The McComb chapter of the Christian Women’s Job Corps will begin offering life skills classes in September but is seeking applicants this week for a Tuesday deadline.
The group is also seeking businesses, churches or individuals that can donate time and resources to the cause. Benefactors already have given about a dozen personal computers to the program.
Interviews will be conducted after Tuesday to fill 10 spots for the September term. Courses are free and run 20 weeks, with a break in between.
“We believe that if we can make better women, we’ll make better employees,” said Assistant Site Coordinator Sheri Mancuso.
“And better parents,” added Site Coordinator Edith Parkman.
Workers for the job corps began asking last summer what it would take to get a program started.
Mancuso, whose husband was beginning unrelated seminary coursework, was seeking a project of her own, and met with Jean Spring, founder of Southwest Mississippi Christian Outreach Ministries.
Spring, who runs a ministry thrift store in Pike Center Mart, envisioned an office, classrooms and food pantry at that location, while Mancuso saw an opportunity for the job corps in the idea.
Checking with state Job Corps leader Sandra Nash, Mancuso found a training seminar in Clinton, and after booking an extra hotel room near the site, also found another helping hand in Parkman who was glad to join in.
Said Parkman of Mancuso’s invitation: “I had been wondering why God was emptying my plate.”
Soon, the effort was born, with volunteers bonding as friends, too.
“We just put one foot in front of the other,” said Parkman, adding with a smile, “When we started, things were just popping and we didn’t think it was going to take us a year.”
Of course, volunteers ideally want to train their own successors, with the job skills their students learn enabling them to turn and help others, too.
“It’s going to have to be a spirit-led thing,” Mancuso said.
Teaching will include a bi-weekly Bible study, with regular classes from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Topics will range from money management and budgeting to health and nutrition, and from etiquette and anger management to resume writing and computer skills.
Officials from the Mississippi State University Extension Office are planning a four-day instruction on laptops in September as part of the course.
“We’ll have lunch and snacks provided,” said Parkman. “We’re looking to churches to help provide maybe just a soup and a sandwich.”
The focus of the group, Mancuso added, is to give participants long-term help instead of short-term charity.
“We offer a hand up, not a hand out,” said Mancuso. “All we offer is love and knowledge.”
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For more information, call Jean Spring at 250-0177.
