PANAMA CITY — After her parents divorced, Rutherford High School student Tajier Brown juggled two jobs to help her mother support their family of eight.
“Everyone had to step up to the plate and help out,” Brown said of herself and her six siblings, who rarely saw their mother because she, too, juggled multiple jobs.
Unsure of what her future held, Brown turned to the Striving Toward Achieving Real Success youth program, also known as STARS, a collaboration between CareerSource Gulf Coast and Bay District Schools.
Not only did the program help Brown secure the work needed to help her family, it provided much-needed support and guidance when her mother wasn’t around.
“It helps you gain employment and helps with job skills,” Brown said of STARS. “But for me is was more like a family.”
Now a Rutherford graduate, Brown plans to begin classes at Gulf Coast State College in the spring and hopes to one day own her own accounting firm.
Brown’s story was just one of many success stories shared at CareerSource Gulf Coast’s annual meeting and luncheon Tuesday. Officials with CareerSource Gulf Coast, which provides services for employers and job seekers in Bay, Gulf and Franklin counties, outlined several reasons to celebrate at the event, including record-breaking job placement numbers in 2014.
“We connected over 7,000 people to jobs,” said Executive Director Kim Bodine. “We were honored by the governor for having the best placement rate in the state.”
Formerly the Gulf Coast Workforce Board, CareerSource Gulf Coast has provided workforce services to the region for 18 years. This year, the state-funded agency assisted more than 2,200 employers with recruitment and hiring, provided training for 862 adults, dislocated workers and youth, and served 1,248 veterans, successfully placing more than 700 of them in jobs.
The event also provided an overview of the many special projects CareerSource Gulf Coast helped support this year.
In Franklin County, the agency is continuing to address issues surrounding the fishery failure in Apalachicola Bay, which has pushed many residents out of work. The agency recently launched an “oyster shelling” project, funded by a $4.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce, to help rebuild the oyster stock and get oystermen back to work.
In Gulf County, projects include a Summer Youth Program in North Port St. Joe, supporting a community resource center, which provides workforce and social services to roughly 1,500 residents per year, and the Ladder Program, which targets older, at-risk youth for intensive employment and skills training.
Tuesday’s event was attended by CareerSource Gulf Coast board members, stakeholders and partners from across the region, along with many of the faces the agency has helped in the last year.
Bodine thanked attendees, including reappointed Board Chairman Robert Swenk, for helping to make 2014 a successful year.
“Everything we do is based on partnerships,” Bodine said. “It takes all of us to create positive change in our community.”