Aaron Frumin

In 2005, Aaron Frumin dropped out of college and responded to Hurricane Katrina with the Red Cross. Later that year, he took his first job in construction as the least-skilled worker at a day labor company in the Reno-Tahoe Area. He went on to join AmeriCorps NCCC and spent years as a leader with New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, where he loved teaching people new skills through a shared and empowering experience. So, Aaron went back to school and earned his degree at Tulane before spending three years as a middle school teacher through Teach for America in Colorado.Through his journey, Aaron learned valuable lessons about teamwork and selflessness, how strong a collective impact could be, and developed a more personal understanding of the deeply rooted problems facing our communities.Today, Aaron is the Founder and Executive Director of unCommon Construction - a New Orleans-based nonprofit that uses the build process to empower youth to lead the workforce. Through unCommon's apprenticeship program, high school students apply to join a diverse team to earn hourly pay and school credit for building a house together. With the revenue from each project, unCommon matches apprentices' earnings with an Equity Award Scholarship for further education and career opportunities. Since its founding, unCommon has hired more than 200 students who have collectively earned more than $250,000 in pay and scholarships and begun its expansion to new locations nationwide.