Skyland Workforce Center celebrated its 10th anniversary and a “homecoming” at its new location at Skyland Town Center. where almost 100 people participated in the activities highlighting the organization’s work and expansion on Oct. 3.
The center, a program of Building Bridges Across the River, primarily serves residents of Wards 7 and 8. It has placed more than 1,000 people in jobs and helped nearly 8,000 clients since 2014.
WC Smith and Rappaport, lead developers of the Skyland Town Center, founded the center in 2014 as an employment training resource for D.C. residents seeking construction jobs for the development, which had broken ground earlier that year.
“It was started with two guys and a handshake, Chris Smith of the Smith Company and Gary Rappaport of Rappaport,” said Rahsaan Bernard, president of Building Bridges Across the River, at the center’s Oct. 3 ribbon-cutting ceremony, prior to the graduation.
The center provides workforce development programs designed to lead to work-ready employee candidates, career-focused job placement, economic self-sufficiency, and improved quality of life.
Skyland Workforce Center offers a construction training class with certifications in OSHA-30, CRP, and flagging. The ceremony highlighted the 36th cohort of students to take the class.
Former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams Williams joined Bernard, Smith, Rappaport and members of the staff and students in the formal cutting of the ribbon, saying “we are celebrating a very, very long milestone.”
The Graduation Ceremony
Christien Pone sat proudly in front of a crowd of 45 people at the Skyland Workforce Center graduation ceremony, smiling ear to ear.
Pone, 43, came to see her son, Mansur Sanchez graduate from the center’s workforce program. However, it wasn’t just Sanchez who received encouraging words from his proud mama.
“You better smile, you got a certificate,” she said loudly to one graduate, before saying to another, “Stand up straight, girl, you made it!”
The graduation ceremony took place in a room inside the center.
Anesa Saunders, the center’s program coordinator, welcomed the graduates, family and friends to the facility and to the event.
The graduates sat in the front of the room wearing blue stoles with “2024” in white numbers.
Keith Hawkins, the center’s safety consultant, said he enjoys working at the center.
“I have been teaching here for four years,” Hawkins said. “It is good to help people who are looking for a fresh start.”
The alumni guest speaker was Damon Donelson-Bey, a recent graduate. Donelson-Bey said he was incarcerated for 26 years and needed something to turn his life around when he arrived back in the District 15 months ago.
“I am a proud alumnus of the Skyland Workforce Center,” Donelson-Bey, 46, said. “It is here that I learned that your network is your net worth. The Skyland Workforce Center gave me the confidence I needed to establish myself.”
Donelson-Bey said the center taught him job interview skills, resume writing and “helped me buy a suit.” He now works as a mentor for the nonprofit organization Life Pieces to Masterpieces and told The Informer he was selected for an internship in the office of U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Alabama).
Donelson-Bey told the graduates to be proud of what they accomplished “because this is the first of many accomplishments.”
Pone said her son’s graduation is the result of her encouragement to choose a path post secondary school.
“When he graduated from high school, I told him he had options,” she said. “He could go to college, go to the military, participate in Job Corps or go get a job. He heard about this program and picked this.”