Two organizations operating within the Diocese of Cleveland?s service area, Esperanza Threads and EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute, were awarded funding at the national level by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
The economic grants will bring a total of $135,000 to the region to help fund programs that empower people to build better communities, alleviate poverty and promote the values of Catholic social teaching.
Esperanza Threads is an industrial sewing training program and apprenticeship based on Cleveland?s West Side. It works with low-income people and migrant refugees to train them in industrial sewing and job placement. The nonprofit enterprise manufactures organic clothing for retail as well as non-organic products to fulfill wholesale and contract sewing orders.
CCHD funds will be used to expand the apprenticeship program and to provide fair pay for trainers of the basic industrial sewing training program.
For more information on Esperanza Threads, visit esperanzathreads.com.
EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute is a nonprofit that focuses on offering skills training in the culinary arts, job placement, life skills training and a support network for adults re-entering society after incarceration. EDWINS operates a restaurant near Cleveland?s Shaker Square. It also has a curriculum to teach culinary skills to those in Ohio correctional facilities so that when they are released, they have the skills to find jobs, as well as a connection to EDWINS and other support systems.
EDWINS plans to use the CCHD funds to expand its culinary training program to five additional Ohio prisons. The program is in use at Grafton Correctional Institution.
For more information on EDWINS, visit edwinsrestaurant.org.
