In 1977, Projects created the Knox County Youth Employment training program, a two-year initiative that provided midcoast Maine youth with small business, entrepreneurial and general job training. The program, founded with $9,000 in state of Maine funding, was geared towards kids with criminal records – it was PROJECTS’ goal to transform the participants’ negative habits into more productive and positive skills.

“These were generally smart and resourceful kids who were simply caught up in negative patterns of behavior,” recalls Perry Gates of Projects. “It was our goal to intervene and turn the negative pattern into a positive one.”

However, Projects was cautious about requiring too much new behavior from the participants. There was the worry among Projects staff that intervening with radical new behavior requirements would be met with strong resistance. Therefore, Projects took a unique approach: they decided to help the participants put to positive use some of the skills that had gotten them in trouble.

For example, many of the kids had a history of drug use and were known to hide drugs in “stash boxes” they carved for themselves out of wood. Projects’ staff recommended that the kids continue carving the boxes – and even encouraged them to start producing the items in mass supply – but with a small twist: they asked the kids to cut a small hole in the side of the box so that it could function as a stamp dispenser.

Working in collaboration with Maine’s American Boathouse, the kids began manufacturing the wooden stamp boxes and other office supply products including pencil holders and letter openers. Eventually, they marketed and sold their products to local businesses. After the program concluded, one of the students ended up staying at American Boathouse to work on one of the company’s schooners.

Having fulfilled its state mandate, the Knox County Youth Employment training program ended after two years in 1979. “For what it was (a small operation) the program was quite successful,” recalls Gates of Projects.

Perhaps most importantly, the Knox County Youth Employment training program served as a wonderful trial run for some of the larger youth oriented action programs that Projects developed down the road. Having discovered during the two years that positive behavior tends to beget more positive behavior, Projects would go on to focus heavily on service oriented programs as it sought to implement initiatives for struggling youth.