Clark County Community Services: Providing Empowerment & Progress

Employment and sta­bil­i­ty is the goal for folks who are expe­ri­enc­ing or recov­er­ing from any num­ber of life’s set­backs, but so much more goes into estab­lish­ing this employ­ment and sta­bil­i­ty than we typ­i­cal­ly think of. 

For a per­son in recov­ery, for exam­ple, or some­one who has recent­ly been released from incar­cer­a­tion, or an indi­vid­ual expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness, their “start” is often well below what we think of as a giv­en. Things we may take for grant­ed are dif­fi­cult to access, from inter­view cloth­ing and skills, to trans­porta­tion, and even the base­line of per­son­al hygiene and access to cleanliness. 

Clark County Community Services is a deeply local­ly inte­grat­ed orga­ni­za­tion that for almost 50 years has pro­vid­ed such assis­tance as: food, util­i­ty and hous­ing assis­tance, cloth­ing and trans­porta­tion vouch­ers, unhoused kits, and run­ning an entire sec­ond-hand store, the pro­ceeds for which goes back into those services. 

(On a per­son­al note, this is my favorite way to con­tribute to their mission—donating used items and buy­ing second-hand!) 

This fall, CCCS has been steadi­ly intro­duc­ing new and excit­ing pro­grams, in pur­suit of their mis­sion of see­ing “the results of seeds plant­ed long ago: a client gain­ing sta­bil­i­ty, a fam­i­ly find­ing hope, a com­mu­ni­ty com­ing togeth­er to sup­port its neigh­bors . . . a tes­ta­ment to a com­mu­ni­ty that cares deeply for one anoth­er” (Laci Scarboro, CCCS Executive Director). 

The newest of these pro­grams links the work CCCS is already doing to the cru­cial steps toward employ­ment and sta­bil­i­ty that will help fam­i­lies, folks in cri­sis, and folks in recov­ery find just that. The CCCS Empowerment Project is meant to pro­vide bar­ri­er-break­ing ser­vices to low-income adults, indi­vid­u­als in cri­sis, and those in recov­ery or tran­si­tion, includ­ing hygiene & per­son­al care items, pro­fes­sion­al work attire assis­tance, trans­porta­tion sup­port for inter­views, bud­get­ing and finan­cial lit­er­a­cy class­es, and job readi­ness and employ­a­bil­i­ty skills training.

In part­ner­ship with oth­er com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions like the UK Extension Office, The CCCS Empowerment Project will be free of charge to par­tic­i­pants. Participants can apply by them­selves or be referred to by agen­cies and orga­ni­za­tions. The appli­ca­tion process includes an appli­ca­tion, of course, and a min­i­mum 500-word per­son­al let­ter from the applicant. 

“Our mis­sion is to empow­er indi­vid­u­als with both the tools and con­fi­dence they need to over­come bar­ri­ers and suc­ceed in the work­force,” Laci Scarboro, CCCS Executive Director writes. “By refer­ring clients, you play a vital role in con­nect­ing them to resources that can gen­uine­ly change their future.” 

For more infor­ma­tion, ques­tions, or refer­ral sub­mis­sions, use the appli­ca­tion (link below) or con­tact Savannah Anderson at savannahanderson@cccs1975.org.

CCCS Community Development Program Application