Marc Soberano says the word “toilet” a lot, but not for the reasons you might think.
Last September, the 25-year-old Toronto entrepreneur, a graduate of Western University’s Richard Ivey School of Business, launched a Toronto non-profit that aims to achieve social and environmental change by training workers to retrofit toilets, showers and sinks and at the same time helping affordable housing units reduce their operating costs and consumption.
Building Up, which Soberano modelled on the Winnipeg-based initiative Build, offers a four-month, compensated pre-apprenticeship training and work program to people with barriers to employment, such as poverty or involvement in the criminal justice system.
In addition to in-class instruction in math, financial and general literacy, and some soft skills, participants are taught how to do energy and water efficiency retrofits and are contracted through Building Up to take on supervised jobs in residential low-income housing in Toronto.
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Payment from the jobs goes toward hourly wages for the workers, who make $14 per hour for their work and in-class time.
After the four months, Building Up connects trainees with trade unions or employers, who then ideally take them on as apprentices.
“With the trades, you can start as a labourer, then become an apprentice, then a second-level apprentice. There are steps you can keep moving up through and keep earning more. A journeyman, for example, can make about $50 an hour,” Soberano explained.
Building Up was one of the recipients of last year’s Genesis Generation Challenge, a competition that awarded $100,000 apiece to nine innovative projects that reflect Jewish values.
The competition is an outgrowth of the U.S.-based Genesis Prize, the $1-million so-called “Jewish Nobel,” designed to reward Jewish leaders who exemplify Jewish values. Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg was its inaugural recipient, while the 2016 prize was awarded to violinist Itzhak Perlman.
“This money has allowed us to figure things out in our first year. It’s given us wiggle room to pay people and deliver training,” Soberano said.
Building Up finds its trainees through the Learning Enrichment Foundation (LEF), a local organization that matches marginalized people with skills training and employment.
In teams of three and under the supervision of Building Up’s resident master plumber Paul McCullough, trainees start by reviewing a building’s water bills and then taking measurements of toilets, shower heads and faucets to figure out how energy consumption can be reduced.
They then give the building manager a free report on the cost of retrofitting and what eventual savings will look like.
“If they don’t have the money to pay us up front, we offer them to pay nothing at first and pay us back over time through the savings they generate on their water bills,” Soberano said, stressing that he wants to make Building Up as accessible as possible.
“We just did a building that’ll now save $90,000 each year on water bills”
So far, the non-profit has trained about seven people and worked on 11 different buildings, which Soberano said translates to a total of just over 1,000 retrofitted toilets and a collective savings of about 70 million litres of water each year.
“Any building, even ones that recently got new toilets, can do this upgrade, and it’ll pay for itself through the savings in well under three years. We just did a building that’ll now save $90,000 each year on water bills,” Soberano said.
As the organization grows, it plans to expand its operations. So far, the classes, held on LEF’s premises, have been taught by Soberano and McCullough themselves, based on materials they’ve pieced together from several educational partner organizations. A new grant from Ontario’s Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, however, will enable Soberano to hire a training manager and streamline lessons.
As well, Building Up has already started to broaden its services beyond plumbing to general trades projects that benefit the community: a team of trainees renovated a kitchen at The 519 community centre in the Church and Wellesley area of Toronto, and it’s currently doing bathroom renovations at the downtown Centre for Social Innovation, a shared work space for social entrepreneurs.
Trainee Divaldo Miguel, 28, has worked on about 10 buildings with Building Up. He was recently accepted to a training program with the Labourers’ Local 506 union.
“Not only do we get paid for what we do, but we get to work as a team and learn new skills. I had no experience before this when it came to plumbing, and now we’ve learned a little bit of everything, like how to use different tools – it’s been a really good experience,” he said.
