On Friday, May 13th, we held a job training and practical skills evaluation event for The Jewish Vocational Service of Metrowest New Jersey here at our Roselle headquarters. Diana Arias, a former On Time employee and current Program Coordinator/Vocational Counselor at JVS NJ East Orange, organized the field trip.
Despite it being Friday the 13th --- the event went off without a hitch :)
JVS’s mission is to help people become economically self-reliant productive citizens earning their own living in constructive careers. Their philosophy is that “the highest degree of charity is to take hold of persons who have been crushed… to find work for them and thus put them on their feet so they will not be dependent upon others.”
They help find work for:
- Unemployed family wage earners
- Physically and mentally disabled individuals
- Newly-arrived immigrants
- Aging workers
- Single parents
- Employees who’ve been laid off
- Unskilled and educationally disadvantaged people
- Young people in trouble with the law
Founded in 1939 by Newark’s Jewish Community, JVS’s first clients were unemployed immigrants and refugees who fled the Nazis in Europe.
Executive Director Joseph L. Weinberg and JVS staff meet with representatives from the NJ Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services in 1957.
Today, more than 75 years later, they employ a staff of more than 100 professionals who work with a diverse range of people who need employment, education, job training, rehabilitation, eldercare and more.
Our event involved brining in young adults with autism and putting them to work testing their real-world employment capabilities. This gives the JVS trainees an opportunity to see what sort of tasks and duties will be involved with a job. After evaluation, JVS has a better idea of their clients’ skill sets and can place them in permanent and appropriate positions.
The participants helped remove leaves and debris from the property, cleaned linens, sorted paperwork, and helped with other various tasks around the facility.
We’re proud to donate time and resources to help out a worthy cause like this --- and we look forward to working with JVS again soon.
If you’re interested in volunteering with them, check out all of the opportunities listed here on their site. You can also make a tax-exempt donation.
