Chippewa Fresh Start unveils new house built by at-risk youth program

Jan. 26—FALL CREEK — As he walked around the new house, Isaiah Sloop, 17, remembered the different things he had a hand in.

Painting a bedroom, installing a bathroom vanity and hanging vapor barrier throughout the basement were among his contributions to 512 E. Jackson Ave.

Sloop is among 31 young adults in the Chippewa Fresh Start program who worked on the Fall Creek house since construction began in September 2021.

The program is aimed at at-risk young adults ages 16 to 25 who have had a variety of problems in their past. Those can include a lack of education, a bad work history, alcohol or drug issues, incarceration or trouble with the law.

Fresh Start requires participants to work together to build a house, do some volunteering for local charities and keep up on their schooling. In exchange, young adults in the program are paid $60 a day for their labor and they will get a scholarship.

"Fresh Start is the only reason why I'm doing as good as I'm doing," Sloop said.

For him, some of the program's biggest benefits are the intangibles — learning new skills, developing a work ethic and putting a job on his resume.

"This will get me a record for other employers to see," Sloop said.

An open house held on Thursday invited in community donors, program participants' parents, staff from Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council and others to see the home that was finished in December.

"We had a lot of youths put in their time and effort," said Shayne Gerberding, who works for Western Dairyland as program manager for Chippewa Fresh Start.

To complete the Fresh Start program, participants put in a total of 900 hours — half on the job and half on education. Finishing that usually takes eight to nine months, Gerberding said. At the end of that, those who put in the full hours get a $3,000 scholarship from Americorps, which they can use to help pay for college within seven years.

While Fresh Start centers around young adults building a house, those who work with the program said it's much more than that.

"It's like the home is the byproduct," said Anna Cardarella, CEO of Western Dairyland. "It's really about changing the lives of the kids."

Only about 10% who go through Chippewa Fresh Start go onto careers in construction, Cardarella said. Many likely use what they learned building a house to repair their own in the future, she added.

But the real gain they make through the program is building up their self-esteem.

"They learn they can do anything," Cardarella said.

Construction isn't the career path that Alex Munthe, 17, of Altoona necessarily sees himself on. He's envisioning something more artistic and entrepreneurial for his future.

But he's appreciated what he's learned through Fresh Start.

"I learned a lot of skills I didn't have," he said.

On Wednesday, Munthe learned how to use a skill saw to trim plywood when making the subfloor for Fresh Start's next house. Construction began earlier this month on the home on East Adams Street, located in the same Fall Creek subdivision as the recently completed one.

As he looks toward graduating from Altoona High School this spring, Munthe also is grateful that Fresh Start has helped him build up some savings.

"So I'm basically like an adult," he said.

Prior to starting construction, the Fresh Start students all had to take a 10-hour OSHA safety course.

And then on the job site, Dakota Rindahl of Strum supervised work at the house and led construction. For each task, he shows the students how to do it and then watches over as they move ahead.

"I try to run this pretty much like a regular construction site," said Rindahl, who began working as Western Dairyland's construction manager last year.

This is the first job he's had with youths and Rindahl has found them to be witty, insightful and fun to work with.

And he noticed the difference it made in the young adults when they saw they could succeed at something.

"They just need a win every once in a while," he said.

Almost all of the work was done by the Fresh Start program, but there were some jobs where professional tradespeople were hired.

Excavating, concrete work, electrical, plumbing and carpeting are the parts of the house that were done by subcontractors.

But even for those jobs done, Cardarella said Fresh Start participants were invited to observe and ask questions if they were interested in learning about those careers.

The home is yet to be sold, but it will be specifically for a low-income household. Only people making up to 80% of the Eau Claire County median income will be allowed to buy it. For example, that would mean a family of three would need a household income of $57,600 or less to qualify.

The new homeowners would take out a traditional first mortgage, but also get help from Western Dairyland, which takes out a second mortgage to shoulder part of the up-front costs of buying a home.

That second mortgage does not have to be paid until the homeowners sell the house years later, using proceeds from the sale to pay it off.