Who We Are

Stepping into a new profession is one of the most courageous things a person can do. And in healthcare, that first step carries real weight — new environments, new language, new expectations, and the pressure to perform before you’ve had the chance to find your footing.

Most workforce programs prepare people to get hired. We built American Hope Center to solve what happens next. We are a nonprofit workforce development organization serving new healthcare professionals in the greater Philadelphia and South Jersey region.

Our work begins where traditional training ends — at the moment a person walks into their first professional role — and continues through the critical early period when support matters most. We believe that confidence, community, and the right guidance at the right time are what help people reach further than they thought possible.

Our Mission

To transform lives by equipping individuals with the confidence, skills, and support systems they need to achieve meaningful employment and personal growth.

Our Vision

A region where every professional — regardless of where they started — has a genuine opportunity to build a stable, meaningful, and lasting career.

Our Approach

We designed our programs around a single commitment: supporting new healthcare professionals through their entire first year. That first year is unlike any other — it’s where confidence is built, where people find their voice, and where a job becomes a career.

We do this through three interconnected pillars:

Peer Navigation: Every new professional is matched with a Peer Navigator — someone who has walked the same path, navigated the same challenges, and come out the other side. They bring both professional knowledge and lived experience, making them uniquely equipped to provide encouragement, accountability, and practical guidance throughout that critical first year.

Power Skills Development: Technical certification gets you in the door. Power Skills — communication, professionalism, adaptability, emotional intelligence — are what help you grow once you’re inside. Our workshops and coaching sessions are built around the real situations new healthcare professionals encounter every day.

Wraparound Supportive Services: Employment barriers don’t disappear when someone starts a new job. Transportation, childcare, financial stress, and other challenges follow people into the workplace. We connect the people we serve to resources that address the whole person — because sustainable careers are built on stable foundations.

What makes this model work is how these pillars function together. New professionals don’t just receive services — they become part of a community where growth is expected and support is always within reach.

Our Team

The American Hope Center is guided by a Board of workforce development professionals whose experience spans healthcare education, employment services, and community-based innovation. Their collective knowledge ensures that our programs stay responsive to the real needs of both the people we serve and the employers who hire them.

Leading the Board as President is Lorenzo McFadden, co-founder of both American Training Center and The Thrive Network, a South Jersey organization that has served thousands of children, families, and local schools through community-based mental health services. Lorenzo’s dual background in workforce development and mental health brings a rare and valuable perspective to American Hope Center — one that reflects our core belief that sustainable careers are built on stable, supported lives.

At the helm is Executive Director Kimberly Rommen, who built American Training Center from the ground up into one of the region’s most trusted healthcare training organizations — graduating more than 1,500 Nurse Aides and Medical Assistants into meaningful healthcare careers across the greater Philadelphia and South Jersey region.

American Training Center was designed from the start to serve people that traditional programs were leaving behind — working adults from under-resourced communities who needed a high-quality, accelerated path into a meaningful career. Under Kim’s leadership, ATC secured major New Jersey Department of Labor workforce grants and launched the first US Department of Labor Registered Apprenticeship Program for Medical Assistants in South Jersey — built on the conviction that new workers deserve structured support, not just a credential.

American Hope Center is the next chapter of that same conviction: that the people who show up every day to care for others deserve an organization that shows up for them in return.