The City of Valdosta’s Neighborhood Development Division is partnering with Goodwill Industries of the Southern Rivers, Inc. to expand community access to job training and connections services through a series of workshops and a new Job Connections Kiosk in the City’s Customer Service Center.
 
Goodwill regularly provides free workshops at its Valdosta Career Center (located at 1000 St. Augustine Road) to help local citizens find employment and advance their careers. This new partnership with Neighborhood Development will add a second location for these meetings, making the valuable job training more accessible than ever before to citizens.
 
Throughout the year, free workshops will be held the third Wednesday of every month in the City Hall Annex Multi-Purpose Room, located at 300 N. Lee St. These sessions will be taught by career professionals from Goodwill and will cover topics such as resume writing, job searching tips and interview essentials. The workshops are from 11 a.m.-1 p.m., and light refreshments will be provided for pre-registered participants.
 
The first series of workshops will focus on the following topics:
 
Jan. 20: Resume Writing
Feb. 17: Job Searching Tips & Tidbits
March 16: Interview Time
 
“The ultimate goal of this partnership is to increase the access of these types of services to the citizens of Valdosta,” Vanassa Flucas, Neighborhood Development Manager, said. “We are  bringing the Goodwill workshops to people who have difficulty getting to Goodwill’s other Job Connections location in the city.”
 
Beginning Jan. 20, 2016, a Job Connections Kiosk located in the City of Valdosta’s Customer Service Center will allow people to search and apply for jobs during normal business hours (8 a.m. to 4 p.m.). The kiosk will also allow users to work on a resume for up to 30 minutes at a time, which provides yet another way for citizens to do what is necessary to become employed.
 
“This is a first-of-its-kind partnership for Goodwill Southern Rivers,” said Marcus McBride, Ph.D., Goodwill Southern Rivers Director of Education and Training. “It gives citizens who may not be able to get to our career center access to our free services and classes for their job search. We’re excited to partner with the city on this venture and the opportunity to offer more ways to help people looking for jobs.”