LEWISTON — Goodwill Industries is expected to use a $1 million federal grant to train at-risk young people in Lewiston.

Up to 80 people ages 17-24 are expected to be taught construction and other skills as part of the YouthBuild grant beginning Oct. 1, Goodwill officials said on Thursday.

Heather Steeves, a manager at Goodwill, said the money would be used to help local youth to get their high school diplomas while also teaching them skills that will help them in the job market – those involved in the program might be in school one week and helping to build safe and affordable housing the next, Steeves said.

A similar YouthBuild grant in 2009 helped a number of people to escape poverty, drug addiction and homelessness, Goodwill officials said.

Sandra Goss, YouthBuild program manager for Goodwill’s Lewiston-based program, smells another round of success stories on the wind.

Goodwill has been training young people through YouthBuild and similar programs for two decades, and Goss can rattle off a number of those at will.

There’s Dana, for instance, a teenager who dropped out of school and then found that he had no way to help his struggling family. He had no diploma. He had no skills and no prospects for employment.

According to Goss, Dana came to Goodwill in hopes of getting help securing his General Educational Development certificate. What they gave him instead was enough on-the-job training the he was able to parlay that into a job at what was then Gates Formed Fiber. With his new skills and a dose of ambition, Dana was able to transform a low-level job into a better one that paid $18 an hour. It turned his life around.

It’s a success story, yes, but Goss said it isn’t always a simple affair. Dana was kicked out of the Goodwill program a few times for a variety of offenses, including failing to show up for on-site training.

The program doesn’t just give the youths a chance to succeed, Goss said, “they also get a chance to fail. Then we get to teach them those lessons. We set up those rules, boundaries and limitations because that is what the world is going to ask of them, and it wouldn’t serve them for us to tell them anything else.”

Goss also remembers the 16-year-old girl who hitchhiked to Los Angeles, got addicted to drugs and came back to Lewiston where she hooked up with New Beginnings, a youth shelter program. 

The 16-year-old had become sober, Goss said, but she really had no idea what she would do with her life.

“She had never really worked before,” Goss said.

Through New Beginnings and the Goodwill program, the teen got training that led to a job at Hannaford and then to the L.L. Bean call center. Now, with training she received after returning to Lewiston, the one-time drug addled runaway is working toward a career at Carbonite.

Announced by the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday, the YouthBuild grants will benefit 77 nonprofit organizations in 35 states, with more than $80 million distributed.

“All young people are gifted and talented, and it is everyone’s responsibility to help draw out those gifts and talents,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez wrote in a news release. “YouthBuild provides young people with an important opportunity to gain the education and skills they need for good-paying jobs, while also helping them become more engaged members of their communities. That can mean everything to a young person who didn’t get the easiest start in life.”

The grants, according to the Department of Labor, will help approximately 5,000 at-risk youth complete high school or state equivalency degree programs, earn industry-recognized certifications within in-demand occupations and gain construction skills training to build housing for low-income or homeless individuals and families in their communities.

Goodwill Industries, based in Portland, will receive $1.06 million, which is equal to or greater than some of the biggest cities in the country that also received funding.

“This grant,” said Goss, “is huge for us.”