On Wednesday, September 28th, 2022, hundreds of West Philadelphia Skills Initiative alumni, partners, and friends gathered at World Cafe Live to celebrate ten years of our nationally-recognized job training program. The event featured remarks from key partners, awards for notable Skills Initiative alumni, and catching up with friends and former staff.
During the event, we screened this short film featuring Mark Gay, Myna Christian, and Vanessa Dicks, three Skills Initiative alumni who we have previously featured in videos. They shared their career stories and looked back on their successes since completing our program. Please feel free to share this film with your networks.
We also used the event as an opportunity to recognize and reward six WPSI alumni for their career and personal accomplishments with Alumni Spotlight Awards, sponsored by GoCoach. Each awardee was chosen by their peers and given $500 to go along with the awards. Please join us in congratulating:
We’d like to thank Craig Carnaroli, Dwaine Duckett, Sheila Ireland, Sarah Steltz, and Laura Bien-Aime for their remarks during the event. It was wonderful to see so many alumni, partners, and friends and to celebrate the successes of our workforce program.
After over a decade of working together to transform Philadelphia’s approach to employer-driven workforce development, we count each partnership established, position filled, and family on the path to building generational wealth among our successes. Over its 10+ year history, the West Philadelphia Skills Initiative has served over 1,500 participants and helped place jobseekers in positions with over 20 employer partners, and graduates of our program have earned nearly $80 million in combined wages. We look forward to what the next ten years of the Skills Initiative will bring!
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