
At many urban high schools in New Jersey, more students drop out than graduate. Study after study shows a lack of high school diploma consigns urban residents to poverty. This, in turn, hinders an area’s ability to attract employers who pay living wages. Trenton’s July 2007 unemployment rate of 11.3% is more than 2.5 times the United States unemployment rate.
Since 1993, Isles’ YouthBuild Institute has been providing a caring, peer-based setting for young adults who want a high school diploma, career education, construction education, job and higher education placement. Trainees attend both academic and vocational classes. They also rehabilitate at least one abandoned home in Trenton each year. The Institute also offers life skills and leadership training, individualized counseling and financial literacy. Isles’ case management services provide appropriate referrals while showing students how to manage child care and employment - without giving up school.
YouthBuild accomplishes all these things in partnership with the Trenton school district, the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission, the Mercer County Workforce Investment Board and the city of Trenton. Students earn credits toward their diplomas in core math, history, English, science and health courses taught by state-certified teachers from the Trenton Board of Education.
At-risk youth who complete the YouthBuild program are equipped with high school diplomas, valuable skills and experiences (including certifications) that provide the foundation for entering higher education institutions and/or the workforce with the opportunities to earn a living wage and have a clearer focus necessary for achieving life goals, instead of entering or re-entering the judicial system.
The Center for Evidence Based Inquiry notes that Isles’ program “is at the forefront of a new type of schooling appropriate to the demands of modern urban settings.”
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