>> Male Speaker 1: By 2025, America will face a shortage of over 12 million qualified workers.

But hope lies in an untapped population.

The 5 million young adults across the country who want to improve their circumstances but feel disconnected from meaningful work.

This is a story of three people from underserved communities who set out on a road trip to find new opportunity.

And learned that where you come from doesn't have to determine where you end up.

This is Roadtrip Nation To Be Determined.

[traffic, sirens] >> Taiheem Wentt: Last Thursday night, I would say like 11:30 PM, I came in, I'm here.

The guy comes in, and he tries to stab me in the chest.

And I blocked and pushed him back.

At that time, two other people came and grabbed him.

But when I blocked, he nicked me on this side.

I was shaken up cuz somebody could've just came and stabbed me at any point, you know what I mean?

And I could've been taken away from my family.

>> [MUSIC] >> Taiheem Wentt: Mic check one, two [SOUND].

>> Male Speaker 2: Hey, are you picking that up in the background?

>> Taiheem Wentt: I got selected to be a road tripper in Roadtrip Nation.

And I'll be going on an RV with two strangers cross-country.

>> Denise Flores: On a road trip for three weeks.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: We're gonna be interviewing people who started off with similar backgrounds like myself.

And they're gonna show us what they did to actually pull them through.

>> Taiheem Wentt: I grew up watching my mom go through a lot of domestic violence.

Because of that, we lived in shelter to shelter.

>> Denise Flores: I don't wanna bestuck in that cycle of working 80 hours a week just so I can help out with the rent and pay the bills.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: Growing up, my neighborhood wasn't the safest.

There's a lot of crime that goes on.

There's a lot of drug addicts and a lot of drug dealers.

But it was the norm to me.

>> Denise Flores: We've all been through a workforce development program.

We haven't gone through the traditional college route.

We're first gonna start off in Atlanta, Georgia.

We're gonna fly out there, and then we're gonna hop into the RV, the big green RV.

And then we're gonna make our way up north, hitting cities such as Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago.

A bunch of cities, it's a lot, and I've never been in an RV.

>> Taiheem Wentt: It's an amazing opportunity because we'll be interviewing individuals with similar backgrounds.

I get a chance to ask some difficult questions, some things that I may be struggling with, and just form memories that are gonna last forever.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: If I can hear someone else'sstory who looks like me, their background looks like mine, I know it's not impossible for me.

>> Denise Flores: Because there's always a light at the end of the tunnel.

We just have to find it.

>> Taiheem Wentt: We in Hotlana.

>> Denise Flores: It's so hot.

>> Taiheem Wentt: I see why they call it Hotlana.

I don't know how people are wearing sweaters.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: I wonder, can you actually fry egg on the concrete?

>> Taiheem Wentt: Possibly.

>> Denise Flores: You probably can.

>> Taiheem Wentt: Yeah.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: I believe so.

>> Taiheem Wentt: Yeah, we all get to go and be tourists.

My name's Taiheem Wentt, I'm 26.

I'm from the Bronx.

Growing up, my mom, from as early as I can remember, has been a single mom.

Dealt with domestic violence, domestic violence, and not having my dad there.

During freshman year, I got me and my brother into foster care.

I was being a knucklehead, and I was just really angry.

I get kinda choked up, I don't know.

It makes me kinda choked up at times, to go back.

It's hard to open up because it's real.

These are things I wake up out of my sleep, covered in sweat, thinking about.

>> [MUSIC] >> Taiheem Wentt: Jumping around from shelter to shelter, I dealt with anger that caused me to lash out.

And at times, when I would go through these, I wanna say, just bouts of depression, I wanted to kill myself.

I didn't wanna be there.

I was like, why didn't my dad want me?

Why am I here?

It would just be a perpetuating loop of self-pity, anger, and just confusion and not knowing what I wanted to do.

>> Taiheem Wentt: And I don't know if that's- >> Yasmine Tolbert: There it goes.

>> Taiheem Wentt: You see it?

>> Yasmine Tolbert: To the right.

>> Denise Flores: You see it?

>> Taiheem:I see it, hey.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: [LAUGH] >> Denise Flores: I got it, my gosh.

>> Taiheem Wentt: My gosh, wow.

[LAUGH] That's what I'm talking about.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: Ooh, this is nice.

>> Taiheem Wentt: This is nice.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: My name is Yasmine Tolbert.

I'm 24 years old.

