About Us

The story of Build A Pro Foundation is not one of corporate strategy, but of divine timing and personal transformation. It began in 2019 at the rock bottom of Ash Jarvis’s own sobriety journey. That foundational experience of recovery and the realization that God has bigger plans for us than we can achieve alone became the spark for everything that followed.

By 2020, as Amanda and Ash began their life together, two distinct problems in Salina began to surface as one calling. Ash, working in real estate, saw an expanding shortage of trained tradespeople delaying local projects. Meanwhile, Amanda, serving as an AmeriCorps fellow at the City of Salina, was working to bring more housing to the area. They realized that you cannot build a community if you do not have the hands to maintain it, and you cannot grow talent if you do not have a bridge between un-tapped potential and practical experience.

The “God Winks” and the Intermediary Model

In 2021 and 2022, as Ash began sponsoring individuals in recovery, he saw a heartbreaking cycle. Using their existing skills, men would return to the same jobs, the same personalities, and the same old coping strategies, leading straight back to relapse. We knew there had to be a way to help people in all walks of life transition into lines of work that honored their God-given talents.

We spent a year meeting with every non-profit in town that we could, experiencing what we call “God winks,” which were divine appointments where the exact partner we needed would suddenly appear. One such moment happened at a Salina Rescue Mission fundraiser, where a chance meeting with a childhood friend’s father, Tom Peebles, secured our non-profit status and set the mission in motion. On May 10, 2023, Build A Pro was officially established as a 501(c)3.

Why We Build

We believe that Jesus has always been cheering for the underdog and the “comeback kid,” and so do we. We saw that employers struggled to onboard new hires, and individuals struggled to stay on a new path without a coach in their corner. Build A Pro was created to sit in the middle of it all, helping the individual access housing, education, and employment, while helping the employer manage the planning and “red tape” of training.

We believe that the work of our hands is one of the primary ways God works through us. Our goal is to help every apprentice believe they are worth investing in. In our story, failing is not the end; it is the beginning of a new chapter where we are defined by the content of our character and the consistency of our choices moving forward. We are not just building careers; we are helping our neighbors reach for their highest potential.