Rhode Island Genesis Center receives $413K from LISC

THE GENESIS CENTER has received a $412,575 grant to develop a new job and life skills training program from the Social Innovation Fund.
THE GENESIS CENTER has received a $412,575 grant to develop a new job and life skills training program from the Social Innovation Fund.

PROVIDENCE – The Genesis Center has received a $412,575 grant for the new Bridges to Career Opportunities program from the Local Initiatives Support Corp., part of $11.3 million grant that LISC received nationally from the Social Innovation Fund.
The grant money will be used to build up the BOC program within the state, according to a news release from LISC’s Rhode Island office. The money will be given over the next three years beginning Feb. 1. According to Shannon Carroll, president and CEO of the Genesis Center, all of the money received from LISC RI will be “going directly to workforce development.”
The BOC program’s goal is to offer guidance and help for people who are currently looking for employment, but may lack some of the resources and knowledge required to do so. Much of what is taught is done through the context of the vocations these people are training for. Basic reading, writing and number skills are taught through the lens of their potential job alongside their learning of the trade. The program also offers financial coaching to help people learn how to budget their money and manage their personal finances.
“We use contextualization, basic skills in context of vocational training, as well as financial coaching to start their financial planning,” Carroll said.
Part of the BOC program also connects with employers in the area. As a result, places like the Genesis Center tailor the training to the needs of their connected employers, allowing both the employers and potential employees to benefit from the program’s initiatives.
“We’re working directly with employers, such as health care and culinary arts,” Caroll said. “We cater vocational training to fill their needs.”
LISC is a national organization that works toward helping struggling communities find their way to becoming healthy communities for people to work and live in.
In a news release Friday, LISC RI said it had invested almost $300 million into neighborhoods since its establishment in 1991. Jeanne Cola, the executive director of the LISC Rhode Island office, recognizes that many people in Rhode Island work hard to support themselves and their families, but there is still a gap between those workers and the jobs they are reaching for.

“They have fallen through the cracks and aren’t able to read, write or manage numbers well enough to move up the economic ladder,” Cola said in a news release. “This program is proving that we can do something about that.”

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