Below you will find links to press about our programs, as well as letters to us and from us.
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Students learn, century-old Schenectady church benefits from training program
Times Union | April 23, 2021 | Link to the article Demetrius Collymore joked that his children have taken to calling him “Daddy the builder” when they see him making repairs around their Scotia home. And Collymore noted during class Thursday at Washington Irving Educational Center that he feels a lot more confident now then…
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Cleanup of Schenectady’s shuttered Carver Community Center begins
Students from the Schenectady-WIN program part of the efforts Excerpted from The Daily Gazette, March 26, 2019 Cleanup of the shuttered Carver Community Center took place on Tuesday as the group behind its renovation was getting it ready for contractors to walk through. Several students from the Schenectady Working In Neighborhoods program — also known as Schenectady-WIN —…
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Schenectady-WIN a win for the trades
Excerpted from The Daily Gazette, April 28, 2018 Jie Ma is about to graduate from a training program with a job guarantee. But when I ask him why he spent 18 months learning construction, earning his high school equivalency degree, a certificate of employability and sitting through a course in life skills, his answer is…
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Building Better Workers
Excerpted from the Times Union, April 14, 2018 Keenan Chandler has always been interested in construction work, and after six weeks in the classroom he can’t wait to get out into the field and get some real-world practical experience. On Friday, the 2017 Schenectady High School graduate was one of five participants in former Union…
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A Teacher’s Testimonial
A former student recently stopped by the classroom she first stepped into years ago. For Juanita, it was a trip down memory lane; for me, it was proof positive of the value of Help Yourself. As a third-grader, Juanita was an eager student who brought me her science book from school to show me the…
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Christmas gift theft at Crossgates draws huge response
Excerpted from the Times Union, December 21, 2016 Nearly $2,000 in donations has poured in from dozens of people for the Ruby Tuesday server whose wrapped Christmas presents she bought for family members after working extra shifts were stolen from her car in the Crossgates Mall parking lot last week. What began as an upsetting…
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Program Offers Dropouts a Career in Construction
Excerpted from The Daily Gazette, October 30, 2016 Rockie Mann owns his own construction company, and he’s always looking for good, skilled workers. Trouble is, such workers are hard to find. It’s a common lament, one I’ve heard from others who work in the trades. Mann told me that he’s hired people who seemed promising,…
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Four Keys to Success with a GED
Excerpted from the Times Union, October 10, 2016 Some think those on welfare like to sit back and collect their checks; others believe most people would prefer to work, rather than be on welfare. I am firmly in the latter camp. Through Schenectady-WIN, a newly formed nonprofit, we are about to find out who is…
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Diversity Revisited
Excerpted from the Huffington Post, December 29, 2015 We need to rethink our approach to diversity on college campuses. Unfortunately, since I started calling for a new approach a decade ago, not much has changed. Yes, colleges have brought numbers of foreign students to campus (a good thing), and they have partnered with organizations that…