UPCYCLE Apprenticeship Program

Funder: Delta Regional Authority 
Partners: City of Greenwood Mayor's Office, ArtPlace Mississippi, Main Street Greenwood

Completed Date: April 2019

UPCYCLE was an initiative aimed at celebrating the assets that exist within our community as a pathway to revitalization and entrepreneurship. The City of Greenwood, in partnership with ArtPlace Mississippi, was awarded a Creative Placemaking Initiative Grant from the Delta Regional Authority for an apprenticeship program to be run by Delta Design Build Workshop. 

Envisioned by a team including the Mayor’s office, ArtPlace Mississippi leadership, the Delta Design Build Workshop and Main Street Greenwood, UPCYCLE utilized the $20,000 grant along with matching resources to combat waste from demolition, provide skills training to local individuals, and develop for-sale craft items from salvaged materials. The outcome was a craftsperson skill-training program developed to provide entrepreneurship training and to target the use of underutilized and readily available materials often thought of as waste. 

Two young people from Greenwood, Keldrick Duncan and Lewis Jones, were selected as UPCYCLE apprentices by the project team. Each apprentice received 160 hours of "maker" training and received a stipend for time spent in training. Over the course of the program, they learned carpentry and design skills, as well as basic business understanding. The apprentices also volunteered at the Greenwood Farmer’s Market to lead a craft activity for community children. 

Drawing on the expertise of local artists, the apprentices were paired with Robin Whitfield, Yolande Van Herdeen, and Brad Bernard for two day-long charrettes to learn how to evolve a design idea into a physical object. Throughout the charrettes the apprentices worked side-by-side to execute designs and learn directly from successful artists how to turn their passion into a job opportunity. 

UPCYCLE dedicated a portion of the training hours towards public service projects to help improve the City. Several benches in public parks in town had been damaged or deteriorated and needed repair. Utilizing salvaged materials to the greatest extent possible, the apprentices designed and fabricated replacement parts to repair or replace the benches. The apprentices also worked to salvage material and articles of historic significance from a vacant historic downtown building with Main Street Greenwood. 

Mississippi State’s College of Business led the apprentices in a day of “Shark Tank”-style exercises to learn how to develop their business idea into a pitch and successfully “sell” their idea to potential investors. The apprentices honed their writing and communication skills to further understand how to turn an idea into an opportunity. 

UPCYCLE tapped the surface of the unrealized value present in many forms in the Delta. The program piloted a pathway to increase economic opportunity for people struggling to find job opportunities by introducing craftsperson skills, creating pathways to entrepreneurship, and finding new uses for materials that are often thought of as waste.