Rebuilding Exchange and Northwestern University have just announced a partnership to ensure that the Rebuild Ryan Field Project will meet its workforce development hiring goals, create a model of how construction projects in Evanston can move more people out of poverty into living wage careers, and promote greater racial and gender diversity in the building trades workforce.
Since its founding in 2010, the nonprofit Rebuilding Exchange (formerly the Evanston Rebuilding Warehouse) has been in the Evanston community on a mission to reuse building materials, reduce construction waste and train, support and connect people to building trades careers. We have grown tremendously in the last few years, most recently with the 2022 addition of an Illinois Works Pre-Apprenticeship program to support and prepare participants to enter registered apprenticeship programs.
After just one year, we have served 70 individuals in our pre-apprenticeship program, with 90% identifying as people of color and 16% women. 95% of our graduates have applied to and are actively pursuing placement in a variety of union apprenticeship programs including the carpenters, laborers, sheet metal workers and pipefitters. Through these efforts, we are proud to share that we have active apprentices in almost every building trades union in Chicagoland.
The Ryan Field Project is an opportunity to provide building trades career pathways for Evanston residents – and we have agreed to take the lead in helping build a diverse, qualified and skilled talent pipeline to meet the demand that union contractors will have. We will recruit more Evanston residents into our pre-apprenticeship training program, as well as expand job readiness and placement opportunities for those who need a smaller amount of support to be considered for the project.
We know that this project is not without controversy. We both live in Evanston and understand the complexities that the community and university need to navigate. But if we are to be successful in ensuring Evanston residents are skilled and competitive to be hired on Ryan Field and on any construction project in Evanston, we need to start now.
Because we know the impact that a living wage career can have on a person, their families, and their community. We believe that the following is possible on Ryan Field:
- More Evanston residents, especially low-income individuals, will rise out of poverty through a career in the building trades;
- More Evanston residents will live and work in Evanston on current and future Northwestern University construction projects, which will result in a stronger economy as goods and services are purchased locally;
- More building trades employers working in Evanston will prioritize hiring a diverse workforce and meet local hiring standards.
This Labor Day, as a community, we must acknowledge racial and economic systems that have excluded too many for too long. We need to build more on-ramps to pathways for consistent, living-wage employment that can be accessed by all Evanstonians. The rebuild of Ryan Field and the construction jobs the project will bring is one such pathway. We are excited to do our part to help ensure that the rebuild of Ryan Field will open doors of opportunity for all.
Aina Gutierrez
Rebuilding Exchange executive director
Chris Valentine
Rebuilding Exchange board chair
I am very happy to learn that the Rebuilding Exchange and Northwestern University have just announced a partnership to ensure that the Rebuild Ryan Field Project will meet its workforce development hiring goals, create a model of how construction projects in Evanston can move more people out of poverty into living wage careers, and promote greater racial and gender diversity in the building trades workforce.
I note that this partnership can be accomplished at all of their buildings, not just the work at Ryan Field. It can also be accomplished without a change to the zoning laws.
The violence of Dr. Ghate’s comments disqualifies them from serious consideration: they utterly fail to understand the breadth of issues the Ryan Field proposals present to the region and, most particularly, to the quality of life of the many people living within its sphere of effect.
This seems like good news, though I’m eager to learn more details.
It’s a shame NU wasted a year trying to drum up support for its proposed zoning change instead of securing more partnerships like this one.
For the record-Northwestern can build the stadium and make good on all those social promises of jobs and a community benefits agreement BUT Northwestern DOES NOT need a zoning change to build the stadium and meet those promises.
As someone who has worked on past annual benefits for the Rebuilding Exchange and is a customer, it is nice to have an opportunity for your trainees to participate on rebuilding the stadium. Is this the first time that NU has approached the Rebuilders, given all the new building constructed on the land fill?
The LUC meeting on September 6 will reveal deep issues and concerns regarding NU’s request to rezone Ryan Field into a For Profit entertainment district that will subject Evanston to harmful levels of air and noise pollution and high congestion.
To characterize opponents of commercialization as haters is inappropriate and offensive. Opponents seek to do what most residents would do, defend the health and quality of life of their families and neighbors.
What a fitting message to kickoff Labor Day weekend! Good union jobs have long provided a pathway into the middle class and beyond. Sadly, these opportunities have eluded so many in our community. Thank you, Aina and Chris, for your commitment to open these doors to everyone in our community. Imagine the parental pride when an Evanston family takes in movie night in the new Ryan Field and tells their children, “We built this!”
50% of the population is women how are we looking at 16% women in any program as anything other than a sign the program is misogynistic?
Hi Nina, the building trades has long been exclusionary to people of color and women. Currently only 4% of tradespeople are women. We are working hard to recruit women into our programs, but it will take some time.
If you know people who might be interested, please send them our way! http://www.rebuildingexchange.org
Hi Aina! CWIT manages to find enough women to run multiple courses without any men at all, maybe you could reach out to them for ideas and help on including women and attracting them to your program!
Also I looked into racial stats in the US construction industry since you brought it up and the construction industry is also about 90% non-white and 30% white so you’re also not doing better than the industry standard in terms of racial inclusion.
Hi Nina, I agree that CWIT is a great organization and we work with them and many others in Chicagoland to help grow pathways for many who have been excluded into building trades careers.
The opportunity on this project is also to support Evanston residents who want to access building trades careers, starting on a project in their own community. We are excited to get started.
Aina and Chris,
This is an incredible opportunity that your organization and the university have put together. You should be very proud and excited. Understand the haters are likely on an emergency call this morning trying to figure out their next angle of attack. They will lob bombs at you, but just remember you are in the right here! I’ve often found the hardest thing to do is usually the right thing and you and your organization have done the right thing here. Don’t let them sway you. Your partnership in this project will change the lives of countless community members. Cheers to you! Enjoy the Labor Day Holiday knowing you have made the right call.
Thank you so much, Raju! I am grateful for your words of support.
The haters, as you so colorfully call those residents concerned about the rampant lack of answers, backroom dealing, lack of “awareness” of the NU representatives, are always pleased to support efforts of Evanston businesses to step forward and guide the direction that the $14B+ endowments university should have had as part of their original plan. Thank heaven for grassroots Evanston businesses who have been doing the right thing for years and now do what should be obvious and what would have been so very simple for the NU team to have built into their proposal from the beginning. Whoever is working on the project should reach out to their freshman class for some refinement assistance. Perhaps now someone in transportation can teach them how to calculate proper transport of their proposed event attendees, so it doesn’t take 4 hours to depart a concert and require 200 shuttle buses blocking movement of emergency vehicles and doctors to our Level 1 trauma hospital.