ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The city of Rochester is among 29 organizations nationwide getting $14.3 million through the EPA's Brownfields Job Training Program to recruit, train and place workers for community revitalization and cleanup projects at brownfield sites.

Funded through President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law, the REJob Training Program will train students and supply the environmental construction field with a trained workforce.

The Rochester Environmental Job Training Program is entering its seventh year of assisting and training students to receive careers in environmental remediation. The program targets workers who are disadvantaged in some way in hopes of placing them in stable jobs.

"I feel honored and blessed from the role that I travel, the things that I went through growing up in poverty, a chance to be able to create concrete and stable solutions towards this war on poverty that we are still in," said Paul McFadden, manager of workforce development. "Being able to protect the economic infrastructure of the city of Rochester is the first key step towards helping individuals navigate themselves and their families out of poverty.”

Students are required to complete eight weeks of unpaid training. In return, each participant is provided with a secured full-time job at the end of the course.

“They are making a personal sacrifice with their families to come inside of the program, especially the moms and dads," McFadden said. "We start at 7:45. We do not leave until 4:01. There's a lot of sacrifices that come with that. And I cannot be in a traditional mind frame of as long as you're here, that's all that matters because it doesn't work like that. You have to make sure that you are catering to the needs of each person that is making sacrifices.”

Those sacrifices have become success stories for students like Bre'Asia Griffin.

“I had to actually quit my job so I could do the eight-week program," Griffin said. "And you start to think like, 'is this something that, you know, I'm going to come out at the end?' And at the time, I didn't really know what type of job I was going to get. So to find out that I did get that opportunity once in that position, I was able to excel. I really take pride in making the city better, changing infrastructure, implementing policies that, you know, can help our community and actually living in my community.”

Now visiting the current class of the REJob Training 3.0 Program, she is able to give advice to the participants, including its youngest student, 19-year-old Edward Hardaway.

“We've been working with the world in unison and we've also formed a bond across each other," Hardaway said. "And like a family bond, which is really wonderful and relaxing, which actually helped the program to be easygoing. So, it's been good. I've been pushed to do certain things because I'm the younger one here. Like today I was made to put on the SBA suit because I was the youngest one.”

The job training program has not only provided more job opportunities for its students, but has also given them a chance to make a change for the community they live in.  

“How is it that we have a brownfields training program that is targeting people who no longer desire to live in poverty, not offer them one single dollar for any stipend based on incentives?" asked McFadden. "And no one misses a day for eight weeks. They are calling themselves brothers and sisters, and they have never met each other before. I believe that what the REJob Program is offering is something that is needed, not just inside of the brownfields program. I think it is needed community wide for every facet, for every agency and for every organization."

Mcfadden finds the students' first steps into the classroom and last steps at graduation are the most satisfying part of his job.

When you meet them the first time you meet them, you know, this is not who is going to be walking across that stage, getting that opportunity," McFadden said. "You are literally witnessing people transition out of poverty, but you are also literally witnessing people putting an end to the generational curses that have put them in poverty to begin with as well. There's some hidden gems that are taking place inside the REJob Program, and I just think those gems need to be shared with the entire city of Rochester.”

As of March, this year’s class of the REJob Training Program celebrated 148 people who have graduated and pursued careers within seven years of the launch of the program.

If you or someone you know wants to apply, click here.