Outreach – Center for Community Resources Children’s Career Fair and Professions for Parents

Outreach – Center for Community Resources will host its fourth annual Children’s Career Fair at Outreach, 431 North 7th Avenue, Scranton, on Saturday, August 17, 2024, from 10 AM to 1 PM.

This exciting Children’s Career Fair will ignite young minds and offer opportunities for kids of all ages to explore various career options and discover their passions in a fun and interactive environment.

Children and parents will have the opportunity to explore over 30 careers through fun and interactive activities. Several local companies will also be offering information on current employment opportunities within their companies. The Outreach Children’s Career Fair is free and open to all families with children interested in interacting with businesses and exploring future career possibilities!

It’s never too early for children to think about their future careers! Last year’s event featured hands-on activities like fishing for recyclables, creating their own house floorplan, bubble blowing, creating a mural with the Outreach staff, seeing emergency vehicles up close, and so much more! 

We aim to spark curiosity, stimulate creativity, and broaden horizons as children engage with professionals from various industries.

Event Highlights:

Diverse Career Booths: Children will have the opportunity to visit exciting career booths representing professions like science, technology, arts, healthcare, engineering, and more. Volunteers from each industry will be on hand to share their experiences, answer questions, and demonstrate exciting aspects of their professions.

Hands-on Activities: The event will feature numerous interactive activities that allow children to explore different careers. Each activity will be educational and entertaining, from creating art masterpieces to conducting simple science experiments.

Back-to-School Supplies and Haircuts: To add to the excitement, back-to-school haircuts and back-to-school supplies will be available. Career materials will also be available to promote learning and creativity.

“We believe that every child deserves the opportunity to dream big and aspire to greatness,” said Lori Chaffers, Executive Director, Outreach. “The Children’s Career Fair is a perfect platform for children to explore various professions, ignite their imaginations, and gain valuable insights into different career options. By exposing them to diverse possibilities, we hope to motivate and prepare them for a bright future.”

We are grateful to all the volunteers, partners, and sponsors whose support has made this event possible.

Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to inspire the future leaders of tomorrow! Parents and caregivers are encouraged to attend with their children and participate in the activities together.

For more information, please call Liz Ratchford at the office: (570)558-7562 or cell: (570)954-6755

Outreach – Center for Community Resources to Host Ribbon Cutting

Outreach – Center for Community Resources will host a ribbon cutting for its new Young Adult Center (YAC) on Thursday, July 11, 2024, from 10 AM – 1 PM. The ribbon cutting will take place at 11 AM. The YAC is located on the lower level of the Outreach Seventh Avenue Center, 431 North 7th Avenue, Scranton, PA, 18503. 

Outreach is excited to celebrate the opening of the YAC. The YAC is a newly renovated space at the Seventh Avenue Center and has been serving young people ages (14-24) since January. Programs include youth services to help young people transition into adulthood. Many of the young people served by the Center have had previous involvement in the justice system, are aging out of the foster care system, have withdrawn from high school, or need an extra support system due to family circumstances. 

The Center is staffed with a Youth Services Manager and three full-time Independent Living Case Managers. The YAC works closely with other Outreach team members to provide full wraparound services, including GED tutoring, workforce development training, life skills, and parenting classes. When needed, Outreach refers to outside agencies for additional services. 

Outreach – Center for Community Resources offers a variety of programs, with respect for the individual and with the highest professional standards, that promote family stability and economic self-sufficiency. For over 35 years, Outreach has served residents of Northeastern Pennsylvania with evidence-based programming, including home-visiting programs Parents as Teachers®, SafeCare® Augmented, Parent/Child Play & Learn Groups, the Incredible Years® parent training program, family reunification, supervised visitation, prison reentry, life skills programming, GED, and workforce development services. Outreach was privileged to serve nearly 5,000 individuals across the region last year. 

For more information, please visit www.outreachworks.org Upcoming Events. 

Outreach Center Receives Robert H. Spitz Foundation Grant

Outreach’s programs and services awarded $15,000 for The Robert H. Spitz Foundation grant to support Outreach’s programs and services to the regional community. Outreach Center for Community Resources delivers a variety of programs to promote family stability and economic self-sufficiency. Outreach improves the lives of over 4,900 adults and children each year, and evidence-based family development programs support individuals as they navigate life’s challenges.

