The smell of sawdust hung thick in the air at Kokomo Urban Outreach’s headquarters recently.
Inside a little second-floor workshop on the site of the former Trinity United Methodist Church, 15-year-old Ralph Mitchell was concentrating on the task at hand and making sure the piece of wood he was cutting was just the right length.
Helping young people transition successfully into adulthood is one of KUO’s main missions, and thanks to a brand-new Makerspace that the organization opened up earlier this month, over 200 kids in KUO’s ManUP, StepUP and MiniUP programs will now have the opportunity to learn handy work skills that they can use for the rest of their lives.
The new Makerspace is part of the outreach’s work-mentorship program where the kids — ages 4-18 — actually get paid in points for completed work, whether it’s by raking…
