TechCo Savvy creates next generation of builders shaping Chicago’s West Side

TechCo Savvy laying firm foundation for West Side youth

A former CPS coach is training teens and young adults to rebuild Chicago’s West Side through hands-on STEM and construction work that’s preparing them for real careers.

CHICAGO - Lawon Williams may have hung up his coaching headset, but he never stopped leading a team. 

Williams spent several years as Chicago Public Schools teacher, also coaching football at Collins Academy in Douglass Park. Now he leads a non-profit called TechCo Savvy where his former players are learning STEM concepts while also helping lay the foundation for the future of the West Side.

"Since I started the program, I've learned how to take drywall down, put it up, how to install lights, how to install electricity," said Marshall Douthard Jr. "We demo the house. I've learned how to break a house down, how to put it back together. I can almost write a book about the knowledge I’ve gained so far." 

The hands-on experience with TechCo Savvy includes building houses from the ground up on 5th Avenue, in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood.

"They think about the math and science being challenging," Williams said. "But when you give them an opportunity to do hands-on learning, it makes it a lot easier. Most of our youth has to see what they're doing, feel it, touch it, hands -on, and then that allows them to do it."

The students in the program range from 13-years old to young adults. Keontay Fox will turn 21 later this month and plans to use these skills to one day build his own barbershop.

"The construction is hands-on," Fox said. "I feel like I’m building a structure and my mindset. That will really help me when I get older. I’m going to use this experience to develop my barbering career."

What they're saying:

Williams’ vision started with four empty lots along 5th Avenue. The first completed unit was sold back in March for $600,000, well above the norm for West Garfield Park. Rebuilding the community one block at a time, was always the plan for the West Side native.

"I think it's important because a lot of people talk about gentrification, but reality is that we're improving the community," said Williams. "These comps that we created in this nice house, that improves our neighbors across the street. Their value went up. We don't have to keep running to other neighborhoods. We can create what we want in our neighborhoods. Our theory behind what we've been doing for a long time is like, you get an education and you leave the neighborhood. But in reality, this is the gold mine. So come back to your neighborhood, put nice houses in there, build it up, and live there and create that ecosystem for future generations. 

"So when you create that neighborhood, you curve so many things: poverty, violence, crime. You get these young men an opportunity to get careers and jobs and opportunity."