For over 35 years, Outreach has made helping families thrive our highest priority. Outreach builds strong families and communities by offering resources for employment training, parenting, early childhood education, youth mentoring, community reentry, adult GED services, wrap-around case management, and more. Outreach is very grateful to the Robert H. Spitz Foundation for its continued support. This funding has helped Outreach advance its mission of assisting families in our region.

The Robert H. Spitz Foundation awards grants to nonprofit organizations, providing support for programs that aim to break the cycle of poverty, remove economic barriers, and encourage independence in adults and children through access to safe, affordable housing, transportation, and education to Northeastern Pennsylvania. Robert H. Spitz was born in Scranton and was a 1955 graduate of Scranton Central High School and the University of Miami, Florida. Before retirement, Mr. Spitz had been employed by the U.S. Department of Labor and owned several local Arby’s restaurants. Since 2015, the Robert H. Spitz Foundation has provided over $4.6 million in funding to the community. The Scranton Area Community Foundation serves as the administrator of the Robert H. Spitz Foundation.

Outreach- Center for Community Resources Receives Community Needs Grant

Outreach – Center for Community Resources received a grant for $12,000 from the Scranton Area Community Foundation in June of this year for Outreach Evidence-based Early Childhood Education as part of the 2023 Spring Community Needs Grant Cycle.

Outreach offers evidence-based home visiting programs for parents and their children. The early childhood education programs focus on child development and school readiness for families with children prenatal to age 3. Services focus on positive parent-child interactions, school readiness, and overall family well-being. Outreach Family Development Specialists visit the homes of the parents and their children weekly. The Outreach home visitors and parents plan ways to help the child learn using parent-child interactions, daily routines, and household materials.

Outreach child-serving programs aim to improve school readiness through high-quality activities that enhance cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. Outreach parenting programs allow parents to gain the skills to implement positive parenting techniques that result in improved behavioral outcomes for their children and connect them to a social network of other parents.

Outreach is very grateful to the Scranton Area Community Foundation for its continued support of the family-serving programs we provide for the regional community. This funding has helped Outreach advance its mission to assist families in achieving stability and economic self-sufficiency.

The Scranton Area Community Foundation has been serving the Northeastern Pennsylvania region for over 65 years as a steward, a grant-maker, a charitable resource, and a catalyst for change and growth. The Scranton Area Community Foundation was established as a community trust in 1954 by the Scranton Family, whose initial gift was the seed that has grown into a permanent vehicle for donors to accomplish their philanthropic goals while helping to support positive change within our community. Today the Scranton Area Community Foundation holds and manages a variety of funds from individuals, organizations, and corporations. Through these gifts, the Foundation responds to community needs and has provided grants to support regional nonprofits.

Outreach- Center for Community Resources Receives Donations from Local Donors

Outreach – Center for Community Resources received a generous donation of toys from local donors, including Holy Cross High School, Johnson College, the Kiwanis Club of Scranton, Covenant Presbyterian Church Women’s Group, and Bret and Sarah Naugle. The donated toys will allow Outreach families to pick out gifts to give to their children on Christmas morning as part of Outreach’s annual Toyland Workshop.

Outreach supports families experiencing adverse life events. For many of these families, the additional costs of the holiday season can be burdensome. Outreach seeks to alleviate some of this stress with help from local organizations and donors.

Each year, Outreach’s Toyland Workshop provides families with much-needed support during the holiday season and a little Christmas magic. Outreach families are welcome to “shop” the workshop, which provides every child with a toy, a book, and a warm pair of pajamas. Donated toys and pajamas are categorized by age and size, allowing caregivers to select the perfect present for their child. Additionally, caregivers are provided with a grocery gift card to assist with purchasing food for a holiday meal.

Outreach is grateful to the many individuals, families, and organizations who purchased toys or pajamas for local children. This event would not be possible without the generosity of others in the community. Through this generosity, the Northeastern Pennsylvania community has helped advance Outreach’s mission of family stability and economic self-sufficiency.

