BRONX —

Anitza Bermudez, 33, had been thinking about next steps since she stopped working as a house cleaner at the onset of the pandemic to help her 7-year-old son with remote school.

When she came across the HOPE Program, she knew she would learn how to enter the workforce as an electrician and also be able to make an environmental difference in the South Bronx neighborhood she grew up in.

For 10 weeks, Bermudez painted the roofs in a reflective white paint designed to help reduce buildings’ heat and energy consumption during the summer and contribute to lowering the ambient heat of a neighborhood.

Olivia Bensimon filed this report for AudioFiles.

Music Clark Adomaitis

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