From the first prayers and thoughts about
what God wanted us to do through Living Bridges Ministry; we were quite sure
that it was about revitalizing a neighborhood in South Valdosta! We began with
our Kids’ Connection program and several other programs and fellowship opportunities
throughout the year! Those programs are
wonderful and we will continue to offer them, but to really revitalize a
neighborhood and bring about the kind of change we believe God desires to see
in this area, we are going to need to get people placed in jobs where they can
earn a reliable income. Thatwill enable
them to live self-sufficient lives.
For several months now, we have been researching,
talking to people who teach this program, and reading about it! We even went to Florida to see it in action! After a lot of prayer, we are so excited to share
about the Transformations program! Transformations is a 3 phase program
designed to show people the way out of poverty and into self-sufficient living.
The program provides the opportunity for
12 “investigators” to go through the program each time; although our inaugural
class will start with just 6 participants.
The program will meet on Tuesday evenings for between 8 and 10 months.
Late in Phase 1, the class will vote on whether or not to meet 2x a week during
Phase 2. If they decide to do that then
it is an 8 month program instead of the 10 months.
During Phase 1 Getting Ahead in a Just Getting By World, investigators look into
how they got into poverty! A common
misconception is that people in poverty got there by poor decision making. While that does contribute to the number of
people in poverty, there are several other ways to become impoverished
including job loss, divorce, disability, and the list goes on. While looking at the root reason our
participants are in poverty, we are going to discuss changes that would make
their lives better and their neighborhood a better place to live and how they
can contribute to those changes. Some things we will be looking at will be
transportation (Valdosta has no public transportation), crime prevention, and
affordable housing among other things. This phase lasts 16 weeks and gets us
ready for Phase 2.
We have intentionally timed it so that Phase
2 Jobs For Life which contains the
information and homework needed for creating a resume, filling out job
applications, and working on interviewing skills practice will fall during the
holiday hiring season for 2015. Between
those seasonal jobs and the jobs available every day here in town we expect to
be able to place all 6 of our candidates (if they are serious about wanting to
work and change their lives!) We will also be helping to connect participants
to educational resources like junior college, university, GED prep, trade
schools, etc. This education will offer
our student investigators information about the pathway to better jobs and
sustainable careers. For those who desire to begin their own business, we will
be connecting them with a small business incubator type program so they have
the best chance at success in their business.
Money management is the focus of our third
phase! Specific education about
predatory lenders (title loans and payday loans) will be given. Savings, retirement, and budgeting, credit
scores, and more will be covered. They
will also learn about how to calculate the total expense of things like Rent To
Own furniture, interest on credit cards, short term loans etc. This phase will meet for 8 weeks!
Throughout the entire 3 phases our
investigators will be incentivized which means they will be earning
rewards. Every night the class meets, we
will be sharing dinner with our participants.
This gives us a fellowship time to get to know them better while
providing them a good meal. Also those
who need them will be given a bag of food to take home with them each week
throughout the entire program. Investigators
will also be earning points to use on $5 restaurant gift cards for showing up
on time, participating in discussion, and completing their work. This incentive begins during the 6th
week of class. They should be able to earn one card each week for the remaining
10 weeks of phase 1. During phases 2 and 3 where more homework is expected, the
incentive changes to cash. At that point, investigators will be docked “pay”
for being late, not showing up, and not completing their work— this will be
more like the real work world! The amount of cash per week will be lower
dollars per hour than minimum wage because we want them to see getting a job of
any kind as a step up in their financial world.
Incentive money is geared toward helping with childcare or gas expenses
while investigators are in class not to providing income to live on.
The best part of Transformations is that 2
of the people who complete the program will be invited back to facilitate the
next class. This will be a paid
part-time position that 2 of the class graduates could use to supplement the
income from their other jobs. We will
also be standing up an alumni program where graduates can come regularly to
share their experiences with their education, jobs, etc with each other.
As with all of our programs, there are ways
people can get involved with Transformations!
Those who have been with us on any part of our journey, know we always
ask for prayer first! Please pray for
us, our guest speakers, and for the potential candidates for this class who
will be interviewed and receive orientation on Tuesday, April 14th. Our
first night of class meets on Tuesday, April 21st. Next we need
guest speakers and mentors for our investigators. We need speakers who can cover topics like:
Goal setting
What to wear for an interview
Where to look for jobs in Valdosta
Overcoming obstacles (no
transportation, child care, etc)
Character is more important than job
skill (be on time, be honest, give 100% to the task at hand)
Resume building
Why education is important
Why saving is important
Basic budgeting
How to react to financial crisis
Those are
just a few of the topics we are looking for in the coming weeks. A full list of
topics and the dates those speakers will be needed will be on our website (www.livingbridgesministry.org)
by the end of this week. Mentors will come into class several times during the program
and will participate in things like interview role play, coaching on resume
building, etc. If you or someone you know can speak on any of these topics or
if you would like more information on becoming a mentor, please email us at info@livingbridgesministry.org.
Donations:
We need donations of things like $5 restaurant gift cards, food
donations for our food bags (please donate in quantities of 6 so we can send 6
similar bags home with our investigators.)
We need several restaurants to donate dinners for 8-10 people each
Tuesday night for the entire program. Paper
goods like plates, napkins, and plastic ware for our dinners will also be
needed. Lastly, we will also need
monetary donations to help cover the cost of incentivizing our investigators as
well as to purchase books, pay the part-time teachers and room rent for the
next class!
We are so excited about this program and about the potential for the
change it could bring to South Valdosta!
Until next time,
Darcy
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