This week, three students graduated from the most recent session of Tomorrow’s Promise, 
a construction job training program in Philadelphia. Jamal Dempsey, Allan Holman Jr. and Janae Robinson successfully completed all the components necessary to graduate the program.
Tomorrow’s Promise is a boot camp-style training which places young adults who want a construction career in real construction situations and demands all that is expected every day on a regular job site. The students improve the community since the projects are all real construction projects. In the past year the program has built a pavilion for an urban garden at a facility for single mothers and their children, made repairs to locker rooms at an urban sports facility in north Philadelphia, rehabbed run down homes in north Philadelphia, and most recently, built a storage facility for the urban farm at Carousel House in Fairmount Park, which serves individuals with physical and mental challenges.
ABC Eastern Pennsylvania Chapter was key in establishing Tomorrow’s Promise. Vince McCaffery, the executive director and program administrator, is a former ABC carpentry instructor and he has taught schools such as the Youthbuild Charter School and Mercy 
Vocational High School. ABC Eastern Pennsylvania Chapter along with ABC National secured a grant to run Tomorrow’s Promise as a pilot last year. The project was so successful that Tomorrow’s Promise immediately received attention and funding from several community development organizations in Philadelphia, primarily The Federation of Neighborhood Centers. Tomorrow’s Promise is a 501c3 (thanks to assistance from Wally Flamm) and can accept donations. For more information on the graduates or Tomorrow’s Promise contact John Judge.
