THE BEAUTIFUL IMPACT OF WORK
Labor Day pays tribute to the achievements of the worker. Today, we are featuring social impact organizations that are focused on helping unemployed and disadvantaged people to enter and thrive in the workforce.
Many veterans trade the horrors of war for the nightmares of not being able to find meaningful work once they return home. Veterans Farm, the Farmers Veterans Coalition, The Mission Continues, and Work for Vessels, are coalition partners focused on putting veterans back to work and helping our ailing farming industry at the same time. Together, they help disabled combat veterans reintegrate back into society through the use of horticulture therapy, agricultural training, mentorship, and job placement within the farming industry. In addition to vocational support, these organizations help veterans to become more comfortable socializing in a world that, while once served as home, but now seems alien to them after living in warzones.
Photo: Courtesy of Veterans to Farmers
Veteran, Evan Premer, was in the real estate business before he went to war. Now, he owns Aero Farm Co., an impressive aeroponic farm, thanks to an intensive eight-month program that trained former soldiers in the methods and business of controlled-environment agriculture (CEA), the broad term for technology that creates a growing environment.
Photo: Courtesy of Veterans Farm
Veterans Farm sells some of the products created by veteran farmers, such as a line of Veterans Farm hot sauces and other condiments.
Work Vessels for Veterans helps veterans to reenter the civilian world of work, by providing start-up funding, farmland, agricultural opportunities, tools, equipment, vehicles, and electronics. The recipients agree to pay it forward by hiring fellow vets to staff their growing businesses.
Photo: Courtesy of Dress For Success
Dress for Success was one of the first organizations to help disadvantage women to develop economic independence by providing work appropriate clothing that women can wear to job interviews. The Dress for Success Professional Women's Group (PWG) program also offers a network of support and the career development tools to help transition women into the workplaces and sustain them in early days at their new jobs.
Recently, Dress for Success announced a new commitment at the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative conference. Their new EmPowerHER pilot program, set to launch in March 2014, will address the reintegration and reemployment needs of formerly incarcerated women.
Since 1997, Dress for Success has served more than 700,000 women around the world.
Career Gear offers similar wardrobe, career training, and counseling options for men.
Photo: Courtesy of Declutter You
Shoes matter. For most people reading this post, it’s a matter of style. But for many people in the world, it’s a matter of sustainability. Shoes can make the difference between someone’s ability to work or not. And so, several organizations, like Tom’s, one of the earliest and most popular, have developed shoe distribution programs to address this dire need.
Soles4Souls takes shoes down a different path. They’ve developed economies around donated shoes, by helping micro-enterprises, set up by members of impoverished communities, to serve as a middle channel distributors to people in need. The micro-enterprises purchase the shoes from the donation depots, for a nominal fee, then sells the shoes, for small, affordable price. The distribution service provides value, and there is built-in profit along the way. Shoes put people to work, and the work sustains them, for the first time in many generations.
Big Boi collected footwear donations on his 2013 summer tour.
As we savour the last moments of our summer vacations, as sorry as we are to end them, we know work can be a beautiful thing. We are featuring Beautiful Work all this week, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact.
Get busy and enter the BN Competitions, Our theme this week is Work. Send in your images and ideas, casting work in a beautiful light.
Enter the BN Competition. This week’s theme is Beautiful Rest (Deadline: 9/01/13).
Post contributor: Vera Mariner