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Monday, May 12, 2008

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GROUPS THAT CHANGE COMMUNITIES

Center for Economic Options

Center for Economic Options
Pam Curry, Executive Director
Janet Lucas, Network Coordinator, Community Economic Development
Betty Streets, Director of Employment Resources
601 Delaware Ave.
Charleston, W. Va. 25302
(304) 345-1298
(304) 342-0641 fax

Whether it's teaching women non-traditional jobs like building houses or driving bulldozers or helping a single father rebuild his self-esteem as he moves back into the workforce, or even teaching a rural town's grassroots leaders how to attract GOOD industry, this model grassroots organization is in the business of jobs.

That's not insignificant in West Virginia, statistically the nation's second most rural state, the only state that lies entirely in Appalachia, and consistently second from the bottom in the nation in per capita income, employment and many other elements of poverty.

The state also has the lowest percentage of working-age women actually on the job of any state in the nation, with only 44 percent of its women between 16 and 65 in the work force last year.

"Experts blamed the state's traditionally tight rural employment base for the apparent lack of opportunities for women," Charleston Daily Mail Business Editor Philip Nussel wrote last year.

The Center for Economic Options (which recently changed its name, and broadened its mission, from "The Women & Employment Organization") has been doing something about that for more than a decade.

Formed in 1980 in a public-housing basement as a grassroots organization of women who were barred from construction jobs in the construction of the massive Charles Town Center mall in Charleston, the organization started with an EEO lawsuit against the city government, and quickly grew into an advocacy group offering information and referral and, before long, a range of job training and economic development programs. Now located in a sprawling old gray-painted brick house on the edge of downtown Charleston, the Center operates on a lean $600,000 budget with a staff of 10 full-time employees and nine part-time workers. A model of public/non-profit partnership, it also mobilizes federal job-training (JTPA) money, funding from the state Department of Health and Human Services, and foundation grants.

With branch offices in five other West Virginia cities, its primary focus is on five creative, innovative programs:

The EMPLOYMENT RESOURCES program, which has served more than 200 unemployed people in the past three years, offers pre-employment training that ranges from resume preparation and job hunting to self-esteem building ... and some basics in the use of computers. Instructor Betty Streets, trained in the Adkins Life Skills program at the Columbia University Teachers College, teaches six, eight-week classes a year and estimates that more than one-third of "graduates" have gone on to find employment. In an effective partnership, the Center accepts referrals from state agencies and uses state funds to support participants with transportation and child care, eliminating the barriers that keep many single mothers out of job training.

Janet Lucas' COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT program is seeking to change the economy of rural West Virginia by identifying and training "emerging community leaders," who receive extensive training in the "building blocks" of community economic development, then return to their communities to organize and conduct in-depth profiles of the community's history, economic situation and growth intentions, aimed at luring appropriate industries without repeating the past mistakes of rural communities that have lured polluting or exploitative industries without regard to the social costs.

The SMALL FARM BUSINESS program, now in its second year, first identified hundreds of small West Virginia farmers interested in sustainable crops, specifically in the realm of high-profit "gourmet" produce such as shiitake mushrooms and dried flowers; now in its second year, the organization is working on efforts to develop co-ops and other marketing tools to maximize the potential returns.

In the APPALACHIAN KNITWEAR program, a remarkable initiative, the Center acts as a broker for the work of about 30 individuals who knit products for the chic Esprit International's "ecollection" line of "ecologically responsible clothing." Using wool provided by West Virginia sheep farmers and working at home, the women created 900 sweaters last year and earned a total of more than $150,000.

Women in the process of coming off AFDC and back into the job market learn non-traditional trades at the Center's NON-TRADITIONAL JOBS FOR WOMEN project in Clarksburg, WV, in the state's northern mountains. While the women in the 12-week curriculum are taught math and basic engineering skills and get actual hands-on experience driving earth-moving equipment and highway maintenance technology, the staff's job developers work on finding jobs for them in the community, including negotiating with employers reluctant to hire women for men's traditional jobs and setting up "pre-apprenticeship" programs to move women into the mainstream.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.
Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.
Send him E-mail.
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