BALTIMORE — Justin Pittman can point out every project he worked on at the Carver House.
"We had to dig this all up, we had to get the dirt out," he says, pointing to the small front lawn of the vacant home along Presstman Street in West Baltimore.
"We had to paint the whole house, from the basement walls to the ceiling. We had to paint the whole house but those were the best times I think," he said.
Pittman graduated from Carver Vocational Technical High School, which sits right across the street from the Carver House. Its one of several vacant homes that face the school.
"It was a lot of hard labor but I got experience that people in the field [who] have done it for 10 years. I’m grateful for that."
He was among the first group of students at Carver to start renovations on the Carver House. Its been a work in progress for several years after it was purchased through the non-profit the Requity Foundation.
"What we've learned is that construction can take a long time and particularly if you're training young people, you need to slow it down," said Michael Rosenband, the founder and executive director of Requity.
Rosenband, who is the baseball coach at Carver, said the idea for the non-profit came from one of his students.
"[He said] why can't we apply what we're learning in our classroom, walk across the street, fix up these houses, get the experience we need and also impact the community?"
Requity is making that happen, first with the Carver House and soon with two other properties they've just acquired. They also have what's called The Hut inside Carver to give the students a place to practice before they work on the vacant homes.
"I think when you actually see when you practice something and you go out in the real world and it's a real job site and you're working with a real contractor under real time constraints, it's a different kind of dynamic. It's a different kind of mindset that shifts when it happens as they're starting to engage in real world settings," said Rosenband.
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Requity has expanded to more schools in Baltimore and to more fields including culinary, giving students like Travon Crawford catering experience.
"It's been wonderful. I get to like meet other people, get to dress up occasionally on different circumstances," he said.
And soon they'll be in the agriculture industry after they convert a 30,000 square-foot lot down the street into an urban farm. It's another opportunity for students to gain experience and confidence and hopefully gainful employment.
"Our students are not only getting these jobs but they're retaining those jobs or they're thriving in those jobs and getting promotions," said Rosenband.
