Creative Futures Build
You already know this trade. That is the whole qualification.
Build connects young adults between 18 and 26 with companies in the trades. Some of them aged out of state care. Some came up through our after school programs. Some simply finished high school with no path and nobody to ask. There are two ways to be part of it, and neither one asks you to be a social worker, a counselor, or an expert in anything except the work you already do every day.
Mentor
For anyone in a trade, working or retired
One hour a month with a young adult who is learning the work you have spent your life doing. You do not need an opening at your company. You do not even need to still be working.
What mentoring involvesTrade partner
For company owners and hiring managers
One opening you were going to fill anyway, filled by someone we have prepared and will stay with for a full year after their first shift.
What partnering involvesMentoring
The young people in Build are not short on ability. They are short on exposure. Nobody at home showed them what a working life looks like from the inside, so the ordinary things are the hard things. How to ask a question on a jobsite without feeling stupid. What to do when you are going to be late. Why a trade is worth staying with when the first year is the hardest. A mentor is someone who already knows all of that and is willing to say it out loud.
What we ask of you
- One hour a month, for twelve months. A real conversation, not a check-in text. Consistency matters more than length, and twelve months is where the value actually lives.
- A background check and a short training. Both are on us. The training is about an hour and covers what the role is, what it is not, and when to hand something to us.
- Honesty about the work. Tell them what you wish someone had told you. The hard parts included.
- Tell us when something is off. You are not expected to fix it. You are expected to mention it.
What we never ask of you
- You are not their counselor. You narrate a trade. You do not process anyone's history, and you are never expected to ask about it.
- You are not their supervisor. If you can discipline or fire someone, you cannot be their mentor. Nobody tells the truth to a person holding their job.
- You do not handle anything outside the trade. Money, paperwork, a bad week. All of that comes to us.
- You are not locked in. Either side can end a match without explanation, and nobody's job is affected.
You do not need a job opening to mentor. Some of the best mentors work at companies that are not hiring, or stopped working years ago. If you have the time and the trade, we will match you with someone learning it somewhere else.
Send your name, your trade, and where you are. Two minutes.
A short conversation so we understand your work and your schedule.
A background check and about an hour of orientation, both on us.
We introduce you to someone learning your trade and stay with both of you.
Partnering as a company
Nobody is asking you to take a chance as a favor. A trade partner hires someone who has been prepared before they arrive, and gets a year of support behind that hire so a supervisor never has to become a caseworker. The hardest part of bringing on a young worker is rarely the work. It is everything around the work, and that part is ours.
What a partnership includes
- One opening. A role you were going to fill anyway, at the wage you were going to pay.
- One mentor inside your company. Someone in the trade who gives an hour a month, and who is not the new hire's direct supervisor.
- The training you already do. Whatever certification path your crew already follows. We are not asking you to build a program.
- A signed one page agreement. Slots per year, wage floor, who the mentor is, and how either side steps back. One page, not a contract binder.
What we bring
- A prepared candidate. Screened, local, able to get themselves to your jobsite, and choosing your trade rather than being assigned to it.
- Check-ins at 30, 60, and 90 days. With both of you, separately, and then through the first year.
- No placement fee. You never pay us for a hire and the young adult never pays either. We are funded by donors, foundations, and workforce grants.
- A no fault exit. If it does not work, we take the person back, keep working with them, and you owe us nothing.
You remain the employer. You hire, you supervise, you pay, and you decide. REST never places workers, directs work, or bills for a placement. Your local workforce board may also reimburse part of a new hire's wages during a defined training period through an on the job training contract, and we will help you find out whether your role qualifies.
Twenty minutes on what you do, what you hire for, and when.
Slots, wage, mentor, and how either side steps back.
You interview and you choose. Saying no to all of them is a real option.
Twelve months of support behind your hire and your mentor.
The questions people actually ask
Who is actually in this program?
Young adults between 18 and 26 who did not grow up with a working life modeled for them. Some aged out of state care. Some came up through our after school programs in the neighborhoods we serve. Some finished high school with no path and no one to ask. It is not a comment on anyone's character or record. It means the ordinary knowledge most people absorb at home was never available to them.
Will I be told someone's history?
Only what they choose to tell you. That decision belongs to them, not to us and not to our intake form. What you will be told is what they want to learn and what they are working on.
What if the match is not working?
Tell us and we change it. No fault, no explanation owed, and a mentor match ending never affects anyone's employment. We would much rather hear about it in month two than find out in month nine.
I do not have an opening right now. Is there still a point?
Yes, and it is a real contribution rather than a smaller one. Mentor without hiring. We will match your person with someone learning your trade at another company, and your company gets to see how this works before you ever commit a slot.
Does REST provide housing or transportation?
No. We only work with candidates who are local and can already get themselves to a jobsite on time. Where someone is not there yet, we point them to the organizations that do that work and stay in touch until they are ready.
What does this cost?
Nothing. There is no placement fee, no membership, and no cost to the young adult either. If you want to give beyond the hire, covering boots, tools, and safety gear for someone's first day is the most useful thing a company can do, because gear is due on day one and the first paycheck is two or three weeks out.
If there is no fee, how is this funded?
By donors, foundations, and workforce development grants. Employers supply the training and the job, which is the expensive part and the part we could never buy. Our funders cover the matching and the year of support around it. Companies who want to give do so as donors rather than as customers, and that is deliberate. A placement fee would quietly pressure us to put someone into a job that was not right for them, and the whole program depends on us never having that incentive.
I am not in California. Can I still get involved?
Tell us where you are. Build launches in California, and we are deciding where it goes next based on which companies raise a hand. Your name and your city are part of that decision.
One hour a month, or one opening. Both of them change a life.
Nothing is committed by reaching out. Tell us which one you are thinking about and we will come back to you within a week with a straight answer about what it would involve.