Community Builders, a Barrie-based construction social enterprise, is marking 10 years of using real construction projects to train people facing barriers to employment. It currently operates in Barrie, Muskoka, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, pairing trade experience with practical employment skills and connecting graduates with construction employers.
What is Community Builders?
Community Builders combines construction business operations with a nonprofit mission: helping people gain a second chance at work, supplying skilled workers to construction sites and contributing to housing needs. Executive director Carly Gasparini described the approach as “a really smart way to do what we’re trying to do from a nonprofit perspective.”
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Participants include people with criminal records, newcomers to Canada, people returning to the workforce and people who have faced addiction or other employment barriers. The feature does not specify formal eligibility requirements, whether trainees are paid, or whether the program awards a credential.
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How the program trains people
Trainees develop construction skills through practical work on projects, alongside skills intended to help them stay employed. Instruction includes workplace behaviour, conflict management, budgeting and nutrition. The program typically takes 12 trainees at a time, and the organization reportedly receives more applications than it can manage; no application total or acceptance rate is reported.
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Projects serve two purposes: they keep professional crews working and give trainees experience on practical jobs. When a community organization cannot afford labour, it may still have a project or materials available for Community Builders to take on.
Where Community Builders operates—and how each location works
The organization began in Barrie, then expanded to Muskoka and Sudbury before adding Sault Ste. Marie. Executive director Carly Gasparini joined in 2021 as the Sudbury operation opened. An early proposal to separate Sudbury from Barrie shifted after Gasparini and co-founder and CEO Brandon Day recognized the value of working together. The Sudbury operation helped demonstrate that the model could be replicated.
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Each location has a managing director, construction manager and programming staff. The overall curriculum is consistent, but projects, partners and employer relationships are shaped locally. Gasparini summed up the variation this way: “The landscape looks different in each community.” She added that communities do not want “someone from down south” telling them how to do things.
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Community organizations can contribute projects or materials when they lack funds to pay for labour. Private construction companies provide another source of work and may hire graduates. Gasparini said, “The response from the private sector has been just incredible,” describing companies returning to hire program graduates. That is her account of employer interest, not an independently audited placement rate; the feature does not report graduate employment or wage statistics.
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Is Community Builders coming to Timmins or Thunder Bay?
Organizations in Timmins and Thunder Bay have expressed interest in bringing the model to their regions, but neither location is reported as an operating Community Builders site. Expansion depends on local champions and a reliable supply of projects, so the reported interest is an opportunity under discussion, not a confirmed launch.
Gasparini pointed to both housing needs and a shortage of skilled tradespeople in Northern Ontario. “The skill trade deficit in the North is far higher than in southern Ontario, too, because we just don’t have the number of people here,” she said. She added, “So it’s important to us that we’re building up that Northern Ontario workforce.” The article also reports that most graduates remain in the communities where they trained.
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What the 10-year milestone does—and does not—show
The anniversary marks a decade of operating and adapting this community-based model. The available account describes its training approach, locations and employer relationships, but does not provide an independent impact evaluation, graduation rate, housing-unit total or audited job-placement figures. Those outcomes cannot be quantified from the information reported.
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Source: Laura Stradiotto, “Non-profit trades construction program marks a decade in service,” SooToday for Northern Ontario Business, Oct. 1, 2026.
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