On November 5, 2016, Cleveland Job Corps students Isaac Neal and Nishimwe Sosthene, and staff Nate Lawshea, helped Victoria Trotter pull the plastic over the hoop house skeletons at Trotters Garden. Growing up in the east side dry cleaning business that her mother founded in 1969, not only taught her about entrepreneurship but also about helping others.
Being the first eco-friendly dry cleaning business in the Cleveland area, opened many doors and opportuni-ties for the business. It enabled the business to become a leader in the Green Move-ment in Cleveland’s Glenville’s neighborhood. However, recently Ms. Trotter de-cided to close the cleaners and replace it with a Garden Juice Bar to promote health and wellness, an Art Gallery for local talent and an Incubator for young entrepre-neurs.
“Youth often came into our business establishment looking for odd jobs, or for some type of training,” stated Ms. Trotter. With the youth unemployment in Glen-ville up, Ms. Trotter is hoping the Green Space Incubator will challenge youth to become proactive in stimulating economic growth through creativity; in addition to taking advantage of viable training and skills development in computer applications for PC’s, tablets and mobile devices.
Ms. Trotter’s new business venture will be a valuable and edifying resource to the youth in the community. “What used to be good first jobs for youth are now going to older adults forced to return to the workforce causing the youth to scour their neighborhoods looking for something to do and earn a little pocket-money,” ex-plained Ms. Trotter. “The city will be great again when the prospects for its youth are once again great, and their lives are expected to be better than their parents.”