Chris Capaldi always felt that he was destined to be a carpenter. “This is the profession I’m chosen for. I feel it in my bones,” he explains. “It’s so satisfying, so gratifying, at the end of each day, to say I built that.”

When Capaldi, who worked in construction for 34 years, retired in 2024, it was important to him that he give back to the industry he feels gave him so much. Now in his second year teaching with Rebuild and The Preservation Trades Center, Capaldi wants to help aspiring trade workers follow in his footsteps. “The great thing is, they all will have the opportunity to come out of this program going into a profession that can provide for them for their whole lives,” he says.

Construction’s ability to provide financial stability is one of several driving forces behind the establishments of The Preservation Trades Center, a program run by Eastern State Penitentiary since 2018, and Rebuild, the eight-year-old city program that added a workforce development arm in 2019. The respective programs have teamed up since 2021 to offer six-week skilled trades academies in which participants have the paid opportunity to prepare for a union apprenticeship or contract work within the construction industry.

The collaborative program, which is hosted at Eastern State, offers three areas of study: a six-week carpentry academy; six-week bricklaying and stone masonry academy; and four-week cement masonry and plastering academy. Each participant is paid $15 an hour for 40 hours of hands-on training per week.

“This is probably the best pre apprentice program I’ve seen,” says Anthony Ditri, apprenticeship coordinator of Local 592, a cement masons union. Ditri, who has worked in the industry for 38 years, has been wowed by his experience as the program’s plasters and cement masonry professor. “I’m impressed with it, and it’s hard to impress me!” he laughs. “I think this is a great program because it’s hands-on, versus some of the other programs you see that’s just theory … They get a taste of just about everything.”

“Before this program I was lost.” — Mykea Hall, 31. Hall is one of the construction program’s female participants. Rebuild’s participants are about 30 percent women and 96 percent people of color.

The program prioritizes communities that have been historically underrepresented in the skilled trades such as returning citizens, women, and people of color. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 10 percent of workers in the construction industry are women, and only about 5 percent of workers are Black. In Pennsylvania specifically, more than 89 percent of trade union members are White.

And, the industry is aging: about one in five construction workers is over 55. “If we don’t perpetuate our trade,” Capaldi says, “it’s going to die out.”

“I think that it is super important for people in my community, who look like me, to get into trades … This is an investment.” — Abou Hinson, 28

The program has also been carefully designed to remove barriers into trades careers. No prior experience in construction is needed; applicants need only be at least 18 years old and have a valid driver’s license. In this past application cycle, Rebuild says, about 600 people expressed interest in the 25 slots offered. Though they hope to offer more spots in the future, the small class size is intentional. Because job placement is paramount, Rebuild says it only accepts as many participants as they believe can meet the existing demand in the job market. To date, they’ve seen over 75 percent of graduates accepted into union apprenticeships or full-time work.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since high school” — Carl Moisette, 23

By completing their training at Eastern State Penitentiary, participants are able to immediately put what they’re learning about construction into practice. In this current cycle, the 10 carpentry students built and installed skylight covers onto the historic site’s roofs, and restored several wood windows. The three cement masonry and plastering students repaved a sidewalk. And the eight masonry students removed and replaced deteriorating mortar on the stone walls.

“There is so much work to be done that we can do this for many years,” says Liz Trumbull, Senior Director of Preservation and Operations at Eastern State Penitentiary.

Eastern State has thousands of skylights that, in time, Trumbull hopes can not only be covered but restored with the future addition of a metalworking academy. And, because mortar needs to be replaced every few years, the masonry academy specifically can really go on “forever.”

In the process, students also learn valuable lessons on how to preserve a historic landmark. Preservation is a skill that is especially needed in Philadelphia, where the median age of a house is 93 years old (almost 30 years older than the average American home). Eastern State itself is 196 years old, so there is “almost 200 years of construction history and technology on the site” that can be studied and learned from, explains Trumbull.

The program is one of many ways Eastern State is currently working to address its past legacy of mass incarceration by shifting its focus to issues of contemporary corrections.

“We want to use this building, which has caused a lot of harm, as a place for opportunity and learning,” Trumbull says.

“I’m already getting requests [from my community] like, ‘When you’re done [training], can you help put this wall up?’” — Matt McGill, 32

By introducing trade opportunities to under-resourced communities, the program most effectively provides a catalyst for economic mobility and stability. As the Citizen reported just last month, MIT’s Living Wage Calculator estimates that a single adult needs to earn $23.62 per hour to live comfortably in Philly. Jobs in construction, on average, pay $25.39 per hour. In a city whose poverty rate hovers around 23 percent, a pathway to sustainable, fair-wage employment can be nothing short of a game changer.

Even further, trade careers are effectively future-proof. “These are careers that, regardless of how advanced technology gets or how much you can automate things, you’re still going to need people to do the work,” explains Brandon Flood, Associate Director for Workforce Development at Eastern State. “We’re reaching under-tapped communities to help build the pipeline … [to] generational wealth.”

“[I’m looking forward to] the longevity and the security of the career… Being able to look back and say ‘that’s my work.’ It’ll be there when I’m gone. For generations.” — Mecchi Stewart-Rice, 26

As he stands in his classroom, surrounded by students, Capaldi beams as he says, “It’s a privilege to be able to do this … there’s opportunities [here] for them that they might not have had.” He still has a deep love for construction and feels strongly that his students will look back at their future careers with the same feeling he had: “at the end of their career, there’s no regrets.”

Every Voice, Every Vote funds Philadelphia media and community organizations to expand access to civic news and information. The coalition is led by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Lead support for Every Voice, Every Vote in 2024 and 2025 is provided by the William Penn Foundation with additional funding from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Comcast NBC Universal, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Henry L. Kimelman Family Foundation, Judy and Peter Leone, Arctos Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, 25th Century Foundation, and Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation.

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