Operation Fresh Start gets $570K grant from Gates Foundation

Mike Miller  —  12/12/2008 6:39 pm

Operation Fresh Start of Madison, struggling as are other entities because of the economy, has been selected to receive a three-year grant totaling $570,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The grant is part of a $69 million Gates Foundation initiative announced this week, aimed at doubling the number of low-income students who earn college or vocational school degrees by age 26.

The Madison Operation Fresh Start grant comes through YouthBuild USA, a network of more than 200 community programs that work with high-school dropouts and young offenders. The Madison group is one of just seven YouthBuild affiliates to receive the Gates grants.

"This money will help us follow our Fresh Start graduates as they attend technical schools and colleges and give them moral and financial support," said Operation Fresh Start Executive Director Connie Ferris Bailey. "We want them to cross the finish line. We want them to have not just a job but a career that can support a family. A GED is no longer enough," she said.

Founded in 1970, Operation Fresh Start has helped some 6,000 unemployed, troubled young people from age 16 to 24 redirect their lives as they learn skills by rebuilding run-down houses that are then sold on the open market to low-income families in Madison and Dane County. The program for each youth takes two years or more, and the operation has had a graduation rate of more than 80 percent, the group said.

Program graduates are given AmeriCorps educational vouchers, but not all use them and some who do drop out short of completing a degree. The Gates money will be used to follow up on the Fresh Start graduates with extra help, executive assistant Judy Olson said.

"We will hire two people to follow through with our graduates, one exclusively to provide graduate services in education and another for graduates who have entered employment," she said.

"We will also fund a project position at MATC for a person to watch over our graduates and match them with student mentors," Olson said. "It's vital for them to have a personal face and place to touch base on a big campus."

Money from the Gates grant will also be used to help Fresh Start student graduates pay for things like rent or transportation on an emergency basis, Olson said.

Fresh Start currently helps young people in the program get a feel for college by sending them to MATC for remedial courses or courses that are required for entry into an associated degree program.

Operation Fresh Start has a $2 million annual budget and has been troubled by the downturns in the housing and mortgage markets. Its officials have been struggling to raise money. While the Gates Foundation grant will help in some ways, the group's operating budget still needs further community donations because it is aimed at specific areas, officials said.

For more information on Operation Fresh Start, go to its Web site.

Mike Miller  —  12/12/2008 6:39 pm