How Christian HELP Helps Unemployed People Get Jobs Through Employment Assistance in Central Florida

There are over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States, each playing a crucial role in lives and social issues across the country and around the world.  With so many charities, how does anyone know who to support and why?  The purpose of this blog is to help you discover and connect with some of America’s most trusted 501c3 nonprofits, so you can become more informed and invest your support in charities that are making a significant impact and changing lives everyday.

Featured Charity: Christian HELP

Back in 2012, we featured a Central Florida nonprofit called, Christian HELP (read that blog post here).  Devoted to preventing homelessness, Christian HELP helps people find jobs while providing for them materially and spiritually. 

Among the many programs and services offered by Christian HELP is their employment assistance service. I recently asked Sandi Vidal, Executive Director at Christian HELP, about their employment assistance service.  Below are her responses from that discussion:

Who does Christian HELP provide employment assistance to? 

Christian HELP provides employment assistance to anyone who is unemployed or underemployed in Central Florida − from entry level to executive.

What does employment assistance include? 

We provide:

• one-on-one employment coaching and counseling,
• an online job board – http://cfec.org,
• 6 major job fairs,
• resume assistance,
• a JumpStart job skills training class series,
• a deep dive into workforce skills called the Central Florida Jobs Initiative (7 classes) http://cfji.org, and
• employment seminars in the community.

Do you partner with any other organizations or have volunteers that help make all of this happen? 

Absolutely! We use mostly volunteers for all of our programs.  Local Human Resource Professionals teach our job skills classes, our employment coaches and counselors are all volunteers, with the exception of 1 staff counselor. 

We partner with many other non-profits in the area including SafeHouse of Seminole, Dress for Success, Harbor House, Home Builder’s Institute, the Sharing Center, Hope Helps, Catholic Charities, and Connect City.

How many people do you help through your employment assistance program each year? 

We provide general assistance to approximately 13,000 individuals and help 200 through the Jobs Initiative.

How much does it cost to operate the employment assistance program?  

The entire program (holistic approach), not including in-kind* costs just over $850,000 and about 40% of that is a result individuals donating money to us. The total budget for this service, including in-kind, is $2.4 million with approximately 16% coming from individual donors.

*In-kind gifts are donations that are contributed via goods and services rather than money (or cash).

Our thanks to Sandi and Christian HELP for helping us learn more about their work!  To learn more about the impact Christian HELP is making, click here to visit their website and connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, their blog and e-newsletter.

Connect with Christian HELP on YouTube or click here to watch how they helped this hard-working mom: