About WHW
WHW believes that a good job is more than a paycheck. It is essential to creating a stable, safe and educated community. And for many, it is a lifeline. That is why it is WHW’s mission to provide the unemployed and underemployed the skills and resources they need to get and keep a good job. Originally founded in 1993 as Women Helping Women, WHW has served men since 2008 and over 100,000 job seekers since conception at no charge. WHW job seekers come from a wide variety of backgrounds, including survivors of domestic violence who are trying to put their lives back together; veterans attempting to transition into civilian life; at-risk youth looking for jobs as a way off the streets… and your neighbors, your brother or your aunt or your child who may be facing unemployment for the very first time.
According to recent studies: 26,000 Orange County school-age children are homeless or housing-insecure; nearly 300,000 Orange County residents don’t know where their next meal is coming from; 98,000 Orange County residents have no healthcare and more than 2000 Orange County students drop out of school every year. These are the pressing issues of our community.
With a good job, families can afford safe housing; they can provide healthy meals to their children; they can have access to quality healthcare and teens can stay in school to get a good education, rather than dropping out and going to work to help support their families. A good job is not the solution to every problem in our society, but a good job is the solution to many of them.
Each year thousands of job seekers participate in WHW programs focused on equipping them to be the most marketable candidate for the job they seek. Programs include Employment Readiness Workshops, Computer Training, Job Placement Assistance, Employment Retention Support and Professional Apparel.
The return on investment for those who partner with WHW is impactful. With over 2,000 volunteers who contribute more than 25,000 hours of service every year and 100% of every dollar donated going directly to making an impact, almost 80% of WHW job seekers obtain a good job within three months and 90% of those keep that job, which increases their household income by over 560%. In 2017-2018 this translated into over $61 million of income poured into our local economy and a savings to tax payers of over $16 million in entitlement payments.
A good job changes everything, not just for the job seeker, but for their family and for our entire community! For more information on WHW and how to get involved, please visit: http://whw.org/.