波士顿非营利组织帮助无家可归的年轻人开始职业生涯

2020年3月, 正当Breaktime Café——一个雄心勃勃的计划，旨在培训和雇佣波士顿无家可归的年轻人的餐厅——开始工作时，疫情使建筑突然停止.

这种破坏可能会扼杀共同创始人康纳·舍恩和托尼·舒的梦想, who were Harvard University undergraduates at the time. Instead, it led to innovation.

While the country went on lockdown, Breaktime pivoted into a connection-based nonprofit, 将没有住房的年轻人与波士顿地区需要员工的非营利组织和小企业匹配起来. It accelerated quickly, 创造了60多个过渡就业机会，为大波士顿地区成千上万的人服务.

"If we were just running our own café, it would have employed 10 to 15 young adults experiencing homelessness,”Schoen说. "We're creating 10 to 15 jobs every single month right now, instead of every single year or every single café."

在这个过程中, Breaktime的员工在完成为期三个月的项目时，不仅能得到薪水.

"From the time I walked into Breaktime to now, I've seen so much growth in myself, 我的信心, my ambition and drive to make an impact in the community,Vickie Lahai说, 一名在波士顿社区发展行动食品分发处工作的休息十大电子游戏平台员工. "It's definitely been a game-changer."

拉海今年21岁，失业后住在一家青年收容所，一名案例经理帮她联系上了Breaktime. It didn't take long for her to see the program's potential.

她说:“我从来没有带着这么大的热情和兴奋离开过一栋大楼。. “当我告诉你它的影响——员工们如何支持我和我的同事——以及我能够和他们一起学习和成长, to see different types of leadership styles. I even saw some things about me that I never knew."

About 580,000 people in the U.S. experienced homelessness on a given night in 2020, 包括34,000 "unaccompanied youth" under age 25, 根据 Department of Housing and Urban Development.

住房不稳定，包括无家可归，与心血管问题有关 2020年的报告 from the American Heart Association. 尤其面临风险的是那些由于历史上缺乏投资和其他系统性问题而无法获得或负担得起高质量住房的社区居民.

通过创造稳定的工作岗位，Breaktime帮助消除了确保高质量住房的一个关键障碍.

对于Lahai, 她的工作涉及食品分发处的各个方面:客户接收和跟踪, 记录提供的服务，每周为大约100至150人准备袋装食品, each of them "packed with love and support and positive vibes as well."

“我获得了更多的生活技能和对一个人的发展很重要的东西，我认为你不可能整天坐在教室里学到这些,”她说. "I'm able to get hands-on. 我在社区里，能够与人们联系，做出改变."

因为“休息十大电子游戏平台”给了员工发言权，并定期让他们参加组织会议, Lahai说, she and her colleagues are growing personally and professionally. 随着Breaktime的员工会议越来越多——在视频会议期间，屏幕上充斥着多得多的面孔——Schoen有意地保持着对包容性的关注.

"When we started this organization, a lot of my friends said to me, 'What's it like not having a boss?实际上，我的老板数不清，因为每个通过我们项目的人, every single associate – and once they become alumni, too – every single one of those people is someone I'm reporting to,”Schoen说, who recently took part in the American Heart Association's Empowered to Serve Business Accelerator. 这是一个领导力培训和赠款项目，帮助社会企业家和组织解决其社区的卫生不平等现象.

“我们真的很专注于确保每个人的观点都参与进来, that everyone feels uplifted and empowered to share their ideas,”他说.

That spirit of collaboration isn't just internal. Breaktime与波士顿市和马萨诸塞州的立法者合作，为无家可归的年轻人提供更多的就业机会. In 2020, it partnered with 30 meal sites to serve food.

"We've seen the magic that collaboration can do,”Schoen说. “我们都有点像在自己的泡泡里，过着日复一日的生活，只是想做自己的工作. But when we look outside of our own lives, our own organizations, 我们自己的块, we can really figure out more creative ways to come together.

“我们可以一起努力，释放潜能，做我们个人永远做不到的事情."

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