out of poverty. The job-training nonprofit teamed up with the city of Asheville to construct a temporary trail on the planned Town Branch Greenway, which opened to the public after a ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 27. J Hackett, executive director of Green Opportunities, explains that he didn’t have to look far for the partnership: The finished Town Branch Greenway would run directly behind the organization’s office in the Southside neighborhood. He reached out to Lucy Crown, the city’s greenway coordinator, with the idea for a collaboration that would contribute to the greenway, and together they identified a 1,000-foot stretch of planned path behind the nearby Dr. Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Center. Funded by a $10,000 grant from Mountain Area Workforce Development, a $5,000 grant from New Belgium Brewing Co. and $2,400 from the city Transportation Department, the project established a 6-foot-wide trail surfaced with fine gravel. The trail will serve pedestrians and cyclists until its planned removal in 2020 to make way for the greenway’s permanent
path. That construction hangs on the city’s ability to find additional money; last year, City Council cut the Town Branch Greenway from its funding package for the River Arts District Transportation Improvement Project. The project marked Green Opportunities’ first foray into building greenways, but the work was a natural extension of the organization’s construction training efforts, which have graduated 16 classes over 10 years. These free classes prepare students — all of whom must earn less than 80 percent of the area median income to enroll — for careers that can change the trajectories of their lives. “The construction industry is extremely forgiving,” says Hackett. “It works with people who are walking down the path to their future.” That description applies to student Keith Hendershot. “I came to this program as a recently homeless person who has substance abuse issues, and I was recommended by the Justice Resource Center after a DUI,” he says. “I’ve always wanted
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