3 minute read
Empowering Women
JEWSIN THED
Empowering Women
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BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Soon after she started working as the chief development officer for JVS Human Services three years ago, Sandy Schuster realized something about JVS’ Women to Work program was familiar.
Her own mother, Anne, had used JVS’ services in the early 1980s, when she returned to the workforce after raising her children and going through a divorce. Now Schuster is preparing for a COVID-era version of Trade Secrets, an annual, Sandy well-attended fundraiser for Schuster that program. “Trade Secrets at Home” will be a one-hour professionally produced “real time” virtual presentation at 7 p.m. Nov. 19, featuring guest speaker Suzy Farbman.
The program will include a “Mind, Body, Spirit” raffle for a stay at a summer home in Charlevoix, a $4,000 gift certificate to Somerset and a 30-minute reading with spiritual medium Rebecca Rosen. The event’s Signature Raffle will feature 10 surprise baskets valued at a minimum of $200. Raffle tickets can be purchased online or by phone before Nov. 19.
JVS is encouraging event sponsors to host small, safe, in-person gatherings in their homes to watch the virtual program. JVS will provide “FUNdraiser-in-a box” packages with food and other gifts that will be available on the day of the event.
JVS provides business and career services for all job seekers, including vocational counseling and skills training. But the agency has long realized that women often need an extra boost to enter the workforce or to move up from entry-level or low-wage positions.
Originally called the Displaced Homemakers program, Women to Work was started in 1980, when women who had stayed home to raise their children were joining the workforce in large numbers. Now, notes Schuster, some women are returning to the working world after taking time off to care for elderly parents rather than children.
Technology is changing the nature of work so quickly that taking even a few years off can mean skills are outdated. In 2020 and beyond, JVS is also teaching pandemic-related skills, such as how to do virtual interviews and manage Zoom meetings.
— JVS’ SANDY SCHUSTER
ACHIEVING INDEPENDENCE
Since it started, Women to Work has helped close to 2,000 women of all backgrounds, races and religions.
Anne Schuster was divorced in 1973. Sandy, the oldest of her four daughters, was then 19; the youngest was in kindergarten. Though Anne, who died in 2005, had worked as a bookkeeper while her husband was in law school, she had had no formal postThe late high-school training. After Anne the divorce, she earned an Schuster associate degree at Oakland Community College and a junior accounting certificate at Pontiac Business School, then turned to JVS for help writing a resume, searching for openings and doing interviews.
Anne Schuster had several jobs after participating in the JVS program. She retired after 15 years at the Michigan Employment Security Commission.
“She was able to support herself and live independently,” Sandy Schuster said. “She found her own identity. That’s what the Woman to Work program provides.”
She said clients often come to JVS feeling embarrassed at their lack of skills. “Within a few weeks, we see their self-esteem rise,” Schuster said. “They walk out of this program feeling empowered. It’s amazing to hear their stories about how the program changed their lives.”
Guest speaker Suzy Farbman, who grew up in Detroit and graduated from the University of Michigan, was introduced to a wide audience by Oprah Winfrey after publication of her first book, Back from Betrayal, which chronicled the wisdom she gained Suzy from saving her troubled Farbman marriage. At the height of her success as an adviser on relationships, she was diagnosed with life-threatening cancer. Her second book, Godsigns, is about facing life’s deepest spiritual challenges.
So far, JVS has raised more than $222,000 for Trade Secrets at Home.
“I feel privileged to be raising money for a program that helped my mom and is now helping so many other women reinvent themselves,” Schuster said. “The pandemic has affected more women than men, and they need our support more than ever.”
The Farbman Group and HealthRise are presenting sponsors for Trade Secrets at Home. Other major sponsors include Annette and Jack Aronson, the DeRoy Testamentary Foundation, skinnytees, EHIM and Huntington Bank.
Sponsorships are available at all levels. Individual tickets, which include a food box and a skinnytee favor, are $150.
For more information, contact Sandy Schuster at sschuster@jvshumanservices.org or (248) 233-4290.
