Project Oz broke ground Thursday morning on its long-awaited building expansion that will make room for the Youth Education and Support Center that could open in as early as six months.
CEO Lisa Thompson told WGLT that groundwork is set to start next week.
Thompson previously told WGLT the Youth Education and Support Center will feature technology stations, additional and more comfortable seating, and laundry space for homeless adolescents in need.
“On paper, the youth center will add 2,400 square feet of bricks and mortar to our existing building, but in real life, the center represents far more than a construction project,” she said in a speech at the groundbreaking event. “By growing our space here, it will allow us to keep our west side roots and stay where we have been serving for over 50 years.”
Conversations about expansion have been ongoing for years, but Project Oz launched a $1.1 million capital campaign to fund it last year. Thompson told WGLT the nonprofit met its funding goal largely through donor support, and that a bank loan helped it reach the finish line.
Craig McCormick, who chairs the Project Oz board, said it was past time to get a bigger building.
“We have figuratively and physically grown out of our space,” he said of the location at 1105 W. Front St. in west Bloomington.
Since opening, Project Oz has more than doubled the number of young people it serves. The staff — which grew by 30% in size — now cater to over 7,000 youth and adolescents.
The City of Bloomington contributed $250,000 of pandemic relief funding in the summer of 2023, which launched the project. Mayor Mboka Mwilambwe spoke at the ceremony about the city’s support of the effort.
“The Bloomington City Council and staff understand… that an investment in youth is an investment in the future of our community,” he said. “And this was a no-brainer for us, particularly because Project Oz is a worthy organization that has done quite a few things here in the community already.”
Kristen Hawthorne is one of the people the nonprofit has helped. She drove from Kentucky for the ceremony and the open house that followed. Hawthorne found Project Oz when she was 20: a mother of one, pregnant with her second child — at the same time, dealing with domestic and sexual abuse and struggling to find employment due to a two-year-old felony conviction.
“I was extremely broken,” she told WGLT. “I wasn't hopeful at the time.”
But Project Oz offered a helping hand. She spent two years in its programming and became self-sufficient by the time she graduated.
“I honestly just can't see my success without having Project Oz in it,” she said.
Hawthorne, who’s also served on Project Oz’s Transitional Living Program board, added she hopes the expansion will allow more youth and adolescents to get help, whatever their situation.
“I'm really hoping that it won't just be a small building that people see when they drive by, but now, it just kind of catches their eyes,” she said, adding the “community matters, the work matters [and] it’s needed.”
