Recap: Storytelling and Workshops
As most of you know, we started a new partnership this year with Back Fence PDX. B. Frayn Masters, Mindy Nettifee, and Liz Olufson saw the importance of tradeswomen’s stories and jumped right into creating a storytelling event for OTI! Most folks don’t think twice about how much work an event involves from planning to recruiting to donations and every other little detail. The dedicated staff at Back Fence were there for us, every single step of the way, it was the type of partnership a non-profit dreams about.
This fabulous partnership led to the development of an exciting, appealing event. Demand from the community was even higher than we had expected, Back Fence and OTI fielded dozens of calls from people trying to get tickets at the last minute. We wish that every single person could have joined us, and that is why we hope to replicate this event next year. If you missed the event, you can watch videos from each of the story tellers online:
Sarah Heidler
Laurie Suchan
Jen Netherwood
Bea Jenkins
Of course, the event would not have been such a success without the support of the tradeswomen who took a big risk to get on stage. We are so thankful to Sarah Heidler, Jen Netherwood, Laurie Suchan, Jodi Tillinghast, and Bea Jenkins. Hopefully, some of you are considering telling a story next year!
Friday night was a fun way to bond before we launched into the workshops for the Tradeswomen Leadership Institute. Tradeswomen volunteers, staff from AFSCME, the AFLCIO, and from LERC taught eight workshops for 47 women in attendance. We kicked off the morning with a tour of Benson High School focused on their trades and manufacturing training. Did you know that approximately every two years, the students at Benson design and build a house from the ground up?
Marilee McCall inspired us all with her keynote address. She opened her life to us and shared her path to becoming Mayor Pro-Tem in Woodland, Washington. Marilee was heartfelt in telling her personal journey. Now, she faces challenges regularly for being a woman in leadership but it doesn’t slow her down and she revealed her own secret for dealing with Naysayers. Thanks to Marilee (and Bea for the connection) for showing us one path to leadership.
None of this would have even been possible if it weren’t for the amazing women on our planning committee: Anjeanette Brown, Maddie Ettlin, Irais Gandarilla, Sarah Heidler, Kadence Jimenez, Bea Jenkins, Leigh Jenkins, and Jodi Tillinghast.
Thank you all so much and we look forward to an even more amazing Tradeswomen Leadership Institute in 2016!
An Update from OTI Graduate Sabryna Chase
OTI received this wonderful photo and update from our amazing graduate, Sabryna Chase on the job at Gliss:
“This is me in the bottom of a giant, empty grain barge, repairing/replacing augurs (the giant corkscrew to my right…they move the grain). The picture is cloudy because of the grain dust all over my lens. 😉
I am holding a pipe wrench we use to turn those big bad boy augurs to access the nuts and bolts. Fun work! I don’t know why I love It but I do! :-)”
Way to go, Sabryna!!
Out and About: Alpha Delta Kappa
(L to R) Shondra, Dennise and Thea
Recently, Dennise M. Kowalczyk (OTI’s development director) and Shondra Washington (a Trades and Apprenticeship Class graduate and tradeswoman) were asked to speak at the Alpha Delta Kappa Founder’s Day celebration.
The luncheon included an overview of the history of the group’s beginnings to provide a space for educators to gather and build a sisterhood of support. Alpha Delta Kappa is an international honorary organization of women educators dedicated to educational excellence, altruism and world understanding.
OTI thanks chapter president, Thea Hayes, for the invitation to speak and the entire chapter for their warm welcome!
Business Member Spotlight: TCB Industrial Corporation
Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. welcomes the support of the business community to help us fulfill our mission to engage more women and girls in the trades.
TCB Industrial Corporation is one of our partners in this program and we thank them for their contribution to OTI.
The companies mission is to service the environmental community by providing a highly trained, reliable, and flexible labor pool, as well as to provide quality OSHA training that meets the standards of 29 CFR 1910.120 for Hazardous Waste Operations. Contact them if you are in need of labor or 40hr Hazwoper training, or other training compliance.
TCB Industrial Corporation believes in providing, honest, hardworking, and professional technicians that can get the job done effectively and efficiently on time and budget no matter how big or small.
