By Randiah Camille Green
December 5, 2025
This sponsored story was originally published by Outlier Media

This sponsored story was written by Randiah Camille Green and created in partnership with the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation. It is part of a year-long series focusing on programs and pathways to good paying jobs and careers in Detroit.

Many youth in Detroit struggle with keeping a job, not because they can’t do the work, but because of access barriers. Those who are single parents may have trouble finding daycare. Those without a car have to depend on unreliable transportation. They may lack the financial literacy skills to know how to maintain a budget. The nonprofit SER Metro Detroit is working to holistically address these issues by giving youth the skills needed to secure and retain employment. 

SER Metro, which stands for service, employment and redevelopment, offers a GED program called YouthBuild. It provides people from 18 to 24 years of age the opportunity to pursue a career in construction or health care while earning their GED. The program is 240 hours and can take between eight weeks and seven months to complete.

“We have infrastructure and systems that don’t allow people to be successful if they don’t have many of the boxes already checked,” said SER Metro Assistant Vice President Ann Leen. “The baseline of who we are is about lifting people out of the cycle of poverty. Our focus is not just employment, but education and access to long-term sustained employment.”

Beyond increasing chances for employment, SER Metro’s YouthBuild program teaches interpersonal assets such as leadership skills and how to be a team player, which Vocational Construction Instructor Mark Garner said are important to keeping a job.

“It’s instilling in them showing up to work every day, on time, with the right attitude, regardless of what’s going on at home,” Garner said. 

Garner has worked in construction since 2006 and is a journeyman carpenter by trade. He has been a SER Metro YouthBuild instructor for three years. 

“A lot of youth get a job in construction but they don’t keep the job, and one of the main reasons is they haven’t learned how to stay off their phone,” he said, emphasizing that soft skills are just as important as knowing how to do the job. “Even their posture, the way they walk in the door can dictate whether a journey person is going to be comfortable working with them everyday. I make sure that they are aware of those things.”

SER Metro received a $500,000 grant from the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation in 2021 to build a lab for the construction trade program. YouthBuild students on the construction track gain carpentry experience, explore 22 different trades, receive Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 10 and OSHA 30 certification, CPR/First Aid certification, and EPA lead renovation, repair, and painting certification, alongside hands-on experience. 

The program runs on a multi-craft core curriculum set forth by the National Association of Building Trades to introduce prospective candidates to the construction trade and help them make an educated decision about what path is best for them. The curriculum covers a full range of subjects, including an introduction to the industry, green construction, blueprint reading, sexual harassment in the workplace, financial literacy, and workplace diversity.

Twenty-one-year-old Julian Zuniga-Lopez got his GED through SER Metro and completed the construction trade program in 2024. During his 10th grade year of high school, the COVID-19 pandemic caused his school to shift to online learning, which was challenging for him. 

“I couldn’t really focus,” he remembered. “I didn’t really like doing school online, so I basically dropped out and started working.”

Inspired by his father, who works in construction, Zuniga-Lopez decided to do the GED and construction program to give himself a chance for a better future. He said SER Metro’s instructors made the math portion of the GED test so easy to understand that he felt like he “learned four years of math in one week.”

“I have a master’s degree and I have to tell you that I attempted to take the GED in the last two years and I failed it,” Leen said. “Generally speaking, it’s around an 11th grade reading level and 11th grade math. … In many cases, especially for our young adults and teenagers, they are reading at about a fourth grade level and their math is about a second grade level. So we do a lot of tutoring, upskilling, and foundation work.”

After completing YouthBuild, Zuniga-Lopez was able to enroll in Union Carpentry School, a four-year apprenticeship program. Though he is currently working in landscaping, he hopes to eventually finish the apprenticeship. He praises Garner for being a solid mentor.

“He was such a good teacher who motivated you and pushed you to do better,” he said of Garner. “For the carpentry school, he helped me with my interview to get in there. Apart from that, he was a really good mentor as well. I would talk to him about things I was going through and I felt really comfortable with him.”

Gardener emphasized the importance of instilling confidence in young people who may not have had the most positive reinforcement when it comes to learning. 

“I had one student who came through, and his self-esteem was low because of his upbringing and what he’s lived through. He struggled reading a tape measure and didn’t think he could do it because he’s no good at math. So, I let him know, it’s not necessarily that you’re no good at math, it may just not have been presented to you correctly,” Garner said. “His experience was, if he messed up, somebody would call him stupid or dumb, so he came to believe that. But I have shortcuts I teach to help the students deal with fractions, and once we got over that hurdle and got his confidence up, his entire stature began to change.”

SER Metro also helped Zuniga-Lopez get his driving permit. As he did not have transportation, they provided him with $1,000 of free Ubers to get back and forth to the program, and paid for his driving lessons and exam. 

“We like to pride ourselves on meeting people where they are,” Leen said. “We sometimes do community programming—meeting people at libraries, meeting people at community centers… If they don’t have transportation, or [car] insurance, or child care, this is the deck of cards we’re playing with. So how can we figure out how to get you a car [and] how to get you a good paying job that supports your insurance and child care needs. There are lots of ways to find solutions for individuals who have already had systems fail them.”

For people considering the YouthBuild program, Zuniga-Lopez said, “If they don’t think school is for them, honestly, give it a try. It’s so much different than going to regular school because they help you one-on-one and really explain things. It’s a good opportunity if people need help, because they help you out with pretty much anything you need to better your future.”

SER Metro’s main office is in Southwest Detroit. They also have a location on Detroit’s eastside and several satellites across the city, including in the Northwest Activity Center. For more information, see sermetro.org/