 We're now going to shift gears again. You're from SERV, LEARN, and EARN with four witnesses on the list. And I will let them introduce themselves in the order that they would like to speak to us. Hi, everyone. My name is Brett Knopf. I'm from Huntington, Vermont. I'm the next director of the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps. I think I'm speaking first. I want to coordinate with my partners here, Ronnie Besten of Vermont Works for Women, Tom Longstreet of Resource, and David Mears of Audubon, Vermont. I'm not seeing David on the call, and he I think is going to share some slides. David, are you on the call? I don't see him yet. OK. Tom, do you have the slideshow? Could you do that? Yes, you emailed that recently, right? That was, you know, I'm going to go on just a sec. Yes, we're asking for the committee's patients while we manage this part of the show. Sure. I'm sorry, David. Yeah, I'm sorry. Brett, you're looking. Sorry, you send an updated your speaking notes. I should open from the shared site, I guess, is what I should Yeah, that's probably the way to go. Yeah. And maybe while Tom's navigating the back channels of our server and partnership, I could create a frame for what we want to share here today. I can start by thanking the committee for this opportunity and for the work that you all are doing on developing policy that stewards from this landscape that we all love and benefit so much from. And in thinking through what to share, I found myself thinking about the intersection of the work of this committee and that of the serve, learn, and earn partnership. And it strikes me that a conservation project can really be a good example to highlight some of the similarities. So for example, if we take the project of restoring a wetland that a VYCC crew might do, restoration is really great for that specific area. But also over time, it's good for the surrounding watershed, the wildlife, and people whose lives it touches and so on. And in the sense, it's work that considers immediate priorities and a longer term broader ecosystem strategy. And we see the same thing when we're in investment training and workforce development. Because investments help people in the here and now. And they also help our economy and the communities and the families that benefit over a longer term. But on a purely more practical note, our work also intersects because if we're going to meet the variety of conservation and climate goals, we need a workforce that's well trained. And so the serve, learn, and earn partnership is a terrific and effective strategy that we think can help the committee meet their goals. So Tom, if you could keep sharing slides, that would be great. And then we'll come back together. We'll hear from Tom, Ronnie, and David. And I'm going to run quick because I know time is of the essence here. So in fact, if you can just prompt me when you want me to move ahead on slides because I'm not sure I have the other part in front of me. OK, yeah, I can do that. We're still on the first slide, which is this one here. Just a little bit of history of how serve, learn, and earn our collaboration came together. It's a collaboration with VYCC, with resource, Vermont Works for Women, and Audubon for Vermont. Our organizations had certainly been working together in years past. But we came together at the end of 2020 at a much more focused way. VYCC was really thinking about how do we create not just more paid service and training experiences, but how do we enhance the quality of these experiences? And it quickly became clear as we were noodling that, that by working with other mission-aligned organizations, we could do more than just improve and offer more programs. We could also begin to address the problem in a systemic way. And part of this is because each partner has different strengths that complement the others. And so we're able to create a stronger, more comprehensive, more responsive network. Our serve, learn, and earn program is guided by, I think, the rather simple belief that if someone's willing to give up themselves and serve our state, then there should be a very clear and accessible pathway to meaningful work and continued education. So in this sense, we're creating a compact. If you give to Vermont, then Vermont will be here for you. That's a common sense Vermont take on the social contract. Next slide, please, Tom. A moment of appreciation last year. We've, thanks to an appropriation from last year's legislative session, we've greatly enhanced our impact. We want to thank committee members for their support. It also feels important to note the great contributions of the Port Department of Forest Parks and Rec. Commissioner Snyder and his team have just been terrific. And it's helped build on a long partnership that BYCC has had with FPR. Next slide, Tom. A key component of the program is built on a model that has participants completing high priority projects. And that feels particularly relevant to this committee because in this sense, we're not just funding workforce development, but we're also funding project completion. So we're catching multiple birds with the same berry, if you will, forestry work, water quality work, weatherization, outdoor recreation, public land infrastructure, food security. These are all areas of project focus. At the same time, we're also, the work also aligns with key social issues, workforce development, of course, but also climate change, gender equity, and ensuring access to traditionally underserved communities. Next couple of