S. Worcester Group Starts Job Academy
Program aims to pair city residents with local employers
The South Worcester Neighborhood Center hopes to get South Worcester-neighborhood businesses and institutions to look locally for all of their hiring needs.
The South Worcester Neighborhood Center's Employment Academy was created in January to help connect local employers with local employees, according to Ron Charette, executive director of the center.
One of the biggest local employers in the South Worcester neighborhood is The College of the Holy Cross, which has signed on to provide its neighboring residents not only with jobs, but access to the opportunities the school can provide as well, said Ellen Ryder, a spokesperson for the school.
Ron Charette, executive director of the South Worcester Neighborhood Center. Pleasing Partnerships
Charette said he hopes to enlist other big players in the South Worcester job market, including Polar Beverages and the Providence and Worcester Railroad, as well as a number of smaller businesses.
"From a business perspective, if you can have neighborhood people in neighborhood jobs, that can only be a good thing," Charette said.
The employment academy works by collecting the descriptions of various job openings at area employers. Armed with those job descriptions, the agency can tailor a specific workforce training program to interested area residents, thereby creating a "ready pool" of applicants for the local employer or institution to draw upon, Charette explained.
"The key is to have ample lead time" in obtaining available job descriptions, Charette said. "We need a minimum of five weeks so we can produce and build a ready-to-go employee."
The program is funded by a five-year $300,000 grant from the City of Worcester as part of a neighborhood revitalization strategy area program, Charette said. Currently staffed with only two people, himself and a work-study student from Holy Cross, Charette said he is working to receive further grant money to increase staffing and awareness of the program.
In addition to the workforce training benefits, Charette said a big part of the program is teaching participants financial literacy and the ins and outs of the banking system, which many local residents are wary of.
TD Banknorth and Millbury Credit Union have signed on to teach the financial literacy aspects of the program, Charette said.
Charette said he currently has 35 residents signed up for the program, and hopes to place around seven of them in custodial, food service and housekeeping jobs at Holy Cross by the end of February.
"These are good paying, stable jobs," he said. "A lot of people in this neighborhood are working at very minimum wage jobs. This is an opportunity for many to upgrade."
Workplace To Classroom
Participants in the center's programs are given access to tutoring from Holy Cross students and can use computer facilities on campus, Ryder said. The program was also a way to increase the exposure of the school to its neighbors.
Holy Cross recently unveiled a program to give free tuition to students whose families make less than $50,000 per year. Ryder said she hopes program participants will realize the opportunities a college education provides and encourage their children to apply.
Additionally, all employees of the school are eligible to take one class per semester for free, Ryder said.
"People in the neighborhood can meet face to face with our administration and HR people, and know the college is made up of people who are their neighbors, too," Ryder said. "Creating these kinds of partnerships can benefit both entities. It's a wonderful way we can do that grassroots communicating about the advantages here."
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