achieve independence with dignity is most often directly connected to their success at gainful employment. What does it mean to you, the members of our community, when our clients get and keep jobs? It means they become productive, contributing citizens who rent apartments, buy homes, purchase goods and services in their neighborhoods, become good banking customers – thus supporting and promoting a healthier economy.
Job readiness training, job coaching, career counseling and financial assistance are just some of the comprehensive services CFC offers families and individuals through programs like Staffing Solutions, Healthy Sisters’ Soup and Bean Works and Ways to Work.
Staffing Solutions grew out of our more than 25 years of experience placing workers among some of Rochester’s best-known employers. Our employment specialists and job counselors understand the job skills employers need in their workforce. They draw from a large pool of qualified workers from both the refugee community and the economically disadvantaged population in Rochester and surrounding areas. Once a match is made, our ongoing support services ensure the worker will do a good job for the employer. I delight in sharing the successes of our clients, like this one that came to me recently from one our employment specialists: “ I wanted to pass around the wonderful news that I just received from Paula at Del Monte Lodge. She informed me this afternoon that Hawa Abdi made the associate of the month throughout the whole corporation and is doing wonderful. Hawa has been a housekeeper at Del Monte since May of 2005.”
Healthy Sisters’ Soup & Bean Works (HSSBW) is now in its 11th year and continues to grow. This unique work experience program offers a safe and nurturing learning environment for women in recovery, the majority of whom have never worked. The goal is to help them know that they can become employed and self-supporting. Since its inception, HSSBW has helped more than 240 women (including refugees through a collaboration with our own Refugee Resettlement program) and grown sales of their products to more than $100,000 in 2006. And please be sure to seek the ladies out at various festivals and fairs around the greater Rochester community – they’ll be more than happy to assist you in purchasing our gourmet soups and chili.
CFC’s Ways to Work Program grants low-interest loans to eligible parents who can’t qualify for traditional loans. These loans help families overcome obstacles that could prevent them from getting and keeping a job. Ways to Work has guaranteed 445 loans totaling about $875,802 during its seven years of operation. I had the pleasure of sharing the success story of Will Anderson at our recent Annual Meeting. Will is the single father of two teenage girls, ages 14 and 18, and he takes his responsibility to them very seriously. Consequently, he has never missed a day of work in his four years with Monroe County. Ways to Work has granted three consecutive loans to Will so that he could maintain his vehicles and ultimately buy a reliable 1996 Chevy truck. Will made every loan payment on time and paid each loan off completely. Will told us, “The people at Ways to Work were very kind to me, very professional, so I wanted to be appreciative and courteous in paying my loans back. As Rick [Burgholzer, Program Manager] told me, that money would go back into the program to help other people like it helped me.”
Your continued support makes success stories like Will’s possible. I thank you for your spirit of caring.