slides here, Tom. These next two slides just show the impact. The fact that it's statewide, and I think a real strength is the fact that you can see the geographic scope of our programming, both in terms of where members are coming from and where we're completing projects. We're hiring and enrolling members from all over the state from the North Virginia down to Prattleboro. The projects similarly are also spread throughout Vermont and Groton down to Dorset. Next slide, please, Tom. Last week, we shared an interim report. So we have a 13 month grant agreement with Forest Parks and Recreation. And this interim report after just seven months showed that we're exceeding or on track to hit all the targets that we've established with Forest Parks and Recreation. For example, in the first seven months, we've hired 252 participants who completed nearly 2,100 service weeks. Of those participants, 85 are AmeriCorps members, which is particularly relevant because each AmeriCorps position has an additional Segal Education Award. So those are dollars that members can use to defray the cost of college and continued education. I know what it means that you'd have to go and kind of read that report, but I want to take a moment to encourage the members to do that because within that, you see all of the conservation project outcomes that the state is getting. So they're workforce development, but also just hundreds of acres, tens of thousands of trees, water quality projects, the list goes on and on and on. Okay, next few slides here, Tom. Because numbers are an important way to convey impact, but also behind each number is a person. And the point here with these next few slides is that the underscore for many participants, almost all of our participants, they lack networks and they don't see or have pathways either training or employment or school. And I think one thing that makes our partnership both essential and unique is that it's a paid service experience and we provide career supports that connect our participants directly with employers for continuing education. And in this sense, it's the network is a community that we're creating for participants. And I really don't think the value that that can be overstated. Okay, my last slide here before sharing the mic with Ronnie is, so I'm on slide 11, Tom, is to note that we've had real success in creating these pathways because of the quality of the training. And on this slide, you can see some of the education partners that help us offer credentials that are recognized by various industries, not just industries, but also higher ed and one exciting development that's really kind of fast-breaking news, if you will, is the work that BYCC has done with CCV and the New England Board of Higher Education, where this year, all of our crew leaders will receive 12 credits for their work with BYCC. And that's something that we can build upon both here within our own organization, but also of course, across the other organizations in our partnership. So I want to start by giving really a high level overview of who we are and what we're about. Unless you're a little bit more from Ronnie Bastin of Vermont Works for Women. Thanks, Ronnie. Thank you. Hello and thank you to the committee members for this opportunity. I'm Ronnie Bastin, the executive director at Vermont Works for Women. Our Serve, Learn, and Earn partnership is a great example of investing in what is working. Our collective organizations have historical and impactful relationships with employers, K-12 schools, tech centers, higher education, state agencies, and community resources, even more success in recruiting our participants. Funding, Serve, Learn, and Earn is an opportunity to better connect our current and collaborative organizational efforts in workforce development to the state's initiatives and labor needs. Collectively, we are engaging diverse, underrepresented, and untapped potential across Vermont. We are empowering and training youth, women, justice-involved individuals, under-employed, and more, to provide on-ramps to motivating employment. Barriers historically and currently exist in fully engaging the potential workforce. And our unique perspective as direct service organizations allow us to help remove barriers that exist and help build these pathways to employers and towards more economic independence across our state. I will now turn it over to Tom Langstrath to share more with resource. Thank you, Ronnie. My name's Tom Langstrath. I'm the Executive Director of Resource. COVID accelerated a 20-year trend toward lower labor force participation. The unemployment rate has bounced back to pre-pandemic levels, but our workforce is still down by over 25,000 workers. And this tight labor market is creating some significant stress in the economy, contributing to high inflation, making it harder to get important work done, whether it's construction of housing, renewable energy generation, or weatherization. But the labor market is also creating an opportunity that is allowing low-income and disadvantaged individuals to gain skills and become gainfully employed. Employers are suddenly much more receptive to hiring, even those with imperfect resumes, corrections involvement, prior history of alcohol or drug abuse or physical disabilities. Two years ago, the governor spoke to the State Workforce Investment Board and expressed concern that the ratio of workers to dependents was approaching a one-to-one ratio. Since then, this ratio has gone worse. The serve, earn, learn collaboration is directly