An existing welding facility with sixteen booths and dedicated ventilation gives the flagship program a tangible starting point.
A Hand Up Through Skills and Opportunity
Recovery Is a Beginning. A Skilled Trade Can Build What Comes Next.
GG's House plans to help people move from crisis and addiction toward stability, practical training, recognized career pathways, and the ability to provide for themselves. Welding and fabrication would lead a broader trades vision built on existing metal and wood shops.
The bridge after crisis
Surviving a Crisis Is Not the Same as Building an Independent Life.
Emergency food, shelter, treatment, and recovery support can help a person survive and regain stability. A lasting path also needs a credible answer to what comes next.
Structured trades training can build routine, practical mastery, teamwork, documented competencies, and connections to careers. GG's House wants to help close the gap between immediate assistance and the ability to provide for oneself.
“A Hand Up, Not a Handout.”Angel Sheets, Founder of GG's House
Meeting today's need matters. Teaching a skill can help someone change tomorrow.
Why skilled trades fit the mission
Training That Can Turn Stability Into Self Sufficiency.
For someone rebuilding after addiction, homelessness, or another destabilizing hardship, recovery creates room to ask a practical question: what can I learn that will help me build an independent future?
Skilled trades offer defined competencies, recognized training routes, advancement potential, and careers that reward reliability, problem solving, quality, safety, teamwork, and continued learning. A traditional four year college path is not the only route to respected work and economic mobility.
GG's House plans a sector based workforce development pathway that combines career and technical education, industry aligned instruction, mentorship, and connections to qualified education, credential, apprenticeship, and employer partners.
An existing wood shop creates a second foundation for carpentry, cabinetry, repair, and practical building skills.
The flagship trades pathway
Welding and Fabrication Built on a Real Foundation.
16
Existing welding booths
The industrial arts building previously operated as an active college welding shop and was built with dedicated ventilation. The booths, equipment, electrical systems, fire protection, ventilation, and shop condition would receive professional assessment and restoration as needed before opening.
The proposed welding program begins with infrastructure designed for instruction and a clear understanding of how a professional fabrication shop operates. Capital support could return that space to responsible educational use while building the equipment, safety capacity, curriculum, and partnerships needed for structured training.
Participants would learn the full sequence behind quality fabrication: understand the drawing, plan the work, prepare the material, fit accurately, weld to the required standard, inspect the result, and take responsibility for the team and finished product.
Experienced leadership is committed
A certified welder and fabricator with more than twenty years of professional experience has committed to help guide program development. That experience includes building and fabrication, shop operations, project planning, quality control, training employees, mentoring people in the trade, and understanding what employers expect from an entry level team member.
What funding could activate
A Professional Shop Learning Sequence
Program phases would be finalized with qualified partners. The planned direction is competency based learning that prepares participants for professional expectations and recognized next steps.
Shop Readiness and Safety
Personal protection, safe work habits, tool identification, material handling, equipment care, ventilation awareness, clean work areas, controlled access, and responsibility to the team.
Fabrication Foundations
Shop math, measurement, drawings and blueprints, material identification, layout, cut lists, sequencing, cutting, grinding, drilling, forming, fit up, and tack welding.
Welding Skill and Quality
An approved curriculum may include MIG, TIG, stick welding, plasma cutting, joint preparation, heat control, distortion awareness, visual inspection, quality standards, and responsible rework as equipment and program phases allow.
Career Connection
Documented competencies, completed training work, interview readiness, apprenticeship awareness, further education, employer expectations, and preparation for recognized credential testing through qualified partners.
A workforce need close to home
Oregon Needs Skilled People Who Can Build, Repair, and Maintain.
Current state data classifies welding and several related trades as high demand and high wage occupations. GG's House can help people rebuilding their lives prepare for work Oregon communities and employers continue to need.
5,889
Projected Oregon openings for welders and related occupations
Total openings from 2024 through 2034
$60,112
Oregon median annual wage
Welding occupations in 2025
Projected Openings Across the Nation
Annual average from 2024 through 2034Oregon source: Oregon Employment Department. National sources: United States Bureau of Labor Statistics projections for electricians, carpenters, welders, and plumbers.
A second skilled trades foundation
The Wood Shop Extends the Path From Training to Career.
An existing asset
The preferred campus includes a wood shop from its college history. GG's House wants to inspect, restore, update, and equip the space for responsible carpentry and woodworking instruction.
Woodworking and carpentry can teach accuracy, planning, material knowledge, tool responsibility, problem solving, and the patience required to turn a drawing into durable work. The pathway could support career exploration, building maintenance skills, further technical education, and apprenticeship preparation.
Work safelyShop orientation, tool identification, personal protection, material handling, equipment care, and safe work habits.
Plan accuratelyMeasurement, construction math, plans, drawings, material lists, material selection, sequencing, and layout.