OTI thanks the staff of TCB Industrial Corporation for their support of our programming as a business membership program participant!
If you want to learn more about our business membership program, please send an email to dennise@tradeswomen.net for details on how you can be involved.
CONGRATULATIONS, JEN!
OTI is so proud of Jen Netherwood who was announced as the “2015 Irwin Trade Professional” by Irwin Tools for her dedication and inspiring work in the trades!
Jen has been working as a carpenter in the construction industry for more than 11 years. She worked for Neil Kelley as a high end residential re-modeler for many years before deciding that she wanted to become more involved in shaping the community.
Soon after leaving her carpentry career at Neil Kelly, Jen was hired as an instructor for a pre-apprenticeship program in a women’s correctional facility. The program was designed to provide women the training and skills needed to pursue a living wage career once they are released.The program lost funding, but Jen was committed to continuing the work to help these women flourish. She approached the Bureau of Labor and Industries and collaborated with a local community college to work on developing the pre-apprenticeship program for the prison that wasn’t reliant on corporate support. She did this on her own time, unpaid, and from a selfless place where her primary interest was only to continue to provide hope for the women she had worked with in prison.
She continues to volunteer at the correctional facility doing information presentations for groups of women and talking to inmates individually. Jen also works with OTI as an instructor for our Trades and Apprenticeship Career Class, imparting her knowledge and skills to OTI’s pre-apprenticeship students. Clearly, Jen is a teacher and mentor at heart.
Congratulations, again, Jen!
Business Member Spotlight: NW College of Construction
Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. welcomes the support of the business community to help us fulfill our mission to engage more women and girls in the trades.
NW College of Construction is one of our partners in this program and we thank them for their contribution to OTI.
The school is a privately funded, non-profit educational facility with a mission to promote life-long learning by delivering craft, technical, supervisory and management education to workers and managers at all levels in the construction industry.
OTI thanks the staff of NW College of Construction for their support of our programming as a business membership program participant!
If you want to learn more about our business membership program, please send an email to dennise@tradeswomen.net for details on how you can be involved.
Pacific Northwest Combined Federal Campaign
Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. is pleased to announce that we are one of the participating non-profits in the Pacific Northwest Combined Federal Campaign.
The Pacific Northwest Combined Federal Campaign is administered by a committee of federal employee volunteers called the Local Federal Coordinating Committee (LFCC). The Oregon Federal Executive Board provides support to and participates in this committee. The mission of the CFC is to promote and support philanthropy through a program that is employee focused, cost-efficient, and effective in providing all federal employees the opportunity to improve the quality of life for all.
The CFC is the only official workplace charitable fundraising program allowed in federal government offices. During a six-week time frame between Sept. 1st – Dec. 15th of each year, the local CFC is promoted and federal employees are given the opportunity to designate a payroll deduction, cash or check donation to any of thousands of charities locally and nationally.
Learn more by visiting the local CFC website to find out how you can support Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc.!
FOR THE HEALTH & SAFETY OF TRADESWOMEN
A Collaboration Between Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. and Therapeutic Associates East Portland Physical Therapy
Damage to the back, neck, and shoulders account for over 25% of all construction related injuries, significantly more than any other injuries experienced in the trades (Center for Protection of Workers’ Rights, 2010). Here at OTI, we strive to train women to successfully enter the construction trades with the hopes that they will have long, rewarding careers. In addition to providing classroom and hands-on training, we require students to participate in a fitness component that helps women strengthen their core muscles to prepare them for the physical demands that work in the trades requires. While fitness training is great, we also know that it is not enough to help women keep their number one tool, their bodies, safe from neck, shoulder, and back injuries that can be debilitating.
Enter Therapeutic Associates East Portland Physical Therapy! Early in 2015 the East Portland branch of Therapeutic Associates reached out to OTI with the offer of collaborating to help keep our tradeswomen safe and healthy. Clinic director Peter Dills, PT, DPT, staff therapist Sarah Stuhr, PT, DPT, FAAOMPT, and physical therapy aide Elizabeth Bilotta met with OTI staff and developed a workshop for our Trades and Apprenticeship Career Class (TACC) students that would help them become educated about workplace risk factors and injury prevention.
Peter, Sarah, and Elizabeth put on a four hour workshop on August 22, which included classroom education about risk, prevention, and what steps to take when a tradeswoman realizes she has been injured. In addition, they provided individualized training to 14 women, observing them lift and carry common objects found on construction sites, such as lumber, sheets of plywood, and table saws. The Therapeutic Associates East Portland Physical Therapy team observed TACC students’ lifting and carrying techniques, provided instruction on the mechanics of lifting/carrying and assisted them in beginning to develop safe habits to utilize on the job site. The workshop finished up with the practice of a daily stretching & foam roller recovery routines as well as instruction on techniques for self-managing minor injuries.
The class was a tremendous success. TACC students and recent graduates that attended reported that they were grateful to be receiving this training before they began to develop unsafe habits in the field. Peter, Sarah, and Elizabeth stated that they were impressed with how engaged our future tradeswomen were with both the classroom and hands-on training.
This important partnership is one that we are looking forward to continuing to build upon and fine tune for future classes and, potentially, for tradeswomen that have been in the field for a while but may not have had instruction in developing safe lifting/carrying habits. We are looking forward to another workshop for our October – December TACC students.
We are so excited to continue this work with the amazing staff at Therapeutic Associates East Portland Physical Therapy. Keeping our tradeswomen safe and healthy so they can have longevity in the field is of the utmost importance to us. So, from all of us here at OTI, a huge thank you to Peter, Sarah, and a special shout out to Elizabeth for initiating the conversation about a partnership between our organizations. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship!
Congratulations September 2015 TACC Graduates!
On September 3rd, I attended our Trade and Apprenticeship Career Class graduation celebration and once again, was blown away on so many levels. Seeing how the classmates connected with one another after a rather intense seven weeks translated into well wishes and gentle ribbing. It brought a few smiles to many faces to witness these exchanges. Listening to two of the graduates tell their stories about how their lives have changed in such positive ways during those rather intense seven weeks brought tears to my eyes. Witnessing their genuine love and appreciation for the Pathways to Success staff with words of gratitude warmed my heart another ten degrees.
This happens at each celebration. Four times a year, women enter our pre-apprenticeship program with dedication and intention to change the course of their lives. They leave ready to start a career as an electrician, a carpenter, a laborer or in another trade.
During last week’s celebration, the group gave a card to the program staff and in it were words of thanks and well wishes for all the staff. It also included a donation that the women pooled together to give back to OTI.
THANK YOU!
Well wishes and much success to Gabiela, Hannah, Darla, Jessica, Crystal, Sabryna, Monalisa, Ashley, Gecel, Tricia, Lynn, Amanda, Ash, Desiree, Terrica, Jamie, Letty, Alex, Cinsera, and Madyson!!!!
Dennise M. Kowalczyk, Development Director
U.S. Bank Foundation Grant Award
Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc. (OTI) is honored to have been selected as a recent grantee of the U.S. Bank Foundation in support of our Pathways to Success program.
This $1,500 grant will help fund Pathways to Success, OTI’s job training and employment program which fosters the economic self-sufficiency of low-income women by providing job training, support services, job placement and retention services for women entering high-wage trades careers. These grant funds will pay help for student support services (such as hard hats, rain gear, boots, and tools), student transportation (for field trips to apprenticeship training centers and construction job sites), and staff time of our employment services team.
U.S. Bank contributes to the strength and health of its communities through the U.S. Bank Foundation and Corporate Giving. Through the U.S. Bank Foundation, the Foundation provides cash contributions to nonprofit organizations in grant priority areas of education, economic opportunity, and artistic and cultural enrichment. In 2014, the U.S. Bank Foundation provided more than $23.5 million in grant funding.
Thank you again to the U.S. Bank Foundation for their ongoing support of our work to train and educate women about living-wage trades careers. Learn more about the U.S. Bank’s charitable giving by visiting their website at:
www.usbank.com/community/charitable-giving.