PROVIDENCE — The city on Friday won a $372,500 grant from the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Wal-Mart Foundation to create a “green jobs” training program.

Mayor David N. Cicilline said that the city will use the grant to underwrite entry- and mid-level “bridge training programs” that will get adults with less than high school-level literacy prepared to enter green industries.

Providence was one of six cities selected by the conference of mayors, including Chicago, Long Beach, Calif., Milwaukee, San Francisco and St. Louis. Friday was the first day of the annual gathering of mayors, being held this year at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

“It is an enormous honor to be recognized for our commitment to building the green economy and creating 21st-century jobs for our residents,” said Cicilline. “This grant helps us build a pipeline to get residents into good, green jobs faster.”

The city will partner with the Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living, a statewide environmental group, and the Cranston Workforce Investment Board for the program, which will begin in the fall at the Community College of Rhode Island.

The announcement came on the same day that Cicilline served on a panel on training a “green collar” work force, along with mayors from Philadelphia, Long Beach, Stamford, Conn., and Milwaukee.

Mayors said at a session that they plan to increase recycling, train young people for unskilled green jobs and improve their transportation and energy conservation programs.

The Obama administration has pledged to spend $500 million on programs to train workers for green jobs around the country and the majors at Friday’s conference showed they have plenty of programs already under way that can make use of the money.

Time and again, they said, many people think green jobs are only for the highly educated, but in fact many can be performed by young people, and even those released from prisons, after just a few weeks of training.

“We’re working to change that perception,” said Cicilline, who has developed a city plan for promoting energy efficiency and encouraging alternative energy industries called Greenprint Providence.

Long Beach, Calif., Mayor Bob Foster said training programs need to start with the basics, such as showing up for work on time and wearing the proper clothes. “Those issues are foreign to some young people, you have to train them,” he said.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said mayors have to realize the world has changed and the manufacturing jobs are gone. When the Pabst brewery left his city, it left behind a neighborhood so dangerous even the bad guys didn’t want to go there, he said.

Now, the city is restoring the brewery buildings one at a time, using green techniques, and rebuilding the neighborhood.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter emphasized his goal of creating a green and safe city. Nearly a quarter of the city’s budget goes to managing crime, he said.

His goal is to recycle more, double the number of green jobs, plant 300,000 trees and reform the criminal-justice system.

pmarcell@projo.com