Build with qualityCutting, fastening, assembly, finish work, carpentry foundations, cabinetry, woodworking, repair, and building maintenance.
Connect forwardDocumented competencies and completed training work linked to further career and technical education, apprenticeship awareness, and employer connections through qualified partners.
A measurable participant pathway
From Stability to Skill to Independence.
Each stage identifies an activity, output, partner connection, or result that GG's House and qualified partners could define and measure.
Stabilize
Connect with appropriate crisis and recovery support, rebuild consistent participation, and establish a realistic starting point.
Explore
Encounter skilled trades, learn what occupations require, identify interests and aptitudes, and choose an appropriate direction.
Train
Build safe work habits, foundational knowledge, demonstrated trade competencies, employability skills, and completed training work.
Connect
Work with qualified partners toward credential testing, further education, apprenticeship opportunities, job preparation, and employer relationships.
Sustain
Measure continued education or employment, retention, greater self sufficiency, leadership, and the possibility of returning to mentor others.
The pathway would adapt to each participant and would not be guaranteed or perfectly linear.
What major investment would activate
Existing Facilities Can Become Measurable Program Capacity.
A future approved budget would connect capital investment to restored shops, qualified instruction, participant progression, and accountable results. Funding categories would be finalized through professional assessment, program design, and partner review.
Restore the Shops
Professional assessment and responsible restoration of the metal and wood shops, including code, electrical, ventilation, fire protection, accessibility, and safety work identified through review.
Build Program Capacity
Appropriate welding, fabrication, woodworking, and carpentry equipment, plus personal protection, tools, materials, secure storage, curriculum development, and qualified instruction.
Connect the Pathway
Recovery, education, credential, apprenticeship, workforce, and employer partnerships, together with approved participant supports that make consistent engagement possible.
Measure and Improve
Data collection, program evaluation, public reporting, continuous improvement, phased operations, and long term sustainability planning that demonstrate responsible stewardship.
Outcomes and accountability
Measure Progress at Every Meaningful Step.
ParticipationConsistent attendance, program completion, and engagement at defined intervals.
CompetencyDemonstrated safety and trade skills, completed training projects, and portfolios where appropriate.
Next stepsConnections to further education, recognized credential testing, apprenticeship applications, interviews, and employment opportunities through qualified partners.
Long term progressEducation or employment retention, greater self sufficiency, participant reported readiness and purpose, leadership, service, or return as a mentor.
These are proposed measurement categories, not results already being collected. Final definitions and reporting practices would be developed with qualified program leaders, partners, and funders.
A life transformation campus
Growth Can Begin in Many Places.
Trades training would operate within a broader campus vision. Cooking, gardens, theater, arts, mentorship, service, and leadership can develop practical ability, communication, confidence, daily life skills, community connection, and purpose. These pathways matter without competing with the central workforce development case.
Responsible implementation
Build Capacity With Clear Standards.
Phased openingPrograms begin only as acquisition, facility readiness, funding, qualified people, partnerships, insurance, and operating capacity are established.
Qualified rolesClearly defined instructors and partners with the authority to provide recovery support, education, testing, apprenticeship connections, or credentials.
Safe accessProfessional facility inspection, age appropriate activities, supervision, screening, controlled access, and separation of youth exploration from adult industrial training where required.
Honest reportingPublic updates distinguish what is planned, funded, operating, paused, or still being developed, with outcomes reported as separate measures.
Why another path matters
Immediate Help Matters. Lasting Change Requires a Path Forward.
Oregon counted 13,176 people experiencing sheltered or unsheltered homelessness on one night in 2015 and 22,875 on one night in 2024. Emergency food, shelter, housing, treatment, and stabilization remain essential. GG's House wants to help build the bridge that can follow: recovery, practical ability, recognized skills, career connection, and greater self sufficiency.
Oregon 2015 source and Federal 2024 source
“We cannot expect lasting change by repeating the same approach.”
“GG's House is willing to build a different path.”
What is true today
An Ambitious Vision With Honest Boundaries.
The existing foundation: The preferred property contains former college metal and wood shops. Experienced people are prepared to help shape the trades program if the property is acquired.
The current boundary: GG's House has not acquired the property, and these programs do not operate there. Acquisition, professional assessment, restoration, funding, qualified leadership, partners, approvals, insurance, and responsible safeguards are still required.
The campaign commitment: If the preferred property is not acquired, funds designated for the campaign will support GG's House in securing and developing its permanent forever home according to the approved campaign language.
Help build the pathway
Help Build the Bridge From Recovery to Career.
Capital donors can help acquire and restore the campus. Foundations and public funders can build workforce development capacity. Employers, colleges, apprenticeship organizations, credential providers, tradespeople, and companies can help connect instruction to credible next steps.
Capital supportProgram fundingQualified instructionEquipment and safetyRecovery partnershipsEducation partnershipsEmployer connectionsApprenticeship pathways