| | 
| | | Striving to employ the unemployed | | July 20, 2009 | | | | Voice Correspondent | | Chris Hart-Wright wants to get the word out. Strive DC’s executive director has invested 10 years into helping some of the city’s most vulnerable residents learn skills that will aid them in joining or rejoining the mainstream workforce, amid an employment landscape that’s changing. But she fears that as the city evolves, her new neighbors don’t know her, her organization or its mission.
“This is a new community; I would really like for them to embrace Strive,” says Hart-Wright from the organization’s headquarters just off the growing H Street NE corridor. “I really don’t think they know who we are, what we’re about and what we do,” she continues. “I would like to be a source for them for community service, for volunteerism, for philanthropy.”
Strive DC’s focus is on training some of the city’s most severely marginalized individuals to take new, sometimes unaccustomed steps toward employment. “We really deal with the soft skills,” Hart-Wright says. “The biggest problem is people don’t know how to come to work on time, they don’t know how to dress, they don’t have the right attitude. Those are the skills we teach: how to dress, how to smile, how to shake hands.”
Hart-Wright fell into her position almost by accident. A Chicago native, she completed post-graduate studies at Howard, and spent 16 years working with children and families in the D.C. Department of Human Services, eventually moving on to consulting work in Detroit. But a chance conversation brought her back to the District.
“A girlfriend called me up, and said ‘I’ve got a start-up nonprofit, and they need someone with child support experience,’” she says. “I took a pay cut, I knew nothing about nonprofits. This was a whole different world. And it has continued to be a learning experience 10 years later.”
Strive DC’s program starts by asking participants to make an investment in their futures. The three-week job readiness course has a fairly high dropout rate, but for participants who stick it out, the rewards are great. “It’s 9 to 5 for three weeks,” says Hart-Wright. “It’s really practical work with assignments, and being on time, and a strict dress code, interview attire — slacks and shirts and ties for the men, skirts and blouses, pantyhose and pumps for the ladies. After that, we work with them for two years on job placement and replacement. And we give them lifetime usage of our program.”
Strive DC works with various government and private agencies to help bring together participants, employers and potential contributors. Hart-Wright welcomes input from all quarters, frequently turning a creative eye toward fundraising and community outreach. She’s currently looking to join forces with business owners in the burgeoning H Street district; a miniature golf tournament at the H Street Country Club is in the works, and an event at Atlas Performing Arts Center is under discussion.
Above all, Hart-Wright urges individuals to get involved and to lend their professional expertise. “I’d like this to be not just something in the community, but a part of the community,” she says. “We’ve had a couple of serve-a-thons, and volunteers have come and they’ve made all the difference for us. There’s a place right in your backyard that needs you desperately, that makes a difference in the community.” | | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
| |
|
| | | |
|
