Philly teens are building more than just benches they’re building futures. In Kensington, a free carpentry program is teaching young people hands-on skills in construction, electrical work, and design. Created by community advocate Brenda Mosley, the program gives youth the tools literally and figuratively to imagine a different path for themselves.

Participants are not only learning trades, they’re also gaining confidence, mentorship, and a sense of purpose. It’s a powerful example of what happens when a community invests in its youth.

What programs like this have you seen make a difference?

"After getting clean and regaining custody of her daughter, Mosley began the process of opening a nonprofit to support children with disabilities and their families, like her daughter who lived with severe cerebral palsy. On the day she was set to finalize the process, her daughter passed away."- NKCDC

We have overcome, and by the spirit of God’s love, we healed. We are Kensington: A village of soldiers.

“You can [experience] a loss of many things: a pet, job, house, independence, loved ones. You learn how to process it in a natural way. There are stages, but loss is a lifetime process when you’re dealing with the loss of a loved one,” Mosley said.

"Everything around the neighborhood in Kensington is about trauma. The drug addiction. The abuse, the other problems. I know what they are going through because I have gone through it. And there’s no other way to introduce trauma but to say, “trauma,” and to let people know what it is so that they can recognize it because either someone is living in trauma or they are not. If they are in it, and that stress is not relieved, that stress is piling on and piling on and it becomes toxic."