Providing shade in schoolyards and valuable skills to young job seekers

Jessie Salazar's love of plants and landscaping began when he was about 6 years old, growing up in Compton.

“My father was a gardener, so we used to go out to rich peoples’ homes out in Beverly Hills and different areas,” he said.

He earned a landscape architecture degree from the prestigious program at California Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo, and after graduation worked at a few firms. But that left him unsatisfied.

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In 2015, he founded his own company, SLA Inc., in Bell Gardens and was awarded schoolyard greening contracts for the area — and coincidentally, for some of the schools he attended.

A growing number of nonprofits and landscaping companies are taking on this kind of work. It's due in large part to the allocation of millions of dollars in state and local funds in 2022.

Portions of asphalt on school grounds are to be replaced with green space like plants and trees. It's designed to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis, while providing much-needed shade for students as it gets hotter.

Opening jobs for Southeast L.A.

Salazar’s company is doing something different than most other companies. Starting in 2018, it began partnering with area social service organizations and labor unions to create a workforce training program specifically for the schoolyard greening projects.

Jessie Salazar aims to work with the community.

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Courtesy Jessie Salazar

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The approach uses those earmarked public funds to teach people industry skills, especially those whose background makes it difficult to get jobs. Those skills put them on a path to steady employment and a livable wage.

“To date, we've gotten over a hundred people into two different unions,” Salazar said. “That allows them to have good paying jobs, [and] healthcare benefits.”

SLA Inc. has contracts to work on 10 schoolyard greening projects for the Lynwood school district.

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Courtesy Jessie Salazar

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For him, it’s personal.

“This is my life purpose,” he said. “I came to these schools. I got in trouble like these kids.”

Workers join two industry unions, Laborer’s Local 300 and United Association 345, which offers apprenticeship jobs that pay $31 an hour, Salazar said, and supervisor jobs double that amount.

Terrell Jones (L) and Jessie Salazar

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Courtesy Jessie Salazar

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The work takes muscle

SLA Inc. hires people like Terrell Jones.

“[I]  grew up in Long Beach … played baseball for the Long Beach Cubs baseball team. Then, we moved to Carson, where I continued playing sports at Carson High School,” Jones said.

But he dropped out before earning his diploma. He got involved in gangs, he said, and that led to 30 years behind bars.

Terrell Jones has taken SLA's apprenticeship training program.

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Courtesy Jessie Salazar

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“When I first got out of prison, my future was bleak,” he said.

But soon after, he enrolled in SLA’s two-month apprenticeship training program.

This summer, he helped take out 10,000 square feet of asphalt at the Lindbergh Childcare Center in Lynwood and replace it with oaks, sycamores, sages and manzanita.

“I drove a big truck. I loaded the truck up most of the time myself or with another person, basically just delivered their material all summer long,” Terrell said.

The training gave him an understanding of irrigation systems and the various aspects of large landscape projects.

“Now I have these skills that I can carry with me throughout the rest of my life,” he said.

The childcare center is the first of 10 schoolyard greening projects completed by SLA for the Lynwood school district.