RecycleForce’s upcoming Indiana headquarters will provide not only training in e-scrap recycling but a dedicated space for financial wellness lessons, with help from KeyBank.
Nonprofit RecycleForce provides job training and opportunities to formerly incarcerated people through electronics recycling. Since 2006, it has served thousands of people and recycled more than 100 million pounds of e-scrap.
In 2021, KeyBank employees taught classes at RecycleForce on home ownership, understanding credit, protecting identity, saving, investing and interest rate basics. Now, the bank is investing $300,000 to create a “Transformative Financial Wellness” classroom and program to “help RecycleForce continue its work of creating a stronger civil society by providing formerly incarcerated people opportunities to reintegrate into the community,” a press release stated.
The investment is part of KeyBank’s $40 billion National Community Benefits Plan, which aims to help communities reach social, economic and racial equity.
The classroom will be located in the Indianapolis RecycleForce facility, once it opens this year. It will have one-to-one technology for both staff and clients, fixed dry erase boards, smart screens and other technology for effective lesson delivery, the press release noted.
The facility will double RecycleForce’s existing footprint and give it a permanent home in the 102,000-square-foot space. That will allow the recycler to increase its annual capacity from about 10 million pounds to roughly 30 million pounds.
RecycleForce hopes to serve at least 600 people annually, double the amount they can currently serve, and the goal is for half of program participants to work with a staff member on at least one financial health activity, such as opening a bank account, developing a budget and implementing a plan to increase credit scores, according to the press release.
Gregg Keesling, president of RecycleForce, said the grant will provide “a hub where their learning can extend beyond the warehouse floor.”
