Employment becomes Job 1 for local nonprofits

When Mark Wermuth first went to the nonprofit Community Food & Outreach Center in Orlando, he was homeless, on food stamps and just starting a 12-step program for alcoholism.

A little more than a year later, the 55-year-old is sober, renting an apartment and working as an information-services technician at the Community Food & Outreach Center. There, he found a paycheck and a purpose.

"When they hired me," he says, "I realized I no longer felt hopeless."

The outreach center, like a growing number of Central Florida charities, has discovered that of all the services it provides emergency assistance, subsidized groceries, a clothing bank, help in applying for government aid nothing has the transformative power of a job.

"It gives them hope and self-esteem and motivation to move forward," says founder Scott George, a pastor. "We've moved from helping with job searches and skills classes to partnering with a food-service company that hires some of our clients. And we're always looking for people who are a good fit here on our own campus."

Pushed in part by the dearth of jobs during the Great Recession, nonprofits have turned to their own version of welfare to work. They are hiring from the pool of people who come to them for help, launching job partnerships with for-profit companies and even creating their own business ventures, staffed with clientele.

The Mustard Seed of Central Florida, for instance, started a mattress-recycling business in 2010 to raise money for its furniture and clothing bank. This year, the charity expects to deconstruct 20,000 mattresses and box springs, selling the various materials to generate $156,000 in profit a quarter of its revenue and providing jobs to people living near the poverty line.

"We hire those that have what we like to call 'undesirable credentials in the corporate world,'" says Executive Director Kathy Baldwin. "They may have something like a misdemeanor drug arrest that can stop them from getting a job."

The charity doesn't hire anyone with convictions for theft or violent crimes, and workers have to show up on time and meet productivity quotas. But the experience can be enough to propel them into a better-paying position elsewhere. All they needed, Baldwin says, was that initial opportunity.

The alternative is staying dependent on others.

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Employment becomes Job 1 for local nonprofits