The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded a nearly $700,000 grant to YouthBuild Louisville, an organization that aids unemployed, undereducated and generally disadvantaged teens and twenty-somethings in the River City.

The grant will allow the organization, which provides job training and high school education to disadvantaged 16- to 24-year-olds, to operate for another two years.

YouthBuild Louisville is due to receive an additional $400,000 from the labor department when funding is available, the organization said in a news release.

… The Department of Labor last month set aside $114 million for 183 community groups to provide education and training programs to young adults. About $47 million of the funding, which was approved under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was earmarked for YouthBuild programs, according to the release.

More than 97 percent of incoming YouthBuild Louisville participants live below poverty level. Graduates of the program are prepared for post-secondary education, job or apprenticeship placement or military service, according to the release. [Business First]

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s website, “more than $485 million in grants have been awarded since the program’s inception in 1993 enabling over 47,000 young people to construct or rehabilitate more than 13,000 affordable housing units in their communities,” via YouthBuild programs.

That’s one down, and eleventy-billion non-profits to go…