Huntington Family Centers Inc. has received $8,000 from The Citizens Bank Foundation to help pay for renovations to a building that will serve a pilot program designed to train people for jobs.
Huntington, which provides a variety of neighborhood-based programs on Syracuse's Near West Side, will use the money to renovate the Adele Nelson Building next door to Huntington's headquarters building on Gifford Street, said Mike Melara, the agency's executive director.
Huntington has been working since April with the Metropolitan Development Association, Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli's staff, the Spanish Action League, the Northeast Community Center and the Dunbar Center to create the Workforce Development pilot program.
That group hopes to unveil the pilot program in the first few months of 2007, Melara said.
Under the pilot, a group of unemployed men and women would receive "intensive mentoring" to help them find jobs and perform well in them, he said.
"We're trying to develop partnerships with different businesses that will give people in our neighborhood chances to work," Melara said.
The renovations to the building would create office space for mentors and meeting space for Huntington's GED program, he said.
The building also could house other agencies working with Huntington on the effort to find jobs for people in the neighborhood.
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