At Goodwill Central Coast, we stand behind our mission to help people work towards financial stability and prosperity — and we believe in the power of work.
Every day members of the community seek us out for skills and support services to help find employment, create self-sufficiency, and build confidence and dignity. It is so gratifying to witness such personal and professional growth, and we take great joy in all of the success stories from those who reach out for help.
The amazing thing is — some of those success stories come from our own employees, people who started in a training program and never left the fold! At GCC we employ more than 1,000 team members, making us one of the larger employers in the region. Many of our team members gained the skills they needed for employment with us, and put them to use helping individuals and families keep a roof over their head and food on their tables. In short, they became part of the solution.
VP of Workforce and Administration Jamie Reynolds came to GCC for many reasons, but mostly to fulfill a need to give back to the community
“We provide job seekers with skills, credential training, work
experience. We help different populations to help achieve their own goals, whatever their goals may be,” Reynolds said. “One of our largest programs is available through CalWORKs (California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids). Any recipient will come through our occupational work program. We do an assessment to figure out what skills they have, what their goals are, what skills they need and then we use all of our retail stores, all of our locations, even our administration department as a training facility, as a training center. Then they are placed at those locations where they get real work experience.”
One of the beneficiaries of CalWORKs has been Gloria Baltazar, who started working at our Salinas store 13 years ago. Her “temporary” job ended up changing her life.
“In 2008, I lost my job and became unemployed,” she said. “I began to ask for information on how I could improve my skills to be able to obtain another, better job. When I was in accounting training, people from Goodwill came to offer a program where they gave you on-the-job training for 6 months.”
Baltazar entered a CalWORKs assistance program that provides services to eligible families with children, including her job training program through Goodwill Central Coast.
GCC provides CalWORKs participants with comprehensive training and experience in basic job seeking, and helps them manage all the potential pitfalls surrounding employment.
Baltazar began a 3-month temporary position at Goodwill, where she was trained and earned a salary. “I was able to demonstrate the skills that I had, and that’s how they gave me more opportunities,” she said. “After a while they promoted me to supervisor and after two years they promoted me to be the person in charge of working with the counties and with the team of our mission to continue assisting people who need training and need the opportunity to have a job.”
Baltazar also enjoys the self-satisfaction of giving back to others.
“I like to work with the programs and do something that can help the community just as they helped me when I started with Goodwill,” she said. “I had government assistance because I didn’t have enough to provide for my family. I had four children at home. I had government help to pay my rent. I had help caring for my children.”
Baltazar wishes more people knew about Goodwill’s mission.
“I think it’s very important that people give themselves the opportunity to know what Goodwill offers,” she said. “They give you the opportunity to gain experience if you want, to set your sights on a goal and give yourself the opportunity to try new things. Goodwill gives you the support you need to be able to improve yourself. Thanks to Goodwill and the programs they offer I have been able to improve myself and have a better quality of life.”