impacting both sides of this ratio by increasing the number of workers and decreasing the number of people dependent on family or state support. Funding from the Vermont legislature is helping resource in each of us to expand proven programs statewide and building on the success of our construction and weatherization intensives. We are developing two new intensives in HVAC and manufacturing. These programs and others run by VYCC, VWW, if you may, Vermont Works for Women, and Audubon are allowing disadvantaged people who are unemployed or out of the workforce to gain skills and become gainfully employed. Our construction and weatherization one-to-one programs have a 98% job placement rate with 100% of graduates earning an industry-recognized credential and getting placed into a job with a $17.60 average starting wage. Programs such as these are critically important. We recruit and train brand new workers without the types of coaching and skill building we provide. Too many potential workers will remain sidelined unable to contribute. We're agile and entrepreneurial and our work is closely aligned with employer needs. And finally, service is a powerful form of training. We pay trainees a stipend and while teaching new skills, trainees build affordable housing, weatherize homes, install solar panels, build wildlife habitat and develop recreational infrastructure that supports all Vermonters. Thank you, and I'll turn it over. Is David with us now? I am, thanks, Tom. Okay, David. And thanks to all, thanks for your patience. My computer decided to crap out just as I was signing on. So I'm thankful that Tom was able to step in and run the slideshow. I had only one job to do and I failed it. But I wanted to, as the kind of the organization doesn't, we're not traditionally a service learning program. Audubon, Vermont's focused on protecting birds and places birds need to thrive, which of course people also need to thrive. One of your colleagues asked the question, could you be more specific about the need that this collaborative is filling? And I want to be really clear, the need that we're filling is not our need. These organizations, the three organizations that you're looking at today are proven service learning programs with proven leadership and effectiveness. And the need that we're addressing is the broader need in society to help young people develop career paths and paths to higher education and paths into jobs in Vermont on rural working lands, whether it's forestry or outdoor recreation or in the jobs of in the construction trades or weatherization or renewable energy. These are needs that have both specific human benefits for the young people and the participants but also have awesome and amazing benefits for our landscape and for the work that this committee I know is so committed to in terms of if we're gonna, we've all heard about the demographic challenges facing forestry and farming. And it's also true in the conservation field across the board. So it's exciting, it fills Audubon's mission both in terms of our conservation mission. It also really serves our goal to kind of build that next generation of conservation leaders, which are not just the people that work at Audubon but are the people that work as loggers, farmers, foresters, building trails and the like. So thank you so much for this time. We're happy to answer any questions. I guess I should hand it back to you, Brett, to kind of close with the specific recommendation that we're making. I'll start by reiterating appreciation for the support we've already received in last year's session and my state in the obvious. I think the obvious is the best way to prepare someone for the workplace is to give them a job. And that's a job that both pays them and trains them. And to reiterate a little bit of what David said, we're not asking for these funds for ourselves, the funds that we secure are passed along to participants. And so the specific request is a $12.1 million appropriation and this year's budget that would be spent over three years. We're at a point now where we wanna build momentum in ways that really enhance the quality and ensure access to more participants. The state needs this. Vermont needs our organizations that focus on workforce development to be as strong as possible and Vermont needs this next generation of client that workforce to be well-trained and be prepared. We do both, we are both. And we're a totally proven model. Between our four organizations, we have over 150 years of combined experience. So we're asking this committee to include these funds and your recommendation to the House Appropriations Committee. We're really grateful to be here. Thanks for listening and excited to hear your questions and continue the conversation. Great, thanks for your great work and your testimony and your clear ask. Sure, we all appreciate everything you do. Representative Dolan. Thank you, and thank you for coming in today. And I really appreciate seeing that interim report because as you know, we're interested in tracking our progress, determining whether we're being successful. What are those measures of success and having a report to kind of gauge the type of investments you're asking for and the outcomes of those investments are important here. And so I appreciate that. And I'm impressed with what I'm hearing thus far. I look forward to diving into that report. My question is just to clarify is who's participating in these programs? Are you reaching out to Vermonters or are you inviting people around the country to