As a kid growing up in North Philadelphia, Aniage Brown always dreamed of a career where he could help people. “I wanted to be a firefighter,” says Brown, now 26. “But telling that to your parents in Philadelphia? It definitely freaks them out.”
Brown graduated from One Bright Ray Community High School, then found himself in a series of dead-end jobs at companies like Burlington Coat Factory and Amazon. Every day, he’d wake up wanting to call in sick. “I reached a point when I was 21 where I realized that I couldn’t keep doing jobs like this for the rest of my life,” he says.
That’s when his brother encouraged him to go to Hopeworks, the Camden-based nonprofit that trains folks for careers in fields with a demand for employees, and then matches them with jobs. The organization, which is celebrating 25 years in 2025 and recently opened a new, 4,000-square foot facility in Kensington, first put itself on the regional workforce development map with tech programs, offering training in 21st-century skills like website development, drone services and more.
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You wouldn’t buy a fleet of Ferraris and skip the driving lessons.But that’s exactly what many companies are doing with AI. They’re investing in powerful new tools—enterprise licenses for ChatGPT, intelligent CRMs, custom copilots—but leaving employees to figure them out on their own. The result? Missed potential, uneven adoption, and a workforce stuck doing work […]
“Our collaboration with Dell Technologies and NVIDIA isn’t just about technology; it’s about genuinely empowering people. Together, we aspire to scale our success and extend opportunities to every underserved community we reach.” -Dan Rhoton, CEO, Hopeworks Learn more by clicking here.
Hopeworks, a Camden-based social enterprise dedicated to empowering young adults, has received a $75,000 matching grant from The Foxwynd Foundation. This significant investment is earmarked to expand the organization’s successful Recode Your Future initiative in Philadelphia and Camden, creating more pathways to financial stability through trauma-informed technical training and job placement. This is the second consecutive grant […]
