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Business Services Employee Spotlight: Lois Yost

Welcome back!  My goal is to educate and excite you about all that Goodwill does for our community and what it can possibly do for you and/or your business!  If this is the first blog you have read in this series, please feel free to see how it all got started from my first entry here.

smile
SMILING ON THE JOB!

This week’s Business Services Employee Spotlight is focused on Lois Yost!  Lois is a custodian at one of our GSA job sites.  She works at the Federal Courthouse in Martinsburg, WV.  This is a big property and it needs to be spotless to meet the customer’s needs and expectations.  Lois ensures that her efforts are impactful and keep the customer happy.  They love having our crew on the job and they know that we will take care of business for them so that they have a product they can be proud of as well!

Insurance and benefits are near the top of the list of what job applicants are looking for.  When Lois started with us back in January of 2012, this was one of the most appealing aspects of the job.  As an employee on this Federal contract, Lois is very happy with the fringe benefits that are extended to her.  Without insurance, it can feel like everything in your world is on thin ice.  One accident without these benefits can be financially devastating.  The peace of mind that having a fully comprehensive benefits package can offer lets you take that off the list of worries and allows you to focus on the things that matter most.

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HARD AT WORK!

We are lucky to have Lois on our team!  We were fortunate to have made the connection and as Lois stated, “everything works out for a reason”.  Her supervisor appreciates her dedication and said, “I’m very thankful for her to be on my team and her job performance is great”.  The symbiotic relationship that occurs when both the organization and the employee see the mutual benefit is part of what makes a job feel less like “work” and more like being a part of something bigger.

Thanks for reading!  Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments regarding the blog or what our Business Services division can do for you!  bmarks@goodwill-hgi.org

 

What Does Opportunity Look Like?

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

This is Brian Lee. He is a 41-year-old, single father of Morgan, his 3-year-old little girl.

Initially, Brian came to Horizon Goodwill as a Community Service Worker seeking to complete hours necessary to maintain his temporary cash assistance from the Department of Social Services. His story is one of finding opportunity in the middle of difficulty – of asking for help in removing the barriers you face and making the most of what happens next.

Hi, my name is Brian. I am a 41-year-old, single father with a 3-year-old little girl. I came to Horizon Goodwill in Spring of 2017 to complete mandatory community service hours in order to keep our food stamps. At the time, I was homeless – we were homeless. Think about if you didn’t have a bed for you little girl to sleep in at night? A safe, warm place for her to play? I wasn’t providing for her, and it made me feel angry and useless. There seemed to be so many things in my way. I didn’t know what to do.

After I received food stamps and assistance at Washington County Department of Social Services, they referred me to Horizon Goodwill to complete my 60 hours of mandatory service. There I met a whole team of Horizon Goodwill staff. When I completed my hours, I enrolled in Horizon Goodwill’s Get Onboard! 10-day job readiness program. That’s where I met Tammy, our job readiness instructor. I learned about conflict management on the job, dusted off my basic math and literacy with GED prep classes, completed my resume, and got my first interview outfit for free. Really, though, what Tammy taught me – it’s hard to explain, but she made me feel like I could do this. I could take care of my daughter the right way. The Goodwill team got us into a shelter, and by then I graduated into the paid work training program.

Over the last 7 months, Goodwill has done so much for me. Every time I think of Tammy, I am so grateful – but not just me, for my little girl. I got my forklift certification, I have a job, and now I have my own place for me and my daughter. It’s so great. For anyone who wants to do anything with their life and move on and up, this is the place for you. If you want a better life, come to Goodwill. It will be the best decision you ever made.

To learn more, check us out on Facebook, Twitter and our website, www.horizongoodwill.org. You can also email me at cfleming@goodwill-hgi.org.

Goodwill Gets Grant Helping Adults Go Back to School

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Get Onboard! graduates before talking with Community Foundation grant team about a grant like this helps them achieve their personal and professional.

BACK TO SCHOOL: Horizon Goodwill has received a $1,120.00 grant from The Community Foundation of Washington County.  This is so exciting – and what great timing: Back to School!  As you know, we launched our Get Onboard! job readiness program in February of 2017, and since then have enrolled nearly 250 job seekers across Western Maryland and graduated over 75 Washington County residents with some participants finding employment during or right after completion.  During this time, both Allegany College of Maryland and Hagerstown Community College (HCC) have provided instruction during Get Onboard! to help participants identify when continuing education or GED classes could be beneficial.

