Each year during the first full week of May, Goodwill organizations across the U.S. and Canada celebrate Goodwill Industries Week to highlight a crucial mission — transforming lives and communities through the power of education and employment.
For more than 60 years, Goodwill Central Coast has celebrated this important week (observed this year May 5-11) to help raise awareness about its mission to remove obstacles to employment and create life-changing jobs in the community.
When the public donates or shops any of Goodwill Central Coast’s 16 stores or outlet centers, it helps provide the training and support needed to find jobs, advance in careers and thrive.
While the U.S. unemployment rate has recently hit record lows, many communities still struggle with poverty, homelessness and lack of access to good-paying jobs. Goodwill has a long history of helping people acquire the skills and training they need to overcome obstacles to employment.
The week of May 5-11 is a great time to shine a light on the success of those individuals, and on the local Goodwill organizations that first celebrated Goodwill Industries Week in May 1951.
Goodwill Central Coast serves anyone facing challenges to finding employment, including people with disabilities and disadvantages, older workers, youth, veterans and military families, and people reintegrating back into society from the justice system.
GCC’s Mission Service programs in Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties represent the engines of this movement. The following details Monterey County’s services:
- Goodwill Career Center: Offers free employment services and computer usage to the community. Patrons can receive assistance with job placement, and resume development, participate in mock interviews, get assistance with online applications, receive typing certifications, and inquire about completing community services by meeting with the Career Center Coordinator.
- Monterey County Community Action Partnership: Provides employment and income and asset-building services to low-income individuals and families in the North County region. Services include: resume/cover letter development; mock interviews; job application process; networking; employment retention services; and more.
- Monterey County Office of Education Work Experience: GCC provides paid work experience programs to Monterey County Office of Education students working at a Goodwill store or collaborating agency where they build the soft skills needed to succeed in any job or occupation.
- Monterey Expanded Subsidized Employment Program: GCC provides expanded subsidized employment, training, supervision, case management, job performance evaluations and subsidized job coordination for eligible CalWORKs Welfare-To-Work customers.
- San Andreas Regional Center Supported Employment Program: Provides specialized assistance to individuals with developmental disabilities in preparing for, choosing, obtaining, and maintaining paid employment in the community.
- WIOA Job Readiness Training: Eligible WIOA-enrolled participants can participate in online and in-person job readiness workshops in collaboration with the Monterey County Workforce Development Board.
- Digital Literacy: Provides a specialized curriculum to assist participants with navigating our increasingly technological world, offering participants free classes that educate them on various commonplace programs and applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
- Workability: Provides paid work experience programs to Department of Rehabilitation consumers, working at a Goodwill where they build the soft skills and work experience needed to succeed in any job or occupation.
- KickStart: Provides paid work experience programs to Monterey County Workforce Development Board referred individuals working at a Goodwill store where they build the soft skills and gain work experience needed to succeed in any job or occupation.
- Department of Rehabilitation programs: Monterey County residents have access to DOR Situational Assessments, Employment Services, and Student and Adult Work Experience.
