THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995 TAG: 9503170012
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
Two underemployed black women on the Eastern Shore demonstrated recently the power of a few to do good for many.
One of them, Alice Coles, picks crabs two days a week for a local seafood distributor. The other, Cozzie Lockwood, works two hours a day as a home health aide.
What they needed, and what they knew hundreds of other Eastern Shore residents needed, were good jobs. Common sense told the two women to bring employers and potential employees together at a jobs fair.
They joined with the Rev. Anthony Ruffin and Wanda Reverend to put one on. Of the 15 large employers they called, 10 showed up, offering more than 100 jobs - about 85 of them full-time with benefits, paying minimum wage to $9 an hour. As staff writer Karen Jolly Davis reported, ``That's a step up for people who do seasonal work on farms or in seafood packing plants.''
Flyers for the fair were distributed, and it was promoted on a talk show on local radio station WESR.
Earlier in the week, Coles and the others held a workshop to teach nervous job seekers how to present themselves. ``They don't know the procedure,'' said Coles of her neighbors. ``They go on the job sagging; they weren't presentable.''
Perhaps 300 people attended the jobs fair in Cheapside, near the Eastern Shore's southern tip. Many of them had believed there were no job openings in the area, Lockwood said.
The jobs fair was another example of what people can accomplish when they don't wait for something to be done for them - even when they attempt tasks they know little about. It takes nerve for people without full-time jobs and special training to set out to find employment for not only themselves but their neighbors. Coles and Lockwood found that nerve.
We should never underestimate what people can do once they begin to believe they are in control of their own destinies.
At the fair, job interviews were set up, and if life's fair, Coles and Lockwood will be among those hired. by CNB