>> [SOUND] >> Denise Flores: [LAUGH] >> Taiheem Wentt: Yeah, yeah.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: That was [LAUGH].

And I'm from a city outside of Chicago called Harvey, Illinois.

>> [MUSIC] >> Yasmine Tolbert: A lot of people in our city struggle with keeping up with bills.

And outside of the bills, there's a lot of crime that goes on.

There's a lot of drug addicts and a lot of drug dealers.

Right now, it looks deserted, but when I was growing up, it never looked like this.

It's a whole bunch of weeds and stuff over there and grass, but it used to be beautiful.

Things got difficult.

>> [MUSIC] >> Yasmine Tolbert: This is my goddaughter.

Say hi.

Her name is Akira.

But I call her Tinklebutt, mm- hm.

[LAUGH] My dad was incarcerated when I was six months.

And he was released when I was 18.

Pretty much our environment kinda got the best of him at the time.

Growing up without my dad took a toll on me.

I will go see my dad, and I will hug him.

And I will hear a guard tell me, okay, y'all gotta let go.

Seeing everybody else play with their dad, but you can't play with yours, or something as simple as me going to see my dad, I faced challenges with that.

Elementary school, it was horrible.

I was good student, but I was teased.

I've never been skinny, so a lot of my insecurities came from my looks.

When I would be teased, it would definitely take me in a state of depression.

Yeah, when I came out here because I was dealing with stuff, I would come out here for hours and literally just cry.

So this park is real sentimental to me cuz it has seen me cry so many times.

And I guarantee it's not my last tear.

Pretty much my community's whole outlook was, if you're going through something, hey, do this, pick up this habit,do this habit.

And they made it look like it was the right thing to do.

So it was really hard to try to say no to it.

So as I got older, what did I do?

I broke down.

I fell into my community.

I started to get involved in habits that everybody else had around me, because I didn't have a positive outlet.

And not to mention, my mom got behind on bills.

So now home is falling apart, and to top it all off, I lost my job.

What do I do now?

Where do I go from here?

>> [MUSIC] >> Yasmine Tolbert: All right, it's time.

We're about to do this.

>> [MUSIC] >> Taiheem Wentt: All right, the unboxing.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: [LAUGH] I think I overpacked.

[LAUGH] >> Taiheem Wentt: Chill, gotta hold them up Peep the tongue, Air Jordan, the right way.

All the electronics.

It's hitting me.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: It's starting to hit you?

>> Taiheem Wentt: It's hitting me.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: You ain't going home!

>> Taiheem Wentt: It's like, you ain't going home, boy!

[LAUGH] >> Denise Flores: Packing my clothes in the RV, I will say it's not so bad cuz I'm used to living in a small apartment with my mom, dad, and my brother.

So I'm used to living in small quarters with a couple of people.

My name is Denise Flores.

I'm 26 years old, and I'm from Brooklyn, New York.

>> [MUSIC] >> Denise Flores: My parents are from Mexico.

They came here in the early 80s.

And they wanted a better life for their children.

Education was very important in my family.

They used to always tell us, you just have one job, and that's to go to college and get your college degree.

So I got accepted into a state school.

After a while, I started feeling financial constraints.

and towards the end because of a family emergency I had to come back without a degree And I felt like I really disappointed my parents.

They just wanted me to really make sure I had a secure future.

And they thought the only way to do that was to get that degree, and I didn't have it.

I was so sad because that was kinda the last glimmer of hope for my family.

The college loan bills came, and I realized, wait, what, this is how much I owe?

I was over $20,000 in debt for a degree that I didn't have.

So my family, we didn't really talk about money growing up.

If I knew how to manage money or I knew where it came from, that would provide me financial security in the long run.

This is the dream, working on Wall Street or Midtown, just a comfortable, nine-to-five, secure job.

Just wanna be secure.

I wanna be stable, that's it.

I ended up working two full-time jobs, working 80 hours a week, and trying to pay off all my debt.

Nonstop, just waking up, going to work, waking up, going to work, come home to shower and sleep.

So there's four of us living in a one-bedroom apartment.

I kinda feel like we're in a shoebox.

I really wish I could remove ourselves from this situation and find a better standard of living for us.

But my biggest worry right now is that, without that degree, I won't make it into the corporate industry.

I'm kind of stuck.

>> [MUSIC] >> Yasmine Tolbert: Wait till I tell my mama this, cuz I'm trying- >> Denise Flores: If anyone needs vapor rub I got it >> Yasmine Tolbert: That's the key to life.

