Lonna Szczesny has helped thousands of women gain skills and move from unemployment to work or a better job. Now she’s retiring after 23 years at the nonprofit Resource, most recently as director of women’s programs at the nonprofit’s Employment Action Center.
She recently received the inaugural “lifetime achievement award” of the Minnesota Women’s Consortium. Szczesny joined Resource in 1990.
Q What is the Women in Transition program, one of three you run?
A We serve low-income, unemployed women who need jobs. About 95 percent are single women, some with children. About 75 percent can’t access welfare-to-work programs. They come to us because we’re the safety net. They have been working, but maybe piecemeal, a couple part-time jobs, and they rarely have a logical career path. They are just hanging on and they are getting older. The median age is 40 or 42. About 25 percent are 55 to 65. They often are stuck and scared.
The other segment we serve is low-income employed single mothers who need to make more or they will turn to public assistance. About half of them, in 20 some years of that program, came from welfare-to-work and they do not want to go back, but they need to make higher wages.
Choosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor from
via A long career of helping women find jobs | StarTribune.com.
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