STARS Program
The homeless people who come through St.Vincent DePaul community kitchen come through the refuge come to the feeding ministries at peace memorial a number of them are able-bodied people and they would love to find full-time employment. They would love to get out of the situation that they’re in and we want to help them do that so we work very hard to identify who those people are and refer them to the Stars program.
The Stars program is a four week long workforce development training and workplace simulator what it does is it teaches clients the basics that they need to get back into the workplace.
During that time they get exposure to all different sorts of things different career fields. Anything from manufacturing to drones to road construction. What it does is it teaches clients the basics that they need to get back into the workplace.
We try to not only get them job ready but to make them understand that the circumstances that they found themselves in are a result, a direct result of choices they’ve made. So we want to try to help them not only become job ready in the terms of job skills but also attitudinal choices and the decisions they make and how they can affect the total outcome.
We collaborate heavily with other community partners to help provide some of those educational sessions and we help them with job placement.
Stars you know gave me a lot they really did you know I can do resumes and stuff now something I’ve never done I’ve worked a little bit on a computer a little bit I have to clock out and everything on a computer so that made me feel good and now I’m changing tapes with computers and all that it’s the job I am in. I think I’m very successful right now as of now and I’m keep moving on.
It’s been an absolutely great experience. It changes your perspective and the way you thinking and approach things. It made me think well I’ll being established and settled and going forth into being a productive citizen more than the threat to society.
They got me placed here within a week of me being in the program like the first week and I’ve been sober for over 112 days today. Sometimes I have to pinch myself make sure I’m not dreaming because things doors are opening up for me. For instance I put my faith in the Lord and trusted that I can get through any obstacle that is thrown at me and my confidence is through the roof now my self-esteem is back like I’m a whole new me like the me God put me on this earth to be.
We’ve helped a lot of people we say that nobody else will help and and that’s what were there for. We help folks who are overlooked by other people.
Ultimately our goal is for them to find stable employment and permanent housing with the help of the Going Home Coalition with the Community Service Foundation we have several of them already living at tieman village. Each of them has their own story each of them has taken their own journey but one thing that’s consistent and I’ve been there to see it is the joy and the pride they have when they get the key to their new home. It’s amazing and I will say that I think that as a coalition we never could have anticipated the success that we are achieving but working together as a community all of our organizations together we’re changing lives we really are changing lives.