She Built This City’s mission is to provide industry disruptive programming that sparks interest and builds pathways to lucrative careers in the skilled trades for youth, women and marginalized communities.  Our vision is to dismantle barriers and stigmas in traditionally male-dominated industries through innovative, sustainable practices that prepare us for a future of jobs that have yet to be created. 

Even with our Mecklenburg County launch in 2020 during the pandemic, we defied expectations and had amazing results in our first year.  In 2020 we:

• 3D printed 17,000 faceshields and distributed them to over 40 organizations nationwide.
• Launched our Virtual Shop class with Generation T and have had over 80,000 views of simple construction projects you can do at home.
• Purchased and upfit our mobile tool lab and were able to execute 34 mobile events serving over 500 youth and individuals in our community in less than 6 months.

While there are still a few days left in the year, our 2nd year has been no less impactful!

1. Removing Barriers – With our plumbing training, we provided $100 weekly stipends and 135 hours of child supervision so that mothers could focus on upskilling.
2. Putting Women to Work – This year we launched our all women plumbing pre-apprenticeship program. 8 women graduated from the program in October with flying colors.
3. Youth Impact – This Summer, we served all 14 locations of Meck County Parks and Recreation with and served over 200 students at no cost to them.  In total, we’ve served almost 1,000 individuals in our community this year…with several more events planned for December. 
4. Community Impact – We expanded our reach by serving other non-profit organizations at little to no cost to them…impacting food and housing insecurity, and environmental causes.  Our support enabled our partner organizations to bring in over $100K in additional resources.
5. Bridging the Digital Divide – we purchased 11 3D printers and launched our training program with 3 different YMCA branches and provided programming during their Level Up teen programming to keep students engaged and focused on their future.

She Built This City 2021

This Fall, we have launched our first club at Ardrey Kell High School with the IgKnight program. IgKnight is a leadership development and success collaborative designed to support female students, particularly African American and Latina, as they navigate and advance through Ardrey Kell High School. IgKnight strives to develop a sisterhood amongst participants to support and cultivate an experience of academic, social, and developmental excellence. The mission of IgKnight is to provide a space for females of color to develop personally and professionally, in a majority of space, while learning how to impact their younger sisters and the greater community.

We will be creating prototypes of bike racks shaped like animals using our 3D printing technology.  Our bike racks will to be installed in early 2022. This introduces the students to concepts in landscape architecture, public art and project management. We are in early talks of visiting Virginia Tech to learn about their Landscape Architecture Degree program.  

That is what we call “Spark Ignited” in the next generation. Those students have taken the skills that they learned from us and are now using them to serve the greater community.

Pre-Apprenticeship Plumbing Program

One of our most impactful projects this year has been our Pre-Apprenticeship Plumbing Program. Thanks to the partnership of Moen, Lowes, and Three Way Plumbing we were able to make our dreams a reality and start this program.

Our main focus for this program was on job placement and career planning. Our participants were asked to set goals, identify positions they would like to hold in the future, and take a look at their strengths and areas of improvement. These introspective, personal exercises gave our participants a better idea of their ideal career path. 8 women graduated our program in October. Our goal for was for our participants to leave our program fully prepared to start their jobs and we are proud to say that our goal was achieved.

Our Founder, Demi Knight Clark speaking to participants during class

Spark The Future
SBTCxSamet

Samet Corporation sponsored our the Mecklenburg County Parks and Rec tour this summer. The goal was to expose kids to the trades and spark interest in construction. Since June, Samet Corporation and She Built This City have partnered together to create and host events that have provided children with hands-on experience and skills that they will utilize in the future. Together, our organizations have been able to impact more than 100 youth. We have achieved this by hosting events at multiple locations such as the Naomi Drenan Center, the Southview Center, the Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation Center, and the West Charlotte Center. We have built wire suncatchers, wooden pencil holders, wooden cameras, catapults, and there are still more events to come!

“She Built This City (SBTC) is sparking interest in construction and ensuring that the future of skilled trades is diverse and infused with technology. With our mobile programming, we are able to address equity in construction trades training. When presented with the opportunity to serve all camp locations of Mecklenburg County Parks and Rec, we immediately thought of Samet and it’s commitment to diversity and community engagement. We can only bring partnerships like this to life through a significant investment of both time and resources from corporate partners like Samet. The Samet team, led by the initiative and efforts of Chyna Green, has been phenomenal. Providing the initial financial investment and then ensuring volunteers were present at almost all 14 activations has made our hands-on programming come to life. Representation matters, so when students see real life professionals engaging with them, explaining the build to them, a new world opens up to them and they can now see themselves in a career or field that may not have been a consideration before. SBTC is grateful for this partnership and we hope that this is only the beginning of what we can do together.”
– LaToya Faustin, Executive Director

Bat Nursery Build with Catawba Riverkeepers, Mecklenburg County Parks and Rec, and Samet Corporation.