It’s Getting Hot In Here

“My neighborhood’s crazy.” Waylon said, “there’s drugs, alcohol, violence, stolen motor vehicles, robbing, getting into porno—we’re trying to do whatever. This program,” he said, referring to Asheville Green Opportunities or Asheville GO, “makes it not that hard. “And,” he said, “we get paid.”

Waylon was introduced to Asheville GO after serving time in prison. When I visited the Burton Street Community Peace Garden, the eight corps members were winding down the work day. As Waylon sucked down watermelon, Delario and Darius put away shovels they were using to build a green house.

D, Waylon’s co-worker, looked over at me, his hands dyed red from building a cob pizza oven next to the garden. “It’s awesome,” he said. “We’re like  family.”  The GO members not only learn how to grow food, build living roofs and  cob ovens made from Buncombe County’s own red clay, they also learn valuable life and job skills.

Embracing a growing green economy, Asheville GO focuses on resource savings. The emerging program provides young men and women with skills to improve their lives and restore ecological balance to their communities. “By providing members with the foundation they need to launch successful green careers,” Asheville GO director Dan Leroy explains, “we breach environmental, economic and social injustices”

According to the National Renewable Energy Lab, the major barriers to a more rapid adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency in America are insufficient skills and training. Asheville– blossoming in green home construction, solar energy, and local—is ripe for a group helping channel young people with innovative skills.

Asheville GO designed a unique curriculum. During the first semester, GO members will prepare for apprenticeships with businesses in local green industry through service projects in the Asheville community. The program focuses on five career pathways: green building, clean energy, materials recycling, sustainable agriculture and landscaping, and ecosystem restoration. The first half of each day is dedicated to introductions and trainings that inform the service projects. Also included in the curriculum are life skills, like team work and GED preparation, which are transferable and useful in any job.

The leadership and green job training program is not unique to Asheville. Similar projects are springing up all over the country. Van Jones, co-founder and President of Green For All, the year-old national organization based in Oakland that spearheads the call for green-collar jobs is busy developing the online infrastructure to connect the projects. “It’s a movement that exists,” he says, “it just can’t see itself yet.

“The best answers for the planet are the best answer for people and gas prices,” Jones said in a recent interview. “It is clear we are in a climate crisis.  Now people are confused about the solutions.” Jones explains that promotion of things like “clean coal” and off-shore drilling as a part of a comprehensive approach to the energy crisis do not address root causes but are false solutions to climate change. “We are working with the greenest solutions for the poorest people” he said.

As emerging leaders in the green-collar jobs movement, Waylon, D and the other GO members exemplify true solutions for real people. As D explains, “I was tired of doing the things I was doing. I like learning how to do things in a new way.”  According to D, meeting all different kinds of people and having more opportunities will make a significant difference in his life and the life of the planet.