take part in the programs that you're being offered? That's my first question. My second question is about, you mentioned that these are paid positions and curious to know if they're paid at acknowledgement of the cost of living expenses that people are facing. And sometimes those are barriers to be able to take advantage of programs because of the high costs of being able to participate. They become barriers at times. I can briefly answer from Vermont Works for Women that we heavily recruit within the state of Vermont and connect to Vermont employers. We have had a lot of success in actually recruiting trainees from outside of Vermont that have actually remained here after their work experience. And so that's been exciting as well to see there's very low barriers to accessing our training. So it opens the doors to a lot more people to access them. And the way Vermont Works for Women does it is you are paid a flat stipend for your training time and your work experience time with the local employer in that you can utilize those funds unrestricted to what you need. So whether it is childcare, transportation or housing. I'll jump in for resource. I think the vast majority of our trainees are Vermonters. We occasionally have trainees who have moved to Vermont but are now residents. So, and then some move out of state. So there's some movement, but the vast majority of our trainees are in state. We recruit partners with the Vermont Department of Labor, also Vogue Rehab, also high schools. Sometimes when a student is not succeeding in the high school and is either being kicked out or is leaving, we will get a handoff. Our Youth Builds program serves high school dropouts and helps them complete their education, but also then get technical training. The second, what was the second question? The second question was. I just- How much do we pay folks? Oh yeah. Well, yeah, sorry, I knew it a moment ago, but one of the funding from the Vermont legislature has helped resource pay better stipends. I mean, that's classically been one of the challenges for us is how do we provide a stipend to trainees that allows them to make this investment? And some of the trainees we work with are not working. And so, but some are, but they're working dead-end jobs, which they can't afford to give up in order to move forward. So they know they could be making more money as a carpenter, but they can't leave that cooking job or table busing job because they need to continue to help their family. And so the stipend has really allowed many of our trainees to make that investment. And that's why I think recruitment, even though so many employers are struggling to place workers, we continue to have success filling our classes. And that's why we're expanding them statewide and really bringing forward more of the trainees, the training programs that have been successful. I could just jump in, Breck, and then I know you've got probably the most to say, but I'll just be very quick that most of Audubon's participants are from in Vermont, but we are, we're part of a national organization, so we're able to recruit from all over and have had some success in bringing folks from a variety of different parts of the country to come live in Vermont. And in terms of the amount that we pay, just like Tom, Audubon used to have before we started a youth leadership program, unpaid internships, and they were dominated by young people that could afford that or had parents and families that could support them. We have seen a dramatic increase in the diversity and the backgrounds of the participants since we've been able to start paying, which we had done before the serve learner and funding last year, but having the state funding has allowed us to increase the number of positions and to increase the pay at least somewhat. I think the fact that David thinks I have the most to say is evidence that the four of us work together really closely every week. As he knows me well though. I'll start with the compensation question. Thanks to the state funding, we've been able to increase our average wage stipend for participants by 25% this year. The average now is just about $15 an hour, which feels terrific. We see this not just as a key part of the programming for it to be a job, but also an equity issue because if you're in a lower socioeconomic status, it shouldn't be a choice that you have to make between VYCC, which doesn't pay as well as something else. So by increasing our compensation, it really increases accessibility as well. In terms of who's in our programs, all of our youth programs are for our Vermonters and then our young adult programs, which are over 18. Most of those are folks who are from Vermont. We tend to hire more of our crew leaders nationally. The crew leaders have a real specific skill set where you need to have both the technical expertise of building a bridge or knowing how to farm or doing forestry work, as well as the softer skill set about caring for people. And if we could hire all of our leaders from Vermont, that would be terrific, but it's just a challenging position to fill. So we have a national recruitment strategy there. And what's terrifically exciting is when people stay in Vermont. And I think VYCC is one of those organizations that bring people into Vermont. And those folks go on to buy Subarus and drink lots of syrup and put down roots here. All right. Thank you all for coming in today. We really do appreciate it. Can I ask one more question? I'm sorry, we have witnesses waiting for the next topic. Thanks again.