Founded in 2010, Homeboy Industries’ Solar Panel training program provides a unique chance for homeboys and homegirls to gain marketable skills while looking out for the environment.
Preparing for a green economy
Homeboy Industries’ Solar Panel training program provides a unique chance for program graduates to gain marketable skills while taking care of the environment. The rigorous 4-month, full-time program offers tuition, tutoring, and financial support for clients to learn about solar-panel design, construction, and installation through the Photovoltaic Training Program at the East Los Angeles Skills Center.
More than a job
California is at the center of the US solar industry, with 40 percent of the country’s solar capacity and some 100,000 solar-industry jobs (over 16,000 in Los Angeles County alone). And employers can hardly keep up with the demand: 18 percent reported having trouble finding qualified and experienced candidates to fill open positions. Working in the solar program at Homeboy Industries is not just job training; it’s a career opportunity.
The program is a model partnership between a community organization (Homeboy Industries), an educational institution (East Los Angeles Skills Center, where participants take photovoltaics classes), and the private sector, thanks to supporters like Boeing, Bronson and Knapp Foundation, and Union Bank. Homeboy Industries has also partnered with GRID Alternatives, a nonprofit that provides panels for free to low-income families in communities designated “red zone” by the California Environmental Protection Agency. These are poor neighborhoods that are plagued by environmental, air- and water-quality problems.
We are grateful to all of our partners for continued leadership in pushing for green approaches to re-entry by investing in our program.
To learn more about hiring solar panel installation program graduates, many who are North American Board Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP), please contact our team at solarpanel@homeboyindustries.org.