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By DEBORAH HIRSCH
Courier-Post Staff
State and local officials today will recognize 16 tri-county residents for completing a “green jobs” training program in Camden.
The 12-week training program launched in April as part of Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s Energy Master Plan, which calls for $1 billion of public and private investment into energy efficiency and renewable energy.
With a $300,000 grant from the Conserve to Preserve Foundation of the New Jersey Resources Corp. and about $1.7 million from the N.J. Department of Labor and Workforce Development, state officials hired staff to develop the curriculum and train workers at sites in Camden, Trenton, Newark and Somerset.
More than 300 workers are expected to graduate from the four centers over the course of a year.
Locally, the Green Jobs Training was held at the Camden-based Hispanic Family Center of Southern New Jersey.
Coordinator Megan Barbano-Maxwell worked with county employment centers to recruit interested job candidates. Every weekday morning, certified energy auditors and analysts taught the students how to test a home for energy-efficiency, air-seal buildings, inspect weatherization and install insulation. Students also learned basic thermodynamics.
In addition, the students also went over life and job skills to help them become well-rounded job candidates, Barbano-Maxwell said. They attended workshops on financial management, computers, nutrition, environmental awareness, job safety and labor unions. During their last week of training, they went into homes to test out their newly acquired technical skills as assistant building analysts and air sealers.
Now that they’ve completed the training, the center will work with local heating/air conditioning companies, builders, public utilities and developers to place them into paid internships. The state will commit additional money to reimburse the employers up to half of a minimum $15 hourly wage during their three- to six-month internship.
Once those internships end, Barbano-Maxwell said, the hope is that the companies will hire their interns as regular staff members. If not, she said, the center will work with them to find another job.
The center has already contacted 13 companies and Barbano-Maxwell said she believed more jobs would become available as government officials continue funding environmental projects through economic recovery efforts. Already, she said, many companies are looking to hire energy auditors as a result of various tax credits and incentives encouraging homeowners to become more energy-efficient.
Barbano-Maxwell said the green jobs training program not only supports those who are unemployed or underemployed, but the work that they do will also benefit the community.
“We have so many people struggling right now to keep their homes and stay in their homes,” she said. With energy updates, these homeowners can save money by reducing their energy bills and contribute to improving the environment at the same time, she said.
Swedesboro resident John Coyle, 35, said he plans to study for the test to become a certified home-energy auditor now that he’s finished the training program.
“Green jobs, that’s where we’re going as a country,” Coyle said. “There’s always going to be something here.”
The center begins training a group of 20 people on July 6. A third and final session will start in September.
Reach Deborah Hirsch at (856) 486-2476 or dhirsch@camden.gannett.com
Additional Facts MORE INFORMATION
Those interested in participating in the ‘green jobs’ training program must:
Be at least 20 years old.
Score at the seventh-grade level or higher on the Test of Adult Basic Education.
Pass a drug test and possess a high school diploma or GED and a driver’s license.
For more information, contact Megan Barbano-Maxwell at (856) 964-4692.
By DEBORAH HIRSCH
Courier-Post Staff
Two AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps workers wrestled with a battery-drained drill as they attempted to fix a railing at the Children’s Garden in downtown Camden earlier this week.
Behind them, another group of young men and women prepared to install a stone pathway in front of a gazebo.
Camden residents will see many more people wearing the organization’s signature green and white polo shirts before the end of the year. At any given time, up to 20 AmeriCorps members will start community gardens, read to schoolchildren, plant trees and renovate buildings around the city.
The program isn’t new to the city. National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) teams came to Camden in 2003 and 2004 to help Rutgers University with a health program. But the city never had so many teams until last year.
At that time, the NCCC had designated Camden as one of a handful of priority cities. A former AmeriCorps representative happened to read about the Children’s Garden in an article about the Philadelphia Flower Show and encouraged her agency to call them.
The city might have missed out on hundreds of hours of manpower if that exchange never happened, said Children’s Garden Director Mike Devlin, who also heads the Camden City Garden Club.
“These folks come in and they’ve got lots of energy and enthusiasm,” Devlin said. “They see things from a fresh perspective. For those of us who are here day in, day out in Camden, it’s just really refreshing.”
Last spring, the teams stayed in a camp in Williamstown and commuted to Camden to clean up parks, survey trees for the NJ Tree Foundation and convert a Waterfront South church into the Camden Shipyard and Maritime Museum.
If not for their hard work, the museum would be way behind schedule because there was no money to pay for labor, said director Michael Lang, a former urban studies professor at Rutgers.
“To see what they’ve done, it really just takes my breath away,” he said.
This year, the first NCCC teams arrived in March. Devlin and his wife, Valerie Frick, house one group at a home in Fairview. Another stays in a former rectory at the Maritime Museum.
Much of their time is devoted to fixing up the Children’s Garden and plotting community gardens. The Garden also loans them out to other nonprofit groups. They’ve helped with everything from landscaping at the Boys and Girls Club to painting at a Volunteers of America building used for supportive housing.
The members also find projects on their own to complete independent service hours.
“This is my college course in life,” said Joareyn Hill, 21, a team leader from Menominee Falls, Wis.
Although NCCC members provide free labor to Camden organizations, they’re not technically volunteers. They receive health insurance and housing through AmeriCorps as well as a nominal biweekly stipend.
The teams spend six to eight weeks in one city before rotating to another. After completing the 10-month program, they receive $4,725 for education.
“It’s something productive, giving back while figuring out what to do next,” in life, said Noel DiDomenico, 23, of Danbury, Conn.
For former AmeriCorps team leader Jesse Loubet, 25, the program was a chance to try something “uncharted” after realizing that cooking in a restaurant wasn’t what he wanted to do with his culinary arts degree.
The Northeast Pennsylvania native made an impression during his rotation at the Children’s Garden last year. When the organization received a grant to expand community gardening in Camden, Devlin hired Loubet to coordinate the effort.
So far this year, he and AmeriCorps workers have helped start 26 community gardens.Loubet also writes about healthy eating for the garden club newsletter.
“I didn’t even know how to garden until I got here,” he said, grinning.
Even though the members only spend a short time in the city, Devlin said the work they do makes an impact. On Friday, he honored AmeriCorps with one of the garden’s annual “Champion of Children” Awards. Americorps has also recognized Devlin’s organization for its dedication to the program, last year naming the garden the sponsor of the year.
Reach Deborah Hirsch at (856) 486-2476 or dhirsch@camden.gannett.com
Additional Facts MORE INFORMATION
Children’s Garden staff members are looking for nonprofit and government agencies in Camden that could use help from AmeriCorps members this summer. Contact (856) 365-8733. For more information about the AmeriCorps programs, including the National Civilian Community Corps, go to www.americorps. gov.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it will provide $400,000 to assess brownfields sites.
The funds will support work at 14 sites along the Interstate 676 and Federal Street corridors, the federal agency said.
The effort will target properties that are polluted with hazardous substances and petroleum waste, the federal agency said.
The federal funds are going to the Camden Redevelopment Agency.
Courier-Post staff
Five years ago, dozens of Cramer Hill residents marched to City Hall, outraged by a $1.2 billion redevelopment plan that would have forced the relocation of more than a thousand families to make way for new homes, retail space, a golf course and a marina.
The 2003 plan became defunct three years later when a judge ruled that the city had made procedural errors during the approval process. But distrust and resentment lingered over what had almost happened.
Now, community leaders have come back with a new plan to revitalize the Cramer Hill neighborhood — without eminent domain.
State officials, city leaders and residents gathered Monday in Von Neida Park to celebrate the unveiling of the nearly 200-page document. The “Cramer Hill Now!” plan calls for a cleaner and safer community, street improvements, more than 375,000 square feet of commercial development, 3,053 residential units and a multifaceted waterfront park over the next two decades. All this is expected to create thousands of jobs and generate more than $9 million in annual tax revenues.
So far, nobody has staged a protest. Nobody has plastered stickers warning developers to stay away, like they did after the Cherokee Investment Partners plan. Nobody had anything but good things to say on Monday.
Community leaders said that’s because residents were involved in the planning process. Since last September, more than 500 residents gave the nonprofit Cramer Hill Community Development Corp. input about the changes they wanted to see in their neighborhood.
“This is something that came up in every meeting, that we need to address the concerns of residents in the neighborhood now,” said executive director Manny Delgado.
A committee of residents, city officials, the Camden Redevelopment Agency and business owners sorted through feedback from the various community meetings. Professional planning consultants, hired with an $85,000 Wachovia Regional Foundation planning grant and $50,000 state grant, analyzed demographics, past development plans and resident surveys.
The ambitious plan they drafted includes improvements to existing businesses, demolition of 57 abandoned homes, mixed-income development, better street lighting, a public library and more home improvement grants.
It also recommends initiatives to improve quality of life such as installing public trash cans, painting murals, taking charge of vacant lots and organizing street clean-up brigades.
An accompanying waterfront study led by the Cooper’s Ferry Development Association calls for parks, sports fields, picnic areas, greenway trails and conservation space along the 2.5 miles of waterfront that outline the neighborhood from the Cooper River to the Delaware River Back Channel. As with the Cherokee plan, there would be a marina and golf, only mini-golf instead of an 18-hole course.
Officials said they’ll use the plan as a tool to get the funding they need to turn their dreams into reality.
“It’s a huge competitive edge for development opportunities,” said Sandy Johnston, director of the Camden Redevelopment Agency.
A few components of the plan are already in the works. The N.J. Department of Environmental Protection is cleaning up a former landfill site on Harrison Avenue that will eventually become a 120,000 square-foot Salvation Army community center. Work to ease flooding issues at Von Neida Park will begin next spring with $1.4 million in grants, Delgado said. His organization also continues to seek grants to build infill homes.
City Council President Angel Fuentes, also a Cramer Hill resident, said he expects council to adopt the “Cramer Hill Now!” plan this summer in conjunction with the city’s official redevelopment plan for the neighborhood, which was started in 2006 but stalled until last year.
“We’ve learned a good lesson: We have to consider people are first,” said Mayor Gwendolyn Faison. “Be encouraged, Cramer Hill. We might have messed up, but you know what, we don’t go away mad. I believe this is going to be the most envious section of the town because there’s so many possibilities.”
Reach Deborah Hirsch at (856) 486-2476 or dhirsch@camden.gannett.com
