Church's mission goes from pews to job training
A church might seem like an unlikely place to train people to become forklift operators.
But that’s what Dayton’s McKinley United Methodist Church will do starting Monday as it continues its quest to expand its mission beyond its Sunday sermons.
The effort involves Procter & Gamble, which funds most of the effort; Fifth Third Bank; The Foodbank of Dayton; and Gem City Market.
Roughly three dozen trainees will work on a simulator to become certified forklift operators. But the program is more than job training — it’s about life skills. Participants will receive instruction in applying for work, job interviewing, financial literacy and more. And they’re paid to do it. Over the four-week course, trainees get a total stipend of $640: $100 in gift cards for food, plus breakfast and lunch every day of training.
P&G’s involvement is part of its community outreach efforts, Ken Eckrote, the plant manager, said.
“Our base purpose value and principles is about improving the everyday life … of our consumers, our employees, and our communities,” he said.
P&G will hire those who successfully complete the program at $22 an hour, which is just shy of $46,000 a year. That’s 2.5 times more than the average income of a Dayton resident ($16,673) and more than the city’s median household income ($32,540). This is truly a life-changing opportunity.
The Rev. Peter Matthews, the pastor at McKinley, speaks often about the need for the church to expand its mission beyond its pews and into the community.
“This program, with some very quality and respected partners has an opportunity to double someone’s potential income, which will put them in a position for the basic necessities which we deem important,” Matthews. “Food, water, clothing, transportation, this has an opportunity to put people in a position to experience a little more heaven on earth.”
The program also shows how innovation can better our region. Who would have thought a church would be a location for forklift training?
Knowing the community plays a key role, too. P&G, through its local connections, learned of Matthew’s nonprofit group, the Dayton Equity Center. The center performs a wide range of local community services including an after-school program. Fifth Third became engaged through the nonprofit Girls Emerging into Maturity Program, located at McKinley.
The forklift training is geared toward people in the Second Chance program that provides opportunities for the formerly incarcerated, but is open to anyone.
“When people who have made a mistake and paid for that error continue to suffer the penalty of workforce barriers, we create injustice, reduced public safety, family dysfunction, and intergenerational poverty,” Jeff Korzenik, Fifth Third Bank’s chief investment strategist, and author of the book “Untapped Talent: How Second Chance Hiring Works for Your Business and the Community” said. “As a country, we cannot hope to get to equality of opportunity across racial lines until we offer people the opportunity to move beyond their worst moment.”
Eckrote hopes the program is so successful that it will not only continue at McKinley, but expand to other community partners.
We need skilled, well-paying jobs in a Dayton community in which one in three people live in poverty and the city’s population is actually decreasing. The 45402 ZIP code, in which McKinley sits, has the lowest median household income in the city. These jobs provide stability to families and neighborhoods.
But it also shows what we can do when we put our mind to it. This collaboration of business, church and nonprofit should serve as a model for not only community improvement, but anyone who wants to do good for their neighbors.
Here’s to our community, pulling together, and creating better lives one job at a time.