Community Responding in Belief:

A Community House where Hopeworks youth live, learn, study, work, grow, and help one another to DREAM.

Pass by 517 State Street in North Camden and you’ll see the C.R.I.B. (Community Responding in Belief), a residential community for youth who have earned a job at Hopeworks and are enrolled in an Associates Degree program at Camden County College.  The C.R.I.B. is a community of success where youth live together, sharing meals, going to college and working—all in the pursuit of futures full of hope and possibility.

At Hopeworks we recognize that there is a critical need affecting youth: unsafe, insecure, or unsupportive housing with limited personal space.  Youth come from chaotic living environments with family members with complex personal issues.  Housing instability disrupts college plans, jeopardizes financial aid options, and hampers youth’s ability to build on success established at Hopeworks.  This is exactly why Hopeworks has built the C.R.I.B.  This community living environment for youth empowers them to reach not only academic goals, but life goals.  Youth budget, grocery shop, cook and share meals together, as well as study and encourage one another.

The youth living at the C.R.I.B. are leaders. They have successfully participated in Hopeworks training and are now working in web design, GIS, or at a corporate internship. C.R.I.B. youth now have a great opportunity, known as P2P (Peer-to-Peer), to meet with Hopeworks trainees weekly to talk about training goals and D.R.E.A.M.S. and share how they have been able to attain success.  They will travel to corporate internships with area business partners.  After two years in the C.R.I.B., they will have earned their Associate’s degree, and will transition into a four year college or a career.