Maya McFadden Photos
Donna Thompson at Wednesday’s event.
Donna Thompson — along with several dozen fellow New Haveners currently working part-time, short-term jobs — showed up at Career High School with a goal in mind: To find a new career.
Thompson joined fellow city residents on the job hunt Wednesday evening for an event hosted by New Haven Works, a workforce pipeline organization that connects city residents with local employers.
New Haveners at Wednesday’s New Haven Works event.
NHW Executive Director Melissa Mason described the event at the Legion Avenue high school as the first in a series designed to promote “economic recovery from the Covid pandemic.”
The agency currently partners with over 50 employers, and Wednesday’s event saw representatives from Yale University, Yale New Haven Health, Southern Connecticut State University, and Winstanley Enterprises present on different work opportunities now open to New Haveners.
Thompson is one such local looking for stable, full-time, meaningful work.
That’s not to say she’s presently out of a job. In fact, she’s currently working two jobs: one during the week at a nearby warehouse, another on the weekends as a dietary aide. She showed up Wednesday with the hope of applying for and landing a job at YNHH.
“Searching for jobs is frustrating to do alone,” she said on Wednesday.
Thompson is a military veteran and said she has worked jobs at the state and federal level in the past.
“I need someone who can help me sell my skills in a way that gets jobs’ attention.”
During the first year-plus of the pandemic, Thompson said, she wasn’t able to look for a new career because her access to technology was limited and the public library, where she spent much of her time researching, was closed.
“This gave me hope that there’s still opportunity here for us,” she said about Wednesday’s event.
Fallon Thomas, Alexandra DiPippo, Carter Winstanley, and Peter Dimoulas.
Employer representatives gave short presentations to attendees about each partner’s efforts to hire locally. Presentations were given by Yale’s New Haven Hiring Initiative director Chris Brown and community liaison Fallon Thomas, YNHH’s Director of Talent Acquisition Dori Manner and Talent Acquisition Partner Alexandra DiPippo, SCSU’s BioPath Program Manager Peter Dimoulas and Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs Trudy Milburn, and Winstanley Enterprises Principal Carter Winstanley.
Former NHW member Melissa Chambers shared her story at the meeting.
Chambers joined NHW in 2019 and now works as a clinical receptionist at Yale Health.
Chambers, who is a Hill native, was introduced to NHW through the local labor advocacy group New Haven Rising. Before becoming a member of NHW, Chambers said her job had inconsistent scheduling and was only part-time.
“I wanted better. I wanted more for myself,” Chambers recalled. “I wanted to work at Yale University. Why not? It’s right there in my back yard.”
Melissa Chambers.
Chambers said she often heard great things about being employed at Yale and so applied to jobs at the university.
At first, her applications got no attention, she said. When she became a member of NHW she was assigned a job coach who helped her to fine-tune her resume and highlight her skills. Soon after, she got a job at Yale Health’s internal medicine office.
Chambers said the new job has helped stabilize her income and schedule so she could pursue her aspirations to be a homeowner and become an example to her daughter.
“Yale University is what I wanted and Yale University is what I got because of New Haven Works,” Chambers said.
Naiani Barrett talks with YNHH Alexandra DiPippo about future job.
Sisters Dionne Brown and Naiani Barrett attended the community meetings to help Barrett learn more about getting a job at Yale. Brown has been working at Yale for 12 years. Barrett is currently a medical assistant student at Stone Academy.
“These are job we should all have access for families in New Haven to be better. It will trickle down from the parents to the youth,” Brown said.
Watch the Winstanley Enterprises presentation below.
New Haven Works Community Meeting
Posted by New Haven Independent on Wednesday, July 28, 2021
Will those Jobs Pay the rent?
People Working A Minimum Wage Job Can't Afford Rent Anywhere In The U.S.
Over 40% of Black and Latinx households pay more than 30% of their income on rent, compared with 25% of white households.
"'One full-time job should be enough,' the report says."
A full-time, minimum-wage worker can't afford even a modest one-bedroom apartment in 93% of U.S. counties, according to a new report.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/people-working-minimum-wage-job-cant-afford-rent-anywhere-us