>> Denise Flores: Okay, runny nose or anything, I got you.

>> Taiheem Wentt: So you take it.

>> Denise Flores: I think these slide out.

These have to slide out.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: These.

>> Denise Flores: Yeah.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: So it could lay flat.

>> Denise Flores: I see now.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: We're gonna need team effort to go to sleep.

>> Taiheem Wentt: And then that's where these things are here.

>> Denise Flores: Yes, that's so cool!

>> Yasmine Tolbert: That's cool!

>> Male Speaker 3: Try it now.

>> Taiheem Wentt: All right, now >> Denise Flores: Wow!

>> Yasmine Tolbert: Okay.

>> Taiheem Wentt: Yeah, all right, I'm good, I'm good.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: Okay.

>> [MUSIC] >> Yasmine Tolbert: All right [LAUGH] >>Taiheem Yeah, it's not... it's saying not to take- >> Denise Flores: I feel I'm at the age where I should have it all together, or at least be heading towards something, and I'm not.

I don't wanna go back to working 80 hours a week just so I can help out with the rent and pay the bills.

>> Taiheem Wentt: I'm swimming as hard as I can to keep above water.

And it's just, I worry about it a lot.

I get a chance to seek advice, guidance, and try to learn as much as I can on the trip from others.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: The biggest thing I'm looking forward to is gaining as much information as I can.

Because I want to be able to come home with a head full of knowledge and a heart full of strive, and know that I can actually do this and help somebody else along the way.

>> Denise Flores: I'm so used to the hustle and bustle of the city.

Going out on this road trip and stepping out of my day to day, it would just be unreal.

>> Taiheem Wentt: It's new.

I'm excited for it.

I'm just like, [SOUND] what's next?

>> Yasmine Tolbert: And get to see new things, new places, new people.

You don't get to see a lot of stuff like that out here.

>> Taiheem Wentt: Yo, look at the mountain, whoa.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: I like it.

I ain't going home.

[LAUGH] >> Denise Flores: I already know this is gonna be good for for my health already cuz there's so many trees.

>> Taiheem Wentt: [LAUGH] Right?

Y'all were not lying about, it's gonna be a change from the city.

This is like- >> Yasmine Tolbert: I'm so excited.

This reminds me of summer camp.

>> Taiheem Wentt: I'm getting in lakes barefoot and stuff.

What if something eats my toenails or something?

There's something under there.

>> Denise Flores: It's so cute!

>> Taiheem Wentt: No, I'm out.

I'm out, I'm out.

I'm out, I'm out.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: I've never been so calm about touching algae in my life.

>> Taiheem Wentt: Yo, my foot slid on the rock.

This is slimy.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: I told you it was slimy.

>> Taiheem Wentt: [SOUND] >> Denise Flores: Just a couple of hours ago, we were in New York City.

>> Taiheem Wentt: Yeah.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: I was in Chicago.

>> Denise Flores: This is really nice.

>> Taiheem Wentt: We don't have freaking mountains.

Look at this.

This is crazy.

>> Denise Flores: We don't have views like this.

>> Taiheem Wentt: Never.

>> Denise Flores: Now it's hitting me that I'm on a road trip.

>> [MUSIC] >> Taiheem Wentt: I really like the fact that I was able to go in nature and see tadpoles in a lake for the first time, skip some rocks.

It was dope.

It's so quiet.

Back home in the Bronx, I live next to the highway, so there's constant noise.

>> [NOISE] >> Taiheem Wentt: I found myself making noise just to, I don't know, feel normal at times.

I was that kid that was making beats on the lunchroom table with the two pens.

[SOUND] I think I'd go crazy if I couldn't do music, I couldn't express myself through it.

Yeah, I'll try different ways, but nothing feels the way sound does.

This is translation of the things that are going on in your life.

It's more than just playing on the computer for me.

This is what helped me get into my career.

>> [MUSIC] >> Female Speaker 1: How's the music coming?

>> Taiheem Wentt: It was going well, baby.

You wanna help me?

>> Female Speaker 1: Mm-hm.

>> Taiheem Wentt: All right.

[SOUND] Mid 2014, I was doing security and going to college at the same time.

My loving girlfriend, Destiny, she tells me that she's pregnant.

It's like, there's no way I'm gonna be able to support a child with this income.

My girl was like, well, you know how to do the thing with the computers.

So I googled free IT training, and I found this program called Per Scholas that is willing to train you for IT support in four months.

And in four months, I had graduated.

And I had a job in the tech industry.

I felt proud of myself.

I felt like I was able to support my family.

The workforce development program literally helped me change my life.

>> [MUSIC] >> Taiheem Wentt: Do we have brightness?

>> Yasmine Tolbert: That's fine.

>> Taiheem Wentt: Got you.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: It'll show my face.

>> Taiheem Wentt: That one actually came out.

>> Denise Flores: We can really relate to each other.

Taiheem is from a workforce development program.

And Yasmine is from a workforce development program in Chicago.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: I went to a program, and they actually paid for me to go to school.

They really helped me.

They showed me, hey, you could be a total stranger.

As long as you got a goal, we're gonna help you get there.

And that's what they did.

>> Denise Flores: I found out about a great workforce development program by looking at a metro newspaper, the free ones that they give out in the city.

It was the only program that offered financial operations, which is what I was pursuing.

I always wanted to be in the finance industry.

But it's a whole year of commitment.

So that's why I was also unsure whether or not it was worth it at the end, because I was so used to working, working, just so I can pay my bills and really look after my family.

The first six months was learning and development.

It was in a classroom setting, which teaches you the hard skills and soft skills.

And the following six months was the actual internship.

My internship was great.

I had a wonderful team.

But towards the middle, my manager did tell me that there might've been a possibility that I won't get that full-time position.

Since nothing is in writing yet and nothing is confirmed, I still have that doubt.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: Y'all, this our first interview.

>> Denise Flores: I know.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: I know I'm nervous.

It's like, I'm nervous, but I know we gonna do it.

>> Denise Flores: We're about to talk to Gerald Chertavian, the CEO and founder of Year Up, the program that I graduated from.

Year Up actually gave me that opportunity that helped jumpstart my career >> Gerald Chertavian: Hello, hello, how are you, how you doing?

>> Denise Flores: Great.

>> Taiheem Wentt: Why Year Up?

Why did you choose to name Year Up?

>> Gerald Chertavian: So, conceptually, it was a year in which students could go up.

Now, the problem is, is people think I'm in Europe.

>> Group: [LAUGH] >> Gerald Chertavian: That's one of the challenges.

I probably wasn't a branding genius.

I think the question is, why a year, right?

And I think the year to me was a symbol that this is not a one, two-week program, right?

We're working with folks who are developing their attitudes, their behaviors, their communication skills.

It's experiential, you don't just get taught it, you have to live it.

And as you live it, it becomes who you are.

And it was about helping people to gain livable wages, right, wages upon which you can take care of yourself.

And that's a lot more than minimum wage.

And I think there's so many individuals like yourself, cuz you just want opportunity, right?

You say, I don't need any handouts.

I don't need charity.

I just need an opportunity cuz I know I'm smart.

I know I'm hard working, but give me an opportunity where I can show what I can do in this country.

And I think, through programs, I think we can fix it with our own power, our own networks, our own vision as to what a good grassroots movement looks like, to help those who have been underserved to actually get access to real jobs in this country.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: Yeah.

>> Denise Flores: Tell us about how you grew up.

Or how did it all begin?

>> Gerald Chertavian: Yeah, so I grew up in in a city called Lowell, Massachusetts.

So I went to a big high school called Lowell High School, which was at the time thought to be one of the toughest high schools in Massachusetts.

And I hated every day of it, to be honest with you.

I mean, it was a tough place to go to school.

You weren't quite rewarded for doing well, right?

I don't know if you've ever been a situation where, if you even brought a book home, you were gonna get potentially made fun of.

>> Taiheem Wentt: Yeah, trust me.

>> Gerald Chertavian: [LAUGH] I didn't really know that doing good things would be a positive, until I get to college.

And I got good grades for the first time, and a boy said, can I see your report card?

In college, I was like, no, I don't wanna share my report card, cuz I figured I'd get teased.

And he looked at it, and he looked back at me and goes, man, that's great!

>> Denise Flores: [LAUGH] >> Gerald Chertavian: And it was literally like someone lifted a light shade on my whole life.

I was like, so doing well is met with positive, not a negative.

Well, I'm gonna go hang out with those people.

>> Group: [LAUGH] >> Gerald Chertavian: That's a cool place to be.

So that was, I remember, for me, being a pretty pivotal stage of my life.

And I also started big brothering in college.

So I took care of a little boy through the Big Brothers program.

And they match boys who don't have fathers with adult males who take care of them once a week.

You meet with your little brother, you hang out.

And I met a boy who was living, at that point, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

He used to call himself the Lord of the LES.

>> Group: [LAUGH] >> Gerald Chertavian: Which, at that point, where he lived was one of the most heavily photographed crime scenes in New York City.

This was 1987, crack was really ravaging neighborhoods.

What I kinda learned there is, what happens when you don't have access to money?

What happens when you don't have access to good schools?

What happens when your mom may not be able to speak English?

What happens when you still have a skin color that is discriminated against in this country?

What is life like?

And frankly, I was learning the most important lessons of my life down on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in a housing development, from a ten-year-old boy from the Dominican Republic.

That's who taught me about real life in this country.

In that kinda moment, I was in my early twenties, I was like, look, this is wrong.

All these young people are super smart.

They deserve an opportunity, and we're wasting all this great potential.

So that kind of burned in me a pretty strong desire to someday start a program that provided young adults like yourselves with good opportunities to earn meaningful, dignified careers, where you can take care of yourself and raise your families, as simple as that.

And so the venture became Year Up.

>> Taiheem Wentt: I can see how that translated directly into Year Up.

You wanted to change people's lives, and you wanted to close that opportunity gap.

And in closing, how does it feel knowing that you're actually doing that and you're sitting with products of these ideals?

How does it feel?

>> Gerald Chertavian: Two things I was gonna say, one is, and I honestly mean this, I've never, ever felt like I'm changing someone's life.

I've never felt like that.

I've felt like you change your life.

You just need an opportunity to do it.

It's like, to me, it would be arrogant or disrespectful to say, I'm gonna change you.

Imagine that, someone comes up and hey, Gerald, I'm gonna change you.

Really?

No, no, I'll decide whether I wanna change myself.

But I always say to our students, you came to us as planes with the engines and the wings intact, right?

You showed up day one with strong engines and strong wings.

But every plane needs a runway to take off, right?

And without the runway, it's really hard for a plane to get off the ground.

But we always know our role, especially at Year Up, is, we don't cause the plane to take off.

Runways don't cause planes to take off.

Planes take off cuz they have what it takes.

And each one of you has what it takes.

You just needed that path.

>> Denise Flores: He really turned it back and said, no, this is all you.

And it really made me think, yeah, you're [LAUGH] kinda right, not to pat myself on the back.

I felt very proud for myself at that moment.

>> Gerald Chertavian: To future roadtrippers, together we can close the opportunity divide in this nation.

Let's do it.

Be well, Gerald Chertavian.

>> Group: All right, awesome.

[APPLAUSE] >> Gerald Chertavian: Thanks, guys.

>> Denise Flores: Can we get a group hug?

>> Gerald Chertavian: Yeah, of course.

>> Denise Flores: Woo!

>> Yasmine Tolbert: [LAUGH] >> Taiheem Wentt: Thank you.

>> [MUSIC] >> Denise Flores: So this was our first interview.

It just set the bar up so high.

I can't wait to see what all the other interviews will be like.

There's so many more to come and so much more advice that these people can give us.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: I'm excited to see how I relate to them and how they relate to me and that feeling of, I'm not alone.

And I'm not the only person in the world that feels like this or do things like this.

We left Atlanta maybe like three hours ago.

Going all the way up to DC, that's gonna be an adventure itself.

>> Taiheem Wentt: For me, taking this road trip, being able to just completely remove myself from my normal nine-to- five that I've been doing for the past five-plus years, it's amazing.

This is so different.

I wish I could do this all the time.

Stay tuned, you'll see some cool stuff.

>> Denise Flores: This is the first time I can actually relax, kick it back, not worry about being in for my 9 AM shift the next day.

And just seeing where this RV takes me.

>> Denise Flores: The next stop is Washington, DC, then Philly.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: How can you go to Philly without getting a Philly cheesesteak?

>> Denise Flores: I'm a cheese freak, so [LAUGH].

>> Taiheem Wentt: I'm looking forward to our interview.

This was one of the five companies that I want to apply to.

I'm walking inside of one of my dreams.

>> Yasmine Tolbert: She came from a city that was 30 minutes from me.

She literally looks like me, and I loved her confidence.

That's the type of woman I wanna be.

>> Male Speaker: I was one of those opportunity youth that just need an opportunity.

I just needed a chance to change my projected outcome.

Wondering what to do with your life?

Well we've been there and we're here to help Our website has some awesome tools to help you find your path And you can check out all our documentaries, interviews and more Start exploring at roadtripnation.com