Job seekers speak with representatives from several area businesses at the "Employment: Expanding Our Opportunities" job fair.

Toni Simmons believes in second chances. As a trainer for Goodwill’s Employability and Life Skills program at the Sarpy County Probation Center, Toni works to help people on probation find their place in the workforce. Participants work with Toni on life skills training, preparing resumes, mock interviews, and searching for jobs. After employment has been found, they continue to follow-up with her to assure the new job is going smoothly.

As another resource for her participants, Toni helped organize the “Employment: Expanding Our Opportunities” job fair on Wednesday, May 16.

She organized the event to be held at the probation center so she could observe the participants’ interactions with employers. Even if the participants didn’t land a job from Wednesday’s job fair, Toni can help them learn from the experience and continue to build job skills.

The job fair brought employers Sitel, Job Source USA, West, Hilton, Gallup and Creighton University. LaQuela Weathers, the “Coupon Queen,” offered advice on using coupons and checking store sales to save money. In just two hours, 71 job seekers made their way through the fair.

KETV stopped by and talked to a couple job seekers. Learn more about some of them at KETV.com.

Goodwill Industries and the Sarpy County Probation Office are hosting the “Employment: Expanding our Opportunities” job fair tomorrow — Wednesday, May 16, 2012. The event will be held at the Sarpy County Day Report Center at 7511 South 36th Street in Bellevue, NE from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

The job fair is open to the public.

Individuals are encouraged to dress appropriately and bring their resumes as some interviews will be conducted during the event.

Companies participating in the event include: UPS, KwikShop, Sitel, Job Source USA, WEST, Hilton, Gallup and Creighton University.

LaQuela Weathers, “The Coupon Queen”, will also be on-hand to share her secrets to couponing success.

For more information contact Toni Simmons at 402-593-1523 or Julie Micek at 402-593-4416.

This past Saturday I had the good fortune of working the Goodwill Drive for Drives at Werner Park. For those of you who don’t know, the Drive for Drives was a computer recycling drive sponsored by Goodwill, the West Omaha Rotary Club and WOWT. Goodwill actually accepts computers for recycling or resale at all our locations throughout the year, but events like this serve as a reminder to the community that we offer this service. They’re also a reminder for folks to clean out their offices and garages and bring their old computers to Goodwill for this special event.

Cars line up to drop off their donations at the row of trailers

Your trusty blogger surveys the scene

Most of you know that the weather wasn’t exactly stellar last Saturday, but you would have never known it from the collective energy and enthusiasm of the Goodwill retail staff in attendance. I showed up to work the event at about 10am, and everything was all set up. There were about 15 trailers lined up side-by-side at Werner Park’s parking lot. Each trailer has several staff ready to load it. Cars would be sent all the way to the last trailer with the following cars queued up behind. At times we would be unloading up to ten cars at the same time. It was an amazing design that Retail Operations Director Shirley Hall put together for the drive, and it allowed all the employees and volunteers to have a hand in unloading the cars and trucks as they arrived.

In between cars, there was plenty of time to talk. The people in my area used that time to make fun of me for a wide variety of reasons:

• My sunglasses made me look like Tom Cruise from Risky Business.
• I wasn’t helping enough.
• I was helping too much and getting in the way.
• I didn’t know what I was doing.
• I wasn’t taking enough pictures.
• I was taking too many pictures.
• I wasn’t getting in the trailer the right way.
• I wasn’t getting out of the trailer the right way.

And it went on from there. It really helped pass the time. There was also a huge debate about proper procedures for waving a car through. Overhand? Or Underhand/ZZ Top Style? We never formed a consensus.
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My month of wearing Goodwill came to a close! I broke my goal of not purchasing new items from Goodwill just once, and that was to buy a necklace for an Employee Annual Dinner. I decided that the dinner was a special occasion, and celebrating with a necklace from Goodwill was the right thing to do. I’m now back to wearing any of the items in my closet but the first two days of April I wore… you guessed it, Goodwill. Here are my final outfits from March:

Ah, the old dress as a shirt trick again. Goodwill skirts are perfect to pair with those dresses that are just a little too short for the office.

Tom, our lead custodian, said my favorite dress made me look like a kindergarten teacher. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that, so I played along and read him a book. Instead of going down for a nap after the story was over, he decided to go back to work. Probably a smart move.

This week brought us the second coming of the Employee Annual Dinner (the first try was cancelled due to a snow storm). I got comfortable in my polka dot shirt and arranged a seating chart for all 700 guests. Oh, how I love our marker board wall.

Here was a sewing challenge that just didn’t turn out as I had hoped. I tried and tried to take in a dress 6 sizes too big for me, but I just couldn’t make it fit. Eventually I found myself taking the scissors to the middle of the dress and making a skirt in a fraction of the time I spent working on the dress. I ended up with a lot of extra material, and you just may see than in a future outfit post!

This dress does nothing but bring happiness. I bought it at Reserve: Goodwill in the Market on a sunny day last May, then wore it to my brother’s college graduation. A happy occasion indeed. This month, I wore it to our Town Hall meeting and Rita and I could barely contain our excitement.

My final outfit in my month of wearing Goodwill was my Annual Dinner dress. This was a challenge that did end up close to what I wanted. The dress was originally mid-calf length, with a billowy kaftan style top that had sleeves past my elbows. I shortened it, and turned the top into a fitted, sleeveless style. The dress and necklace came from our 78th & Dodge store, and I carried a beaded clutch (not pictured) from Reserve.

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4

Saturday night was Goodwill Omaha’s 2011 Annual Awards Dinner. More than 600 employees, family and friends gathered at the DoubleTree Hotel Omaha Downtown for the event.

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