Participant Success – Volunteer 

- Program Objective -

The “55+ Age Advantage” program helps Older Workers, aged 55+, who are looking for assistance with addressing challenges re-entering and remaining in the workforce.

- Training Plan Development -

Participant entered the program looking for part-time work. Their area of expertise is the ability to make strong community connections and support the fundraising needs of the organization they worked for before.  After some conversation with the participant and after recognizing their amazing drive to connect with people and the vast network of connections they have, the Employment Specialist (ES) suggested that they should investigate about the self-employment program through Community futures as this would allow them to develop the skills and business plan to market themselves as an independent contractor who set up and runs fundraising event (which was one of their passions).  This was not an avenue the participant had thought of before and was quite excited to investigate this.  Participant entered the Community futures self-employment program but opted to leave the program after couple of months because of all their volunteer work that they were still actively pursuing, they decided that the program was not a good fit for them.  The ES had a conversation with the participant around what both their needs and wants were in terms of a paid job in the future. They said that they are ok financially and could manage to live comfortably at this point if they did not work for pay again. The volunteer work was keeping them busy and connected to the community.

- Results -

Participant loves their volunteer work and knows that there are many more opportunities coming up soon that would keep them very busy and felt that the volunteer work met all the requirements they were looking for and needed in their life now. 

Participant remains thankful for all the support they received during their time in the Age Advantage program as they made the transition from the paid workforce into a more volunteer role in the community.