Dr. Sarah Scarbrough speaks Thursday at Real Life’s news conference. (Courtesy REAL LIFE and Skip Rowland Photography.)
A local nonprofit that operates recovery houses throughout Richmond is expanding its services with a new building aimed at job training.
Church Hill-based nonprofit Real Life announced last week its plans to transform the 19,000-square-foot former church at 1920 Fairmount Ave. into The Fairmount Center, where it will house Real Life Industries, a hub focused on workforce development targeted at those struggling to regain employment after incarceration or amid other destabilizing situations.
Nonprofit board members and employees, and city and state officials gathered at the Fairmount Avenue building Thursday to celebrate the new venture.
The cost to renovate and outfit the old church building is expected as of now to be around $5 million, Real Life founder and director Sarah Scarbrough told BizSense at the event. The group is planning a capital campaign for the project in the coming months.
The renovated building will include workforce training classrooms, office space, a screen printing operation, a coffee shop for program participants to work at and other facets.
“It’s about announcing new opportunity, a new way of creating hope, restoring dignity and building a stronger workforce and stronger community,” Scarbrough said.
1920 Fairmount Avenue. (Courtesy REAL LIFE)
Scarbrough founded Real Life in 2016. The nonprofit is headquartered out of Church Hill and has 10 recovery homes in Richmond. The homes serve individuals struggling with drug addiction, homelessness and poverty or affected by violence, as well as people who have recently left incarceration.
She noted that the “missing piece” in many people who use Real Life’s services is “meaningful employment,” adding that Real Life Industries is the nonprofit’s answer to the issue and has been in the works for several years.
Scarbrough was inspired to create Real Life Industries in part by a visit to nonprofit Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, California, which runs a similar workforce development hub. She said her nonprofit looked for multiple spaces around the city before learning the Fairmount Avenue church building was available for lease.
The LLC that owns 1920 Fairmount is tied to Church Hill North Holdings, the development firm led by local businessman Steve Markel, whose projects have included a massive mixed-use development that includes The Market at 25th grocery store and Kitchens at Reynolds culinary school.
Markel’s LLC paid $1.7 million for the church last year and has since filed for a special-use permit to allow “office and social service delivery uses” in the building.
Dating to 1892, the building was constructed for Fairmount United Methodist Church. Bethlehem Baptist had owned it since 1962 and had relocated in recent years.
Scarbrough said that while the nonprofit is already involved in workforce development in its recovery homes, The Fairmount Center is meant to target people who might not necessarily need recovery housing but are in need of some help finding a stable job or navigating the labor market at-large.
“Often, these folks are not somebody that we can put in employment successfully within a couple of (weeks) period, it’s a much longer process, there’s more training needed, more barriers to address,” she said.
“Employers continue telling us and probably all of you that they need skilled, dependable employees, and there are thousands of people in our region that remain disconnected from that opportunity because traditional workforce systems were not designed to serve people facing the greatest barriers,” Scarbrough said at the event.
The upfit of the space will occur in phases, likely starting with the build-out of the coffee shop. She said the nonprofit hopes to have architectural permits submitted within a month.
Real Life volunteers, staffers and stakeholders gathered Thursday for the unveiling of Real Life Industries. (Courtesy REAL LIFE and Skip Rowland Photography.)
Real Life has signed on two existing Virginia nonprofits and one local manufacturing company to work on programming in The Fairmount Center when it opens
Current participants include the local nonprofit Virginia Manufacturers Association, the Community College Workforce Alliance of Brightpoint and Reynolds community colleges and Super Radiator Coils, whose Virginia operations are based out of Chesterfield County.
Wes Smith, workforce solutions director at the Virginia Manufacturers Association, said the group’s members will help out on-site at The Fairmount Center to lead workforce programming and workshops about the manufacturing industry.
“(Workforce) is the big buzzword the last few years. Every industry is having a problem finding candidates for jobs,” Smith said. “We need to find new, innovative and strategic ways to find the right candidates that match up with these jobs and give them the technical skills to be proficient.”
Real Life is still working on interior design for the center and plans to host several community meetings to hear what neighbors would like to see in the space.
The nonprofit has around 24 full-time employees, many of whom have been through Real Life’s programming. Scarbrough said it will likely hire about eight employees to start at the center, and hopes to similarly hire program participants there.
Real Life operated with $2.29 million in revenue and $2.19 million in expenses in 2024, according to the nonprofit’s most recent public financial reports issued to the IRS.
Print Article