From Our CEO: Making Career Connections for Staten Islanders

​Last Thursday, I got to go to Brooklyn to the Per Scholas headquarters for a very special announcement. We joined with leaders from government, including Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and our community partners to celebrate an expanded effort to train more New Yorkers for thriving careers in technology. We are teaming up Per Scholas, a national educational non-profit, as a Satellite partner to offer free IT training courses for Staten Islanders. The classes, which begin November 1st, will be live streamed by Per Scholas from their Bronx and Brooklyn Campuses to our Bernikow Building. 

Throughout the different stages of the pandemic, we have had to shift gears constantly to help those in our community who were struggling. The latest need we see is a nationwide one—the issue of employment. At the JCC, we feel strongly that in order to allow Staten Islanders to have an equitable recovery from the pandemic, we need to help them get back to work. That’s why we are so incredibly excited about this partnership with Per Scholas. We could not be prouder to be the Community-Based Organization from Staten Island chosen to work on this project, and we feel honored to be here along with so many other community leaders.
 
During the pandemic, growth in the technology sector has been exponential. Unfortunately, Staten Island has mostly been left out of that growth. Our partnership with Per Scholas aims to change that and help get Staten Islanders the proper training and connections they need to get jobs in the tech sector.

For local residents, providing training and linking them with employers in tech will allow them to have a better chance at accessing good paying jobs with upward mobility. This will be a benefit not only to the newly employed, but also to the general economy in our borough. Working with Per Scholas, we will help bridge the gap for those looking for tech jobs and create a stronger future for Staten Island.
 
This partnership is just the first piece of our new programming, called JCC Career Connections. This new program, which has been in the works for many years, will provide career training along with wraparound social services to help all Staten Islanders access employment opportunities. By linking Career Connections to our already robust social services offerings, we will be able to accommodate Staten Islanders with a wide variety of needs and help them get good paying jobs. We know this is just the first step in creating programming that will majorly benefit Staten Island. 

Providing social services has always been our strength at the JCC, so this partnership with Per Scholas gives us the opportunity to expand services and successfully launch this much-needed program. I want to thank Borough President James Oddo, the Chamber of Commerce, the Staten Island Foundation, UJA-Federation of NY, Amazon, and all of our community partners for their crucial work on this initiative. Without their support, this partnership would not have been possible.
 
We look forward to launching our first class, along with a press event celebrating this new program, next week. For more information on all of our Career Connections programming, click here.
 
I’m personally so excited to see where this partnership takes us, and we look forward to all we can do together! 

-Orit Lender, CEO

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