Program puts senior citizens back into workforce
By SHARON KERR Staff Writer

Newsboy photo/Sharon Kerr SALLY NAVARRE, left, is glad to have Mary "Apple" Bean to handle calls and visitors at the Burke Center in Kirbyville.The Senior Community Service Employment Program pays Mary to learn new job skills.

Older Americans who are trying to re-enter the work force often face extra hurdles such as outdated experience, limited education, and maybe restricted physical abilities.

Take, for example, a woman who graduated in 1965 and learned to type on a manual typewriter, or a man who spent his life unloading trucks, but now can't work on his diabetic feet.

Both people are willing and able to work, but unless they get updated training and job experience, it's going to be tough to get an employer to hire them.

Sandy Smith, employment and training coordinator for ExperienceWorks, says to such people, "Let me tell you what I can do for you."

The Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) is a bootstrap operation that matches older employees with community service and government "hosts" who offer on the job training and experience, and the program pays them while they learn.

The host agency gets a reliable worker for 20 hours a week and the employee learns valuable skills. The government, not the host agency, pays the employee minimum wage of $5.15 an hour while training, but the goal is that the employee will take these new skills and move into the work force at a competitive salary.

This program dates back to Lady Bird Johnson who, as First Lady, founded Operation Green Thumb. She proposed to Congress, "Take the green thumbs of poor, older and retired farmers and put them to work to beautify our highways... to provide older farmers with useful employment for which they are fully qualified... And, not even in Washington, D.C., did anyone think this was a bad idea. "

Green Thumb grew into SCSEP and expanded to include many fields beyond farming and highways. SCSEP seeks to match employee interests with community needs.

Smith emphasized the many benefits to the community when older workers are trained and hired. The program objectives are: to foster and promote useful part-time community service opportunities to enhance their abilities, skills and aptitudes to change negative attitudes and stereotypes about older people to promote innovative work alternatives and second career training to help them gain valuable new skills and experience toward securing meaningful employment

In what sounds like a win-win situation, Smith is surprised to say, "We are currently under-enrolled."

She is seeking both qualified applicants and host agencies, and she is also needs a field operations assistant to help her cover Jasper and Newton Counties.

To be eligible for training, an employee must be 55 or older, currently unemployed and seeking work, and not have too much income. Income qualifications are complicated, but things like disability payments don't count, social security income is only counted at 75 percent, and resources like property don't count against an applicant (but interest does count as income).

A host agency must be either a 501c3 nonprofit organization, or a government funded agency such as city or county offices, schools, libraries, public safety and health services.

The host agency must be willing to commit one person to the training and supervision of the new employee, who is to be utilized for the stated purpose only. Translation: you don't take the woman who hired on to learn the multi-line phone system and send her on errands to pick up dry cleaning.

What kinds of work are offered?

The program does not actually set limits, but typically the program is for cler- -ical, teachers' aides, library skills, purchasing and inventory, cashiers, receptionists, customer service, nutrition and health care, maintenance, custodial and construction workers.

Smith said one state highway construction boss told her he liked having older workers as flaggers because they are more dependable.

"He told me he 'can count on an older worker showing up, rain or shine, more than you get from kids today'," Smith said.

Smith said when she interviews an applicant, she asks what they want to do and why, and what kind of skills they already have or want to acquire.

Smith asks, "What can I do for you, training-wise? What is standing in the way of your getting the job you want?"

Smith says sometimes the answer may be as simple as teaching them how to face a job interview, write a resume, or fill out an application.

"If they are looking for work and not being hired, we try to help them figure out why," Smith said. "If it is because they don't know how to do something, then I help with that."

Smith said there is a 91- year-old lady working at Friends Helping Friends, a nonprofit, who just wants to stay involved and needs a little income. Another woman in the program enjoys meeting the public at the museum in Newton County and has learned to help organize the archives.

One of the star graduates of the program is Ginger Studensky, head of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, and another woman who is still enjoying the benefits of the program is Mary Bean of the Burke Center in Kirbyville; see "Senior Solutions" in this issue for their stories.

Smith is enthusiastic about her work and the SCSEP program because she knows she is helping meet a growing need.

Senior Workforce Solutions says, "By 2010, more than 25 percent of the U.S. population will be 55 or older... many opportunities (for employment) are available by gaining competitive job skills through community service employment."

To date, the program has benefited more than 100,000 seniors, and 75 percent of them are in rural areas like Jasper.

Information about the SCSEP ExperienceWorks program is available at www.eperienceworks.org, or leave a message for Smith at 936 566-4797.