WBZ Cares: Boston Non-Profit Offers Courses in Personal Finance and Technology for Veterans
BOSTON (CBS) - The WBZ Cares Campaign continues for the month of November. Each month, WBZ NewsRadio 1030 highlights a worthy non-profit organization and tells the story of what it does for the community.
For the month of November, WBZ profiles "New England Center & Home For Veterans," a national leader in housing and serving veterans who are at risk of homelessness.
The Boston-based group offers services throughout the region, supporting and connecting veterans with innovative services that enable success, meaningful employment, and dignified independent living.
One of the ways the Center helps veterans achieve independent living is by giving them the tools they need to find meaningful employment. That is where the work training school comes in, offering classes and course work in a number of career fields.
"One of the things we offer is a professional protection officer training. We are also focusing on customer service, business communications courses," said Damien Rudzinski, the NECHV' s on-site Veterans Training school's director.
Rudzinski says that they also provide veterans with basic computer courses.
"[It's]designed to get people up to speed with using technology, and that is incredible important because you are going to face technology pretty much everywhere you go now."
Veterans can also learn about managing their money with courses on personal finance, budgeting and how to check your credit score.
When they enter the training school, Rudzinski says students must sign a contract of sorts to keep them accountable.
"Defining a student agreement, where veterans will come in and they will have a scoring system so they will know where they stand in relation to the course work and also around employment. For example, dependability is huge, we all know that, and so one of the metrics we are going to be really clearly capturing is just that. We can have rich conversations with the veterans about how they are performing."
Tobi Makinde, an Iraq War Veteran, is one of the school's success stories. He landed a full-time job after going through the training program and that allowed him to also pursue his passion for photography.
"I work security at Prudential. Outside of that, I have a studio, a photo studio, in Roxbury."
Makinde says his instructor in the training program gave him a whole new perspective on life.
"He showed me that, you are down on your luck, and it's not a bad thing to ask for help. Once I figured that out, everything else became easy."
It is success stories like Makinde's that make it all worthwhile for Rudzinski and his staff.
"A person that's dedicated themselves to support all of us, deserves our support in return," he said.
If you'd like to know more about NECHV, volunteer or wish to make a donation, visit their website www.nechv.org
