We are family.

There’s nothing like a family reunion. August was our first-ever opportunity to bring together the entire OIC network: training partners, STEM educators and practitioners, and organizations founded to carry the legacy of Rev. Dr. Leon H. Sullivan—all working together to future-proof America’s workforce. It was a celebration, but also an opportunity to work. To build. To inspire ourselves and each other. Our mission demands nothing less. The U.S. economy in 2025 faces a widening skills gap that threatens growth across industries, from manufacturing and infrastructure to digital technology and AI. Employers consistently report that they lack reliable talent pipelines to meet national economic goals. The numbers are clear. Between this year and next year, the construction industry needs almost a million new workers. In manufacturing, 400,000 jobs are currently unfilled. Even as businesses invest billions in reshoring manufacturing, modernizing production and expanding digital infrastructure, many companies struggle to find enough people with the technical skills needed to support the work. That’s why, together, we are building the only national CTE training network in America. In just eight to 24 weeks, students are walking—debt free—into jobs that pay more than $46,000 a year—nearly as much as those for people with associate’s degrees, with short-term opportunities for transformational wage growth. The network provides a pathway to the middle class—and can have a population-level impact on poverty. This is work that none of us could do alone, but as a family, our impact is exponential. We are walking as one to pass the federal LEON Act, a potentially historic national investment in building pathways out of poverty and solving our structural, long-term labor shortage. Cosponsored by Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA-3) and Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC-11), with more cosponsors signing on this month (more on that below), the LEON Act is a bipartisan solution to a challenge facing urban, suburban and rural communities in every state. We are one OIC, and this is what we’re building. Let’s go.   Louis J. King II President and CEO OIC of America, Inc.

Last week U.S. Rep. Deborah K. Ross (D-NC-2) and U.S. Rep. Donald G. Davis (D-NC-1) signed on to cosponsor the Leveraging Educational Opportunity Networks (LEON) Act, a federal effort to build pathways out of poverty and solve our structural, long-term labor shortage. Under the bill, the U.S. Department of Labor would provide competitive grants to organizations that partner with local employers to provide no-cost professional certification training to workers for living-wage jobs in construction, disaster recovery, manufacturing and more.

When combined with the district of U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-NC-11), who has cosponsored the bill since its introduction in June, more than 2.3 million North Carolinians are now represented by cosponsors of this groundbreaking legislation, which would authorize $150 million in grants to accredited, not-for-profit, post-secondary educational institutions providing training at no out-of-pocket cost to students.

The LEON Act is named for civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Leon H. Sullivan, who in 1964 founded the worldwide network of skills-training organizations Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OIC).

Contact your representative and tell them you read about the LEON Act, you like it, and you’d like them to cosponsor it.

Forward this email to friends and family who are interested in addressing the historic inequities that affect generations.

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OIC of America’s annual convening began by welcoming partners, affiliates and staff to Leon Sullivan’s Philadelphia. OIC of America’s founder made his career in the City of Brotherly Love, so attendees took the opportunity to tour sites of historical significance to OIC, including:

• The building that housed the first OIC when it opened in 1964. A former jail, the building still holds the bars to two cells—currently used as storage closets—in commemoration of the organization’s mission to provide opportunities to those for whom opportunity was (and is) so often denied.
• Progress Plaza, the country’s first African American-owned shopping center, which Sullivan opened after raising money in North Philadelphia.
• The Leon H. Sullivan Human Services Center, which Sullivan founded to make accessible office space available to the providers of social and human services at an affordable rate. 

Following the tour, attendees enjoyed a welcome party hosted by OIC Philadelphia President and CEO Sheila Ireland, where students from the organization’s culinary arts program showed off the skills and techniques learned through trainings there.

See more photos and video here.

Aiming to create career pathways and transform lives through education and workforce development, OIC of Washington proudly celebrated the accomplishments of 93 students at its annual graduation ceremony. Graduates earned certificates in GED, Culinary, Construction, and CDL, with several students achieving dual certifications. 

“It’s about creating pathways, not just programs, that lead people to careers, self-sufficiency, and transformation,” said Anthony Peterson, CEO of OIC of Washington. “Graduation isn’t the end, it’s the beginning of opportunity. Every student who walks across that stage is proof of what’s possible when we provide the right resources, training, and encouragement.” 

Read more.