The San Jose Conservation Corps and Charter School supports youth who lack reading and math skills or who have no driver's license, a history of dead-end jobs, gang involvement, or substance-abuse issues. The organization works with these individuals to turn their lives around.

The 16-year-old nonprofit looks at workforce and industry trends to see where the high-wage jobs will be and then provides the support, academic training and skills needed to meet the demand. The organization does very little outside marketing to promote itself, and most of the people who join the conservation corps find out about it through friends or relatives.

The program helps young adults discover the importance of environmental conservation, through learning a trade, while at the same time giving them a chance to restructure their own lives. One of those ways is through the conservation corps' YouthBuild Program, which is designed to teach young adults a vocational skill while they help needy families.

Many of those young adults are putting their new carpentry skills to the test by building a home in Willow Glen on Meredith Avenue. The home, which will have an estimated fair market value in the $400,000 range, is scheduled for completion by February 2004, and it will be available to a local low-income family. The family will be selected from a raffle drawing of qualifying individuals.

Most of the participants in the program working on the current project had fallen onto hard times and were not comfortable disclosing the events that led them to join the program.

One of the program participants, Nidya Martinez, who found out about the program through a friend, said working on the Willow Glen home has given her a sense of accomplishment.

"When it is finished, I can tell people that I built that home," she says. "I think it's really cool."

Like all YouthBuild workers, Martinez is paid $8 an hour at the homesite. But the experience has opened her eyes to possibilities she didn't realize were available to her before, she said. Now she is considering a career in medicine and is a student at Evergreen Valley College.

Moses Silva, who joined the organization six months ago, structures his time in the YouthBuild Program so that he alternates between spending one week in classes at a charter school to finish up his high school education and the next week at the house site.

His goal is to become a park ranger, but for now he is content working and going to classes. The 19-year-old still needs 40 credits to graduate and admits that while he likes learning the facets of home construction, the back and forth of classes and work can be a little stressful.

Conservation Corps Executive Director Bob Hennessy says young adults can be in the program for up to three years.

"We're not interested in what went wrong with the people that come into the program," says Hennessy, who was handpicked to become the head of the organization after a nationwide search. "We just want to turn things around for them."

He says that graduates of the charter school have gone on to work in construction, recycling, high tech and many other careers. Recently, he journeyed to Sacramento to try and obtain funding support from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for the program.

Deputy Director of Operations and Willow Glen resident Dorsey Moore says that being part of the organization has been educational in ways he didn't expect. Through this program he's learned more about other cultures and the struggles that have plagued many of the young people.

"We have smaller classes at the charter school and let people learn at their own pace," he says. "And, we let them know we care about them and provide more support than a typical high school would.

All 150 people in the conservation corps are also matched with an adult mentor. The organization is about 75 percent men and 25 percent women, and there is currently a 30- to 40-person waiting list.

"We do things a little different," Moore says, comparing the charter school with public schooling. "Nobody will slip through the cracks here."

For more information about San Jose Conservation Corps and Charter School, contact 408.283.7171 or visit http://www. sjcccharterschool.org/.