Today, as we celebrate the veterans who have fought and died for our country, Inspiration Corporation is proud to announce a new program to support veterans with employment and workforce development training.
Thanks to a new grant from The Boeing Company, Inspiration Corporation is starting a pilot program which will specifically reach out to veterans to enroll in one of two of our workforce development programs, Inspiration Kitchens or The Employment Project. The goal is to identify strategies to be used specifically in serving the particular needs of veterans.
With the growing number of returnees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are greater demands, but supportive services throughout the city have not kept up with that increase. For example, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 30% of all homeless people in Chicago are veterans. But, only 6% of current Inspiration Corporation participants are veterans, so we hope to bridge that gap with this new program. Outside of the traditional services supplied by Inspiration Kitchens and The Employment Project, this program will also allow us to test psychological self-sufficiency throughout the process, and determine which elements of our programs are most helpful. We plan to capitalize on the many referral partnerships with other social service organizations in the city to help provide the greatest scope of services for these brave men and women.
Certainly, this program will only be able to provide service and training for a limited number of veterans each year. But all of us at Inspiration Corporation hope that the success of this program will allow us to grow and expand this service for many years and inspire other organizations to do the same. We thank our veterans for the sacrifices they’ve made for our country, and hope this program provides a bit of relief in return.