Wed, Oct. 15

“Not every kid wants to code—but every kid deserves a career.”

That’s what Darrell Boone told the crowd at a school board meeting in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. He didn’t say it to be provocative. He said it because he was tired of watching smart, capable teens fall through the cracks just because their dreams didn’t come with a laptop.

And in a city where steel built the skyline but the trades had lost their spotlight, Darrell wasn’t looking to revive nostalgia—he was building the future.

One torch, one trade, one grant at a time.

⚙️ A Crisis in the Classroom, a Gap on the Ground

Let’s be real: in the post-industrial cities of America, we talk a lot about innovation. We fund tech. We chase STEM. But what we often forget is that blue collar doesn’t mean back row. It means infrastructure. It means resilience. And it still builds this country.

In Pittsburgh, the education system was cranking out diplomas but not always direction. High school grads, especially Black and working-class students, were either funneled toward low-wage jobs or pushed into four-year college pathways that often led to debt—not degrees.

Meanwhile, the regional labor force was screaming for welders, machinists, HVAC techs, and renewable energy installers. The pay was good. The work was stable. The pipeline? Practically empty.

That mismatch—that aching gap between what young people were told to pursue and what actually existed—was the reason Darrell started Steel Rising, Pittsburgh’s first “blue collar bootcamp” for next-gen trades talent.

🔧 The Builder with the Big Idea

Darrell wasn’t a bureaucrat or a policy wonk. He was a master welder who ran a garage by day and mentored neighborhood teens by night. For years, he taught kids how to hold a torch, read a blueprint, and show up on time—no tuition required.

But the demand kept growing. Kids were showing up early, staying late, asking for resumes and references. What started as a basement passion project had become a full-blown program—with no budget, no staff, and no stable site.

That’s when he linked up with Dr. Nina Carver, a workforce strategist at a local community college, and Mayor Lucia Price, who had just declared skilled trades “the missing link in Pittsburgh’s equity strategy.”

Together, they envisioned The Blue Collar Bootcamp:

• A 16-week, tuition-free, stipend-paid training pipeline

• Certifications in welding, advanced manufacturing, green HVAC, and EV infrastructure

• Life skills and entrepreneurship modules

• Job placement guarantees with regional employers

• Priority slots for returning citizens, foster youth, and disconnected young adults

They had a model. They had a building (a shuttered vocational school). They even had a waitlist.

What they didn’t have? A million-dollar strategy to make it sustainable.

That’s when someone said, “We need Mr. Grant Money.”

🎩 When I Got the Call (and What I Saw)

Now, I’ve been in my fair share of fancy incubators, innovation labs, and tech accelerators. But when I walked into that dusty old vo-tech school in the Hill District, I got chills.

The bones were still there—workbenches, welding booths, rows of machines under tarps. But what really struck me were the posters. Old ones. “Your Future Starts Here.” “Pride in Precision.” They weren’t ironic. They were unfinished.

Darrell looked at me and said, “We don’t need to modernize trades. We need to reframe them.”

He was right. So I cracked open my playbook and asked the big question:

“How do we fund this like it’s the future—not the fallback?”

🧠 Making It Fundable, Making It Fly

We went to work on a layered proposal that married equity, urgency, and workforce transformation.

Here’s how we pitched it:

• Not a job training program. A career rebirth pipeline built by and for the community.

• Not remediation. Reskilling-as-power, tied to regional economic recovery.

• Not charity. Philanthropy as public investment in overlooked genius.

We targeted:

• U.S. Department of Labor’s YouthBuild and Strengthening Community Colleges Grants

• National Science Foundation’s Advanced Tech Ed Program for smart manufacturing

• Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Workforce Innovation Challenge

• Local anchors like UPMC, Carnegie Mellon, and PPG for employer partnerships

And we included letters from 12 students—from Tyrell, who left high school early to support his siblings, to Asia, a single mom learning welding to start her own fabrication business.

We showed that this wasn’t just a training center. It was a launch site for a new kind of blue-collar leadership.

💥 Funded, Forged, and Fired Up

Three months later, the sparks flew—literally.

• $2.4 million from the Department of Labor

• $600K from Bloomberg for pilot innovation

• $250K in tool, gear, and materials donations from industry partners

• Community college co-funding for dual credit options

The Blue Collar Bootcamp officially opened its doors that fall.

Within six weeks:

• All 40 slots were filled

• 90% of students completed OSHA certification by Week 4

• Companies lined up to sponsor cohorts and pre-hire students

• The bootcamp launched a Saturday program just for women in trades, dubbed “Torch Queens”

Oh—and the school board that once ignored vocational training? They voted to convert two more shuttered sites into bootcamp campuses by 2026.

🧭 The Grant Money Gospel: Welding Edition

Let’s melt this down to some truths:

1. Trades are not second-tier—they’re second chances.
   Pitch that with pride, not apology.

2. Don’t pitch pathways—pitch pipelines with pay.
   Wraparound matters. Stipends matter. Transportation matters.

3. Your blueprint should include belief.
   Darrell didn’t write a white paper. He taught a skill and built a movement.

4. Fund skills that won’t go out of style.
   Robots may code. But someone still has to weld the frame.

5. When you invest in dignity, everyone shows up.
   Students. Funders. Employers. The whole city.

🔩 Who’s Holding the Torch in Your City?

Maybe you know a Darrell. Maybe you are a Darrell. Maybe there’s a shuttered shop waiting for sparks.

If your city needs builders, dreamers, and second chances, don’t wait.

You bring the grit.
I’ll bring the grants.

Let’s fire it up.

– Mr. Grant Money

💬 Discussion Questions

1. Why are skilled trades often treated as “backup” plans in education? How can we shift that narrative?
2. What barriers—social, financial, or cultural—keep young people from pursuing hands-on careers in your city or town?
3. How can cities better align workforce development with the real-world aspirations of youth from underserved communities?
4. Have you ever learned a practical skill that opened a door for you professionally or personally? What was that moment like?
5. If you could design a bootcamp to serve people overlooked by traditional education, what would it teach—and who would you hire to lead it?