CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Construction is an industry that men have traditionally dominated.

What You Need To Know

  • Nora El-Khouri Spencer became handy out of necessity, doing home renovations herself rather than pay a contractor

  • She started Hope Renovations four years ago

  • Hope Renovations is a nonprofit that trains women and people who are gender-expansive for careers in the construction industry

Even though women make up more than 50% of the population, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says in 2023 women made up only about 11% of the construction workforce.

Four years ago, a Triangle woman set out to change that. Nora El-Khouri Spencer is one of our Everyday Heroes who turned her dream into nonprofit Hope Renovations.

She became handy out of necessity, doing home renovations herself rather than pay a contractor.

"I'd talk to friends who are women, and they'd say, 'I love that you know how to do that, I could never do that.' And it just really made me angry because of course they can do that, if I could learn how to do it off of YouTube and following contractors around and say show me what you're doing, then anybody can learn how to do it, " El-Khouri Spencer said.

A lightbulb moment came when she was working on a graduate degree in social work, doing an internship at a homeless shelter.

"And I was working with a lot of women who were traditionally unemployed, stuck in low-wage jobs their whole life, didn't know how to get out of them, and this really was a career that they could access and make family-sustaining wages with," she said.

That's the first goal of Hope Renovations: training women and people who are gender-expansive for careers in the construction industry.

Training is free, and trainees get paid a stipend while in the nine-week program.

And that's not the only mission.

"Purpose No. 2 is helping seniors, folks who are 55-plus or who have a disability, age in place, so stay in their homes, comfortably, safely, as long as they want to," El-Khouri Spencer said.

Martrisha Bradshaw went through the training program four years ago. She has three kids and said the money she’s been able to earn in the construction industry helps to support her family.

She has a message for women who might be apprehensive.

"It doesn't matter how much fear you feel, that fear is telling you there is growth there," Bradshaw said.

She credits Hope Renovations and El-Khouri Spencer for her growth.

"She has been a mentor, a friend, all of the things that we need coming into this industry, lacking support, and Hope provides it," Bradshaw said.

El-Khouri Spencer wouldn't have it any other way.

"I'm the luckiest person in the world. I get to see the people coming through our training program, get to see their lives transformed through this," she said.

Right now, Hope Renovations is in Orange County, but El-Khouri Spencer has plans of expanding in the Triangle to Wake Tech and Durham Tech.