United Way cuts

Bad news on the Butler County homefront. Yesterday I received an email from the director of the Butler County Rape Crisis Program about some impending budget cuts to our services.

As my faithful readers may know, I have been volunteering as a victim advocate with the Rape Crisis Program in my spare time since May of 2009. My days as an advocate may be numbered, though, due to recent cuts from the Butler County United Way. As I understand it, the United Way's fund-raising campaign was not as successful as in years past, and as a result, they are cutting all of their mental health funding to member agencies. All of it. Instead of putting a small amount into mental health services, they have decided to amp up funding for their job-training programs, among other things, thinking that if people can get jobs they will not need to rely on United Way agencies for their needs. It's a good idea in theory, but the truth is that many people are working multiple jobs and still can't pay their bills. Of course, there are also limited job opportunities in Butler County right now, at least jobs that pay a living wage. No amount of job training will make up for that fact. But if we really think critically about this, the real issue is a matter of priority. If a person does not have access to counseling, treatment, and other mental health services to meet their immediate needs, no amount of job training classes will help that person hold down a job in the future.

So how does this affect the Rape Crisis Program? Well, Butler County United Way funding comes under the category of "mental health," so now that funding is cut. Normally, the RCP could make up such a loss, but the UW funding means more than just a single check. Federal grants rely on a cash match option, which has traditionally been met by the United Way. So without UW funding, the RCP loses their federal grants, as well. Translation: the Butler County Rape Crisis Program is losing 80% of their funding.

No organization can operate at 20% of their current capacity, and of course the program is at risk unless this funding can be recaptured. The program director is looking for any and all suggestions for finding more funding, and are happy to meet with any potential donors at any time.

I don't know what lies ahead in the coming days, but I do know that if the Butler Co. RCP can not recover from this loss, a tremendous service will be stripped from the community. It's hard to understand the importance of our services until you find yourself in the middle of a crisis; hurt, scared, confused, and otherwise alone. Thanks to this program, victims become survivors and their families learn how to cope and move forward out of crisis. Our educational programming helps school kids learn how to stay safe in their relationships, as well as with strangers. Our Hispanic/Latino outreach provides services to a typically under-served population, especially in Butler County.

Our community can not stand to lose this service. If you would like to support the Rape Crisis Program, please do not hesitate to contact me for more details.

My noble scribe

Congratulations to Taylor on his new job: Emergency Department Physician Scribe! After only three 24-hour rotations on his new shift at EMT, Inc., he was offered the new job and he took it. Now instead of taking senior citizens to dialysis and making emergency runs out of nursing homes, he'll be following ER doctors around and basically writing down everything they say and do. It should be much more interesting, with a much more diverse caseload. And this move couldn't come at a better time. With me unemployed, his new salary will be the equivalent of his old EMT paycheck and my AmeriCorps stipend combined. There's also the potential for health insurance, for growth, and for just overall life improvement!

So how did this come about? Well, I have been job-searching 24/7 for the past, oh, two months. As I searched for "administrative assistant" positions, I came across this scribe position, probably because of its assistant nature. I looked it over, but saw that the company preferred to hire EMTs and paramedics for these positions because of their medical background. Fortunately, I happen to know an EMT so I passed it on to Taylor on a lark. I knew he already had a job and shift that he liked, but I noticed the pay was higher and thought he might like to see other career opportunities that EMTs can take besides working for lousy ambulance companies that suspend yearly $.05 raises because of "budget concerns." So he applied. And a few days later, he was taking a typing test, doing a phone interview, and filling out tons of paperwork. He was hired just like that.

As happy as I am for Taylor, a small part of me is saying, "Are you kidding me?" I'm the unemployed one! I'm the one with Career Builder as a shortcut on my web browser! I'm the one who needs a job!

But the truth is Taylor was, and still is, more employable than I am. You see, Taylor decided to leave college at the end of his junior year. Just walked away. He said that he never really liked college, didn't like his major (English...yeah, talk about unemployable), and he didn't want to get further and further into debt over something he just wasn't that into. That isn't to say Taylor doesn't recognize the value of a four-year degree, or that he never wants to go back to school. But Taylor did want some time to figure out what he really loved--and that turned out to be the medical field. He enrolled in an EMT program at Butler Tech and within months of leaving Miami, he had state licensure and national registry as an Emergency Medical Technician. And most importantly, he had a set of skills that made him highly employable. I'm not saying that he is rolling in the dough or that this is the career he'll retire from, but for now he is gainfully employed in a job he loves. And he is happy. How many recent college grads do you know who can say that? How many people do you know who can say that?

I hope to be able to say that soon. After one week of unemployment (minus the unemployment check), I am feeling restless. I don't like sitting idle. And I don't like not contributing--both to society and to my household. We have a mortgage to pay, kitties to support. I need to give my share.

In the meantime, thank goodness for my patient, and recently promoted husband. It certainly is nice to have someone to lean on in times of stress and instability.

My replacement

I have officially been replaced at Shared Harvest! Please join me in welcoming Krupa, the newest VISTA to join the Shared Harvest team. She has a new blog and I would encourage you to check it out to stay up to date on all of the latest happenings at the foodbank.

Welcome aboard, Krupa! You're in for a great, but challenging year, and I know you'll enjoy it.

College kids grow up

It has been more than a year since I graduated from Miami University with my Bachelor of Science in Speech Pathology and Disability Studies. What does that mean? It means as my AmeriCorps term recently ended, I am now unemployed with no reasonable job prospects in sight. And chances are, if you're between the ages of 18 and 25, you're saying, "Yeah, join the club."

Over the past year I read about and met plenty of middle-aged parents out of work and struggling to pay the bills. Often overlooked in this economic crisis, though, are the young adults fresh out of high school and college. Maybe it's because we're crashing with parents and friends and are otherwise out of the headlines featuring foreclosure and bankruptcy. Maybe it's because many of us don't have families or children to provide for, so our stories just aren't as compelling as others'. But the truth is, this economic recession and job market slump will impact my generation long after the economy bounces back. Studies have shown that college graduates coming into the workforce at this point in history will earn less over the course of our lifetime than when unemployment rates were lower.

In the mean time, we'll be lucky to find jobs with paychecks at all. Many employers have laid off their employees to offset losses and can't even think about accepting resumes for new positions. And for that rare employer who is hiring, we young guns don't stand a chance. Most employers want to see lots of experience for even their entry-level positions, and in this market they can afford to be picky. I can maybe scrape together one or two years of social work experience from my college+AmeriCorps days, but I don't stand a chance next to the former executive director with ten years of supervisory experience on his resume.

I clearly remember calling to follow up on one particular job I'd applied for several weeks ago. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi, my name is Kaitlyn Wessels and I recently submitted my application for the xxxxxx position posted a few days ago. I just wanted to make sure you had received all of my materials and to see if you needed any additional information to further review my application."
HR Rep: "What was the name?"
Me: "Umm... Kaitlyn Wessels?"
HR Rep: "Hmmm...*rustling papers*...the name sounds familiar. Umm...let's see...I'm sorry I just have about 130 pages in front of me...it'll just be a second..."

Many of these conversations end with instructions on what to do to find out that I didn't get the job, rather than how to follow up for an interview. Rejection is just the name of the game.

I am an optimist by nature, but I think it will be a long time before I am offered a job that is in line with my goals, skills, and academic background and pays a competitive salary. About a week ago I was talking with my dad about my next steps after AmeriCorps. I told him about the dozens of applications and resumes I'd put out there over the past few months, and the zero bites I've had. He said unfortunately he wasn't suprised after hearing a follow-up story on the class of 2009 earlier this spring in which some 80% of graduates had still not found a job in their field of study one year after graduation. And now we've got the class of 2010 to compete with! Making matters worse, here comes this brand new class of graduates and we're old news. We're expected to have used the past year to gain experience in our field, not stock shelves at Target. Relatively speaking, those fresh-faced 2010 graduates are looking pretty good to new recruiters compared to us haggard has-beens.

Still, here we are, this weary group of grads, scavenging for low-paying jobs in whatever field we can find, trying to pay our bills on top of the exorbitant student loan debt we've racked up for a degree that is otherwise useless.

Okay, I know it isn't useless--compared to our high school graduate peers, we're doing alright. The unemployment rate for college grads under 25 jumped from 5.4% in 2007 to 9.0% in 2010, while high school grads of the same age faced a 22.5% unemployment rate, up from 12% in 2007. But it certainly isn't encouraging when those jobs are in ditch-digging after investing upwards of $100,000 in preparation for a career in accounting. Or education. Or basket-weaving. Whatever.

A college degree just doesn't guarantee a good job these days. The most we can hope to gain from our degrees is the ability to think critically and creatively to get through tough times ahead. Many graduates are thinking outside of the box to jump start their careers. We're taking part-time positions and freelancing rather than working the typical 9-5 job. We're doing odd jobs, we're traveling, we're volunteering. We're surviving any way we can.

And though we're discouraged, we're not giving up. So if you'll excuse me, I've got a date with the classifieds.

Livin' on a prayer, a.k.a $18,000

Yesterday I came across a fascinating article linked on Get Rich Slowly, a personal finance blog that I read daily. The article, titled "Living on $18,000 a year--by choice," describes the choices of three different people, ages 25, 44, and 60, that have led them to a very thrifty existence. But this isn't one of those "what not to do" articles--it's about people who have chosen to live on less so that they can better pursue happiness.

Of course this article caught my eye after earning somewhere around $10,000 last year in the AmeriCorps*VISTA program. I, too, chose to live in poverty in pursuit of higher dreams. Now I hope to secure more permanent employment, most likely in an entry-level social services position while I attend graduate school in the fall. Many times I am asked to specify my salary requirements on my application, and when "negotiable" isn't an option, I feel silly writing down anything higher than $10,000. Taylor and I have gotten used to living on so little that anything more than $10k seems extravagant (not to say I don't want to earn a higher salary!) I guess it's all in your perspective.

It feels good to see the author of this article talk about an annual salary of $18,000 as something to marvel. The fact that Taylor and I met our basic needs, built our savings, and bought a house on less than $25,000 combined last year makes me optimistic. Imagine what we can do with $26,000?

Oh, the possibilities!