Sheila and I focus on serving job seekers in the eight stakes of New York City, both church members and non-members. We also serve job seekers in all of New York state. We have one volunteer who helps us serve NYC job seekers and other volunteers that help in surrounding states: one senior missionary serves all of New England, one volunteer serves all of New Jersey.
With very few volunteers and missionaries serving job seekers, we see our role as not just helping individuals, but also empowering and teaching church leadership at the stake and ward level to be able to help the job seekers in their specific local area. We’re still figuring out some of the best ways to do that, including seeking additional volunteers and missionaries. One way is through a monthly newsletter.
We started a monthly, single page newsletter to help leaders access resources and be able to serve job seekers in their local areas. We also help by running workshops on resume-building, interviewing, networking, resources, etc., on demand. We hope that by empowering leaders with knowledge of the great resources that the church offers the unemployed and the underemployed, that they’ll be able to help some of their local job seekers. Here’s an example of our newsletter that we send once per month. Let us know if you have any suggestions for other ways to help local leaders or for content for the monthly newsletter.
By the way, we feel “leverage” every day–we’re constantly impressed, touched, and inspired by the Lord’s hand in helping people with employment. So many “divine coincidences.” He magnifies our efforts constantly.