With over 400 graduated participants since 2010, Dallas Area Interfaith-established Skill Quest is making a name for itself through effective long-term job training. Says columnist Mercedes Olivera, Skill Quest is "doing its share to help reduce Dallas' poverty rate, one of the highest in the country."

Skill QUEST Curbs Dallas Poverty by Helping Workers Move Into New Careers, Dallas Morning News

Leaders celebrated word that the labor market intermediary established by The Metropolitan Organization of Houston, Capital IDEA-Houston, won a Texas Innovative Adult Career Education (ACE) grant, giving it half a million dollars to train hundreds more community college students for living wage careers in Houston. TMO, with their sister organizations in the Texas IAF, helped establish the Texas Innovative Adult Career Education (ACE) grant to support projects that prepare low-income workers to attain degrees and certificates in high demand occupations including nursing and information technology. Texas State Representative John Zerwas (R-Richmond) highly praised Capital IDEA-Houston, declaring he "could not find a better use of $500K than to invest in Capital IDEA-Houston." Texas State Representative Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) chimed in adding "we should continue to invest $5 Million in these projects." The award will support about 250 students attending Houston Community College and Lone Star College.

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"Houston is one of the few southern cities where upward social mobility is as high as cities in the Northeast and West... Roughly 22 percent of Houston children who grew up in the poorest fifth of the national income distribution have ended up in the top two-fifths today, according to the study.

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"Jalissa Daniels wrote dark poetry as an early adolescent...She became pregnant at 15, graduated from Scavo Alternative High School and worked at convenient stores and temp agencies. Even though these jobs helped pay the bills, they were not fulfilling...Finding full-time work with benefits was looking grim...

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When approached by a call center seeking to train workers for high turnover jobs paying $8 / hour, NOVA challenged the employer to invest in worker development for higher paying work. The call center responded and now NOVA trainees start at $10 / hour and move to $12.50 / hour within three months, including benefits; call center attrition has dropped. NOVA is becoming a new kind of hiring hall, offering training for dignified work that pays fair wages and offers benefits.

Thirty six workforce development trainees graduated this summer from Project IOWA, a 21st century workforce development initiative established by AMOS. 86% are now established in career-track jobs with full-benefits and are earning, on average, $15 / hour. Some advanced manufacturing graduates started at $20 / hour!

 

"I wish San Antonio City Council could have heard her speech.

Amira Dadzie came from Ghana to the US in 2002.... told a crowd of more than 100 at the ceremony at our Lady of the Lake University's chapel auditorium that she couldn't have without Project Quest. Her path is an inspiration for anyone prone to let life's hardships overcome aspirations. But what I'm hoping is that it also is inspiration for the City Council to rethink giving the program less than it did in previous budgeting."

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"Capital IDEA Executive Director Steve Jackobs quips that when his organization decides to sponsor someone's community college education, it's like a Catholic marriage: "There's only one way out feet first." It's a joke, but indicative of the two-way commitment between Capital IDEA and its participants..."

In photo, student Liz Spinhirne listens to a speaker during a VIP meeting at the ACC Riverside campus.

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Lisa Pansza and Laura Garcia, "two participants of Project Quest, Inc., a local non-profit that provides education and workforce training, recently won top awards at a statewide vocational nursing contest. The two winners "have demonstrated through their achievements both their individual commitment as well as the value of this program in generating highly skilled workers from within our local community," said Dave Marttala, Project Quest's executive director."

Project QUEST is a community-based workforce development program created in 1992 through collaborative relationships initiated by Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) / Metro Alliance, the San Antonio business community leadership, employers of high-skill workers and other private and public entities.

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"'Jobs in the middle-skill and high-skill categories will become increasingly difficult to fill because of demographic changes, structural change in the economy and divergent skill distribution,' the report said. "Iowa's labor force is expected to grow more slowly at the same time that baby boomers will be retiring."

The statistics are compelling for Reed, who is participating in Project Iowa, a central Iowa faith-based initiative designed to help unemployed or under-employed Iowans train for high-demand jobs...."

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