The grant from Community Foundation will allow us to provide GED tutoring and classes for individuals with developmental disabilities and barriers to employment.  Our Goodwill Workforce Development Team will use the money to really kick start our expanding continuing education initiative, with our first cohort drawing from students currently enrolled in Get Onboard!  Goodwill will provide comprehensive tutoring for 10 Get Onboard! participants seeking to get their GED.  In partnership with the Western Maryland Consortium and the Beacon House, the cohort will prepare to take and pass their GED exams.  The grant amount was matched at 50% by the Community Foundation for operating expenses which will be dedicated to providing backpacks, folders, and study materials needed.

For many, it can be scary making the commitment to “go back to school”.   But now, job seekers can work on their resume and work to get their GED in the same place.  Education partners, like Beacon House and HCC, have instructors teaching at Goodwill’s Job Readiness Center on Prospect Street downtown.

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By choosing to continue their education, Washington County residents increase their marketability for employment and can realize greater opportunities for advancement if already employed.  Goodwill shares Beacon House’s belief that “all adult learners wishing to enter the workforce can be successful with some foundational courses that will prepare them for continuing education in a formal setting and make them more competitive for the workforce.” 

Thank you to the Community Foundation of Washington County for helping us advance Goodwill’s mission of removing barriers and creating opportunities.  And, a very, very special thank you to the William Justice Family Fund, the benefactor, for ensuring Washington County residents with disabilities and barriers to competitive work have access to continuing education and job training.

 

 

Breaking Barriers for Girls in Engineering

Girlz on the bus
Girlz in Engineering heading back to the lab to work on projects for our Goodwill eCommerce team

As you know, here at Horizon Goodwill, we are on a mission to remove barriers and create opportunities.  Recently, our team had the opportunity to break barriers along with a group of young girls who stepped up to take the lead in a Girls Engineering camp.  Our Goodwill and SourceAmerica joined forces to show girls just how much fun it is to work in the Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) industries.

According to National Girls Collaborative Project, women make up half of the total U.S. college-educated workforce, but only 29% of the science and engineering workforce.

Twelve high schools within Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) offer a national pre-engineering program of study called Project Lead the Way (PLTW).  The young women were immersed in some hands on learning. Twenty girls entering ninth and tenth-grade this year from the twelve PLTW schools took part in an action-packed five-day camp, held this year at Rockville High School. These engineering students from Montgomery County Maryland had the task of helping Horizon Goodwill improve our efficiency and job accessibility for our E-Commerce division in Hagerstown, MD.  First they studied our Goodwill’s e-commerce practices and our online marketplace platform shopgoodwill.com®.  Then, in an additional eight hours over the next two days, teams of 2-3 girls designed their projects and prepared presentations with functional prototypes.

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From concept to computer design to physical prototype in 4 days! These girls are amazing.

Personally, I was so excited to work with these girls — I wish I had been introduced to engineering when I was young.  Engineering drives your business’s bottom-line and re-engineering drives innovation, efficiency, and production.  Most importantly, engineering is all about changing perspective – looking at something differently – well, it can absolutely redefine what capability looks like.  Together with the public school systems and some innovative women, we are removing the barriers of disparity for girls that only boys can be successful in an engineering workforce.

Our dynamic E-Commerce Manager Rose Carroll summarized the experience: “The suggested projects for the girls ranged from creating an upgraded photography station with changeable backdrops, to a lego/playmobil sorting/cleaning station to a jewelry sorting station. I was very impressed with the level of design executed within 8 hours of shop time. Many of the girls had accomplished nearly functional prototype models of their creations and their presentations expanded upon the details and functionality to be added by further shop time and the materials that would be used in the full-size version.”

Carroll adds, “My biggest joy in this experience was seeing the excitement the girls had for their designs and the pride they took in being able to help us make improvements to a living work environment instead of just a classroom exercise.  Having completed my first design challenge I feel better prepared and look forward to future camps, [specifically working with Kim and Jennifer] about the Energy theme for next year. ”

Kim Starks and Jennifer Forrest led the Girlz in Engineering Camp and are both teachers in the Montgomery County Public School system with extensive experience in both engineering and tech industries.  “Girls need to have the encouragement to take an interest in STEM careers, especially engineering because there are so few women in these fields.  As a female in civil engineering, I was a minority, but I stuck with it, having support from my parents and the Society of Women Engineers. The number of women in technology fields is still small. I don’t think girls need to try to “prove” anything–they just need to build confidence and have support. There are competent girls who may not have had exposure or support to consider a traditionally “male dominated” field. Plus, I want them to see that engineering is so broad; it can open doors to many other areas as well, including education, law, business, medicine, and so on,” says Jennifer Forrest, Technology Education Teacher at Rockville High School.

To quote the article written by Goodwill Industries International: “The camp comes at an important turning point in workforce development. According to the National Girls Collaborative Project, women make up half of the total U.S. college-educated workforce, but only 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce. By hosting a STEM focused camp for girls, the Hagerstown Goodwill joins the ranks of Girl Scouts, who recently introduced 23 new badges focused on coding, robotics, and more.”

Goodwill really is so much more than our stores – we are playing our part to help break down those boundaries and encourage more girls to take up STEM careers.  Girlz Engineering Camp gave girls a real world STEM learning experience and connected technical problem solving to social impact work for future leaders.

Business Services Employee Spotlight- James Taylor!

Welcome back!  My goal is to educate and excite you about all that Goodwill does for our community and what it can possibly do for you and/or your business!  If this is the first blog you have read in this series, please feel free to see how it all got started from my first entry here.

Employee Spotlight

This week’s Business Services Employee Spotlight is focused on James Taylor.  Back in 2012, James found himself in a situation where he needed a hand up.  Just like so many in our communities, drugs had found their way into James’ life and had him on downward course.  Fortunately, he had the courage to do something about it.  James took up residency at the Wells House in Hagerstown, MD to engage their program to regain control of his life.  With the help and support of the staff there, he was successful in beating his addiction and was ready for the next step in his renewed life.

James
James hard at work!

Reentering the work force from a situation like his is not an easy path.  Luckily, James had a girlfriend who was an employee at Horizon Goodwill.  She told him about our programs and how we could help him to get his life back on track and headed towards gainful employment.  James took her advice, entered our program, and he soon started earning a paycheck!

He joined our team as a production worker processing donations.  Before long, he advanced onto a commercial contract tied to our partnership with HBP.  By 2013, James was awarded a supervisory role on our Custodial team at Greenbrier State Park.  When this seasonal assignment ended, James was offered the Supervisor position on our Hagerstown State Contracts Van Crew.  In this capacity he has responsibility for ensuring that the Maryland State sites on this route present a high level of cleanliness.  He does a great job!  Both our internal leadership and the end customers love his work.

The gratitude goes both ways and James is grateful for what Horizon Goodwill has done to improve the quality of his life.  “Working for Goodwill has enabled me to have a productive life, take care of my family, and to grow”.  Stories like his are motivating, inspiring, and the reason we at Horizon Goodwill do what we do.

Thanks for reading!  Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments regarding the blog or what our Business Services division can do for you!  bmarks@goodwill-hgi.org

I’m Glad You Asked! – “Achievement”

Zackary (center) celebrating his achievement with Goodwill staff, Andy Brehm (left) and Allegany College of Maryland Instructor, Glenn Burns (right).

What is “achievement”? I’m glad you asked!  Achievement is defined as “a thing done successfully, typically by effort, courage or skill”.  I love, love, love this definition!

I was reminded of it this afternoon, when I got an email from a Horizon Goodwill vocational case manager, Misty Cubbage, celebrating the achievement of one of her clients, Zackary Taylor (center):  “I would like to congratulate Zackary Taylor on obtaining his Maryland High School diploma! Zackary recently completed the Adult Education Program through Allegany College of Maryland (ACM).  His classes were here at our Goodwill’s Career Readiness Campus in Cumberland where he was enrolled in the job training program through Goodwill!  He is our first graduate from our partnership with ACM.  We are very excited to watch him walk across the stage on June 14 at the graduation ceremony!”

Last summer, ACM started offering GED and Adult Basic Education classes at our Goodwill Career Readiness Campus in Cumberland, MD.  The ACM Team wanted their classes to reach more people and we wanted we wanted more of our clients to continue their education.  Since September 2016, thirteen (13) people have enrolled in classes, and almost half of those students also enrolled with Goodwill in our paid work training program.  Now, individuals who want to get their GED/diploma and need to find a job or earn a paycheck, can come to one place and do both – go to class in the morning, then walk across the campus and go to work after lunch.

To achieve anything, you must put forth the effort, enlist your courage, dust off your thinking cap and keep at it.  That’s what Zackary did; what he is continuing to do.  “I do not want my little girl to grow up thinking it is okay to do things the way I did them. I didn’t do this just for me. I did this for my family and friends who believed in me. I wanted to prove them right.”

Congratulations again Zackary!  Goodwill is honored to be a part of your journey.

For more information, feel free to contact me at cfleming@goodwill-hgi.org.  And, as always, please check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

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