Email
Print
Feed
Eye on San Diego |
Tweet |
(page 1 of 3)
Edited By Ron DonohoWhat To Wear?
Count Bo Derek as a supporter—and contributor. The comely 44-year-old actress recently visited University Towne Centre, promoting a benefit event for Home Start and Second Chance/STRIVE. Those nonprofit organizations provide job training and professional work attire to men and women in need.
“I think it’s a great cause,” says Derek. “I’ve been donating for years.” That means it’s likely someone won a job dressed in an outfit once worn by Hollywood’s original “10.”
After a divorce and a cross-country move, Maria Cruz didn’t think she had the skills—much less the wardrobe—to succeed in the workplace. “When I went to job interviews, I didn’t know if I was dressed right,” says the National City resident. Like many women trying to rebound from dire financial straits, Cruz obsessed about what she was wearing rather than focusing on the interviews.
She enrolled in a Second Chance/STRIVE program. As a program graduate, Cruz was the recipient of a smart blue blouse and light gray slacks.
Wearing the right clothes, “that [worry] was out of my mind,” says Cruz. “I was comfortable.” She got a job at Safeguard Security, and now is employed at the local chapter of STRIVE (Supportive Training Results in Valuable Employees), an international organization.
A majority of job-training participants do become gainfully employed, says Second Chance/STRIVE executive director Scott Silverman. He says 80 percent of participants get and keep jobs for at least two years.
Home Start program director Riley McRae frequently works with people who have become dependent on public assistance. “They don’t come with some of the basic work ethics—how to get up on time, be at work on time, dress appropriately,” says McRae. “We train them in things like workplace ethics, how to get a ride to an interview and how to dress for an interview.”
New clothes are key to job training programs’ success rates. After completing one of 44 local training programs—including Home Start and Second Chance/ STRIVE—women are eligible to visit Dress for Success San Diego. “Women can pick out quality, modern business suits,” says founder and executive director Sylvia Evans-McKinney. Clothing choices regularly range from Anne Klein to Jones of New York to Nordstrom.
Dress for Success depends heavily on clothing donations from the public. Evans-McKinney knows firsthand the benefit of donations. Once in a domestic violence situation, she got out—with three small children—and started over. Now she wants to help others. “Clothing doesn’t make the person,” she says—but the confidence decent clothes brings is immeasurable.
To donate, call Home Start, 619-692-0727; Second Chance/STRIVE, 619-239-1003; Dress for Success, 619-420-1488.
—Jennifer Rozelle
Do you like what you read? Subscribe to San Diego Magazine »
