Skills For Chicagoland’s Future Hosts Annual Employment Champion Breakfast

The fourth annual Employment Champions Breakfast was recently hosted by Skills for Chicagoland’s Future. Photo Credit: Skills for Chicagoland’s Future
The fourth annual Employment Champions Breakfast was recently hosted by Skills for Chicagoland’s Future. Photo Credit: Skills for Chicagoland’s Future

Skills For Chicagoland’s Future Hosts Annual Employment Champion Breakfast

BY KATHERINE NEWMAN

Skills for Chicagoland’s Future recently hosted its fourth annual Employment Champions Breakfast to celebrate the placement of more than 5,500 Chicagoland residents in open jobs.

The event was an awards ceremony, a fundraiser and networking opportunity to build support for the organization’s mission of returning the unemployed and underemployed back to work.

Skills for Chicagoland’s Future is a nonprofit organization that works to find sustainable employment opportunities for residents of Chicago. They also help local employers connect with qualified job seekers.

“We have been around since 2012 and since then we have placed more than 5,500 individuals into various roles and we place approximately 1,200 a year. We work in multiple industries from manufacturing to retail to professional services to healthcare and the roles tend to be entry-level level positions both part-time and full-time. Primarily, our placement comes from the South and West Sides of Chicago from the communities that have the highest unemployment,” said Cherita Ellens, executive vice president of business operations and communications at Skills for Chicagoland’s Future.

At the Employment Champion Breakfast, the organizations unveiled a three-year plan to “Inspire Every Company to Hire the Unemployed and Underemployed” through advocacy, consulting, career enhancement services and job placements. As part of this plan, a new goal was instated to place 9,000 job seekers by the end of 2020, with 45 percent of those new hires coming from Chicago’s top ten neighborhoods for unemployment.

Two awards were given to current partners of the Skills for Chicagoland’s Future organizations. The Champion for the Unemployed Award was presented to Walgreens Boots Alliance which has hired more than 80 job seekers since 2014.

The Advocate for the Unemployed Award was presented to the Saint Sabina Employment Resource Center which connects Auburn Gresham, Englewood, and South Side residents to meaningful and sustainable career opportunities and has been a longtime partner of the organization and a vital link to local residents on the South Side.

“We’re really excited about our growth and we continue to have the Employment Champion Breakfast because it is extremely important for us to make sure that our stories of impact are shared to highlight the importance of our work so that our current partners can continue to be

reenergized around the work that we’re doing. There are tons of community organizations and partners out there and employers and funders can choose to partner with whoever they

want, so it’s important for them to be able to see, touch, and feel the impact of their investment of both time and money,” said Ellens.

For information about job opportunities visit www.scfjobs.com.

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