A tragic electrical fire closed this vibrant community center, leaving fifty active groups without a home base. Despite enormous pressure from insurance companies and others to abandon this grand old historic structure, the community rallied, choosing to renovate with a “Deep Energy Retrofit” approach, vastly reducing their energy use for the future. By partnering with the local Carpenter’s Union as well as Youth Build Boston, Clark University and other groups, the construction process became a fertile training ground for young apprentices. This partnership provided job training alongside affordable construction, and even rekindled Youth Build Worcester for ongoing work training in the city. We represented the project at the Historic Commission hearing, helped navigate the highly technical Deep Energy Retrofit process, worked through multiple versions with a consensus-based group of organizations, provided working drawings and construction support, and crafted marketing images for their fundraising materials. This was a pro bono project.