For over 35 years, Outreach has made helping families thrive our highest priority. Outreach builds strong families and communities by offering resources for employment training, parenting, early childhood education, youth mentoring, community reentry, adult GED services,  wrap-around case management, and more. Outreach improves the lives of nearly 5,000 adults and children annually with evidence-based workforce and family development programs that support individuals as they navigate life’s challenges.

Outreach – Center for Community Resources to Host the 2023 Mighty Oak Awards

As Outreach – Center for Community Resources celebrates 35 years, Outreach invites the community to join in the celebration at the 2023 Mighty Oak Awards on October 5, 2023, from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM at the Glenmaura National Golf Club in Moosic, PA. This year’s Mighty Oak Awardee is Dr. Ruth A. Connolly, and Kate Holod and Bill Burnell will be honored with the Beth Beh Community Spirit Award.

The Mighty Oak Awards honor those in Northeastern Pennsylvania who are pillars for their leadership and contributions to the community.

The 2023 Mighty Oak honoree is Dr. Ruth A. Connolly, former Development Director of Outreach. Dr. Connolly has spent over 50 years serving the community through her early childhood, middle school, and high school education work. She served as Outreach, then known as the Economic Opportunity Training Center of NEPA, as the Development Director, where she was instrumental in fundraising for the renovation of the Seventh Avenue Center. Outreach is still located at the Seventh Avenue Center today in Scranton. Most recently, she is the Director of the North Pocono Dry Good Pantry.

The Beth Beh Community Spirit Honorees for 2023 are:

Ms. Kate Holod is a member of the Outreach Board and Fundraising Committee. Ms. Holod has served as an Outreach Board member since 2006. Before retiring, she worked 35 years in state government, including 15 years as Director of the Bureau of Child Care with the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. She is very active in the community. She recently was named President of the Board of the Kiwanis Club of Scranton and actively volunteers at many of the Kiwanis’ local initiatives.

Mr. Bill Burnell is a longtime volunteer GED instructor for Outreach. Prior to retiring, he worked in commercial insurance for over 50 years and owned his own agency for nearly 20. Since retiring, he has become a very active volunteer in the community. For over 35 years, he has been a member of the Arc of NEPA Board and is the current Board President. He has a great love of the American Civil War era and actively participates in the Civil War Roundtable as a hobby.

In 2022, Outreach began awarding the Beth Beh Community Spirit Award. This award recognizes and honors an individual or group with a long-standing devotion to community service through education, volunteer work, and citizen connections. Beth Beh was the original founder of the Women’s Employment Program (WEP) in 1986, the flagship program of the Employment Opportunity Training Center (EOTC), now Outreach. She devoted her life to developing and expanding community services that focused on single mothers and children in the region and provided mentorship to childcare professionals.

The Mighty Oak Awards will include cocktails, hor d’oeuvres, live music, and basket raffles. Participant stories will set the stage for the awards event. Individual tickets can be purchased by visiting the Outreach website at outreachworks.org.

Outreach Center for Community Resources delivers family educational and workforce development services and programs to the regional community to promote family stability and economic self-sufficiency. Outreach provides evidence-based early childhood programs that help families and children gain the skills to be healthy and productive community members. Outreach programs support families experiencing adverse life events, including economically disadvantaged families, individuals seeking services that are involved in the Women’s and Veterans Treatment Court System, residents at the Lackawanna County Prison, and justice-involved juveniles. Outreach improves the lives of over 4,500 adults and children annually with evidence-based family development, early childhood education, adult GED services, and workforce programs that support them as they navigate life’s challenges.

Outreach Center Gains Support from Robert H. Spitz Grant

The Robert H. Spitz Foundation awarded a $20,000 grant to support Outreach’s programs and services to the regional community. Outreach Center for Community Resources delivers a variety of programs to promote family stability and economic self-sufficiency Outreach improves the lives of over 4,500 adults and children each year with evidence-based family development programs supporting individuals as they navigate life’s challenges.

This Robert H. Spitz Foundation 2022 grant supports Outreach family-serving programs and services that are being provided at the Center on Seventh Avenue, virtually, and through home visiting child-serving programs. The Robert H. Spitz Foundation provides operational support for Outreach to respond to the increased need being experienced in the community for early childhood education, workforce development, adult education, and family services.

The Robert