Young people in Martin County can now utilize Project Lift's brand new facility, which opened recently in Hobe Sound. Bob Zaccheo, founder and CEO of the group, said the move is just one part of their growth.
"We have moved out of Palm City and our headquarters is now down in Hobe Sound. We do have one in St. Lucie County in Fort Pierce, one in Palm Beach County in Belle Glade, and then obviously our new one in Stuart, which will be online in 2027," he said.
Project Lift has programs running all day from dawn to dusk. Youth will learn real-life work skills, including understanding payroll, HR, and more, all while learning valuable trade skills and undergoing therapy from licensed therapists. Each location specializes its trade to the needs of the area.
"Kind of what makes them different is really the environment itself. What unites all of them is mental health and substance abuse treatment. Our goal is to work with teens and young adults who are struggling in those areas, and what we've discovered is that the vocational trades make a very good replacement behavior for those issues: depression, anxiety, stress, attention deficit hyperactivity, family dysfunction issues, and obviously drugs and alcohol," he said.
Bob, who is also a licensed psychotherapist, said that he created Project Lift to connect with youth in a way he couldn't in a more traditional therapy setting.
"I started Project Lift about 15 years ago because I was kind of frustrated with just sitting in a clinical office with teens that were struggling in certain areas and really not getting anywhere. What I found out was that if I get them underneath the hood of a car and start teaching them how to repair an engine or to build a house or to do welding or carpentry or metal fabrication, that they talk," he said.
It also gave room to fill a major gap in the community of young trade workers.
"They had taken vocational trades out of the schools and it was really kind of a dying thing, and the trades themselves were dying. So we started seeing big, big numbers of gaps in the skilled trades area and careers, right? So in the local area, there's something like 400 available jobs," he said.
The biggest hurdle was finding licensed professionals who could balance the trade with the therapy.
"That was the biggest code that we had to crack, was how do we get therapists who — not everybody was like me, where I actually loved working on cars, I still do, but I also happened to be a licensed psychotherapist. So it worked for me, but that doesn't mean that it was going to work for every single other therapist that walked in the door that I needed to hire," he said.
The Hobe Sound facility, which will be their new headquarters, took in all that they have learned.
"We've really fast-forwarded that site simply because we know what we're doing now, right? It's like we've had a lot of hits and misses and we know what works in the areas. But Hobe Sound is really focused on automotive repair, construction, carpentry — so we build tiny houses out there. Our biggest piece of Project Lift in Hobe Sound is manufacturing of metal and also welding," he said.
A big feature of the new facility, Bob said, was that it was partly built by the very people it serves.
"When we looked at the project, I talked to the contractors and I said, look, I don't want to be involved in putting up the shell of the building or doing the infrastructure part. We want to make sure it has good bones and we don't want to be a part of that. But we can do the internal buildouts on the offices and on the training centers and installation of all the equipment. And that has been the most amazing thing to see, because every day, day in and day out, these young folks are going in there and they're building their own walls. And it's really cool. Every time they finish a room or they finish a section or a phase, they sign all the beams and then kind of memorialize it, that they've done that. And the reality is now we've got these 15-, 16-year-old teenagers and sometimes early young adults who will always forever drive by that building and know that they built a part of that," he said.