Wilmington City Council Donates Property for LINC’s All-Boys Boarding School

by Kathy Grear 09/29/2021

Wilmington, NC – Wilmington City Council recently heard a proposal from LINC Incorporated, asking the city to donate a fire station that’s no longer in use.

LINC is a non-profit corporation established in 1999 that helps men and women returning from prison become contributing members of the community. The organization currently run the L.I.T.E program which teaches life skills for 16-to-24-year-old Black males who’ve been involved in the court system.

The property that’s being requested is the former Wilmington Fire Department, Fire Station 3 located at 3933 Princess Place Drive. LINC wants to use the building to develop a residential boarding school for 10-12 young men between the ages of 16 and 19.

The Hisan Polk Life Changing Boarding School will focus on high school dropouts and provide affordable or no-cost housing for 14 months. The young men will be able to get their GED, along with earning a construction/technical training certificate, gaining employment, and developing life skills.

The city has seen an increase of at-risk dropouts among teenagers and young Adults over the years. Mayor Bill Saffo says the city is missing a program like this.

“It’s something that’s desperately needed. We have a lot of programming for youth and young folks, but we don’t have this programming for the ones that are really at-risk,” he said.

In a unanimous vote, council members approved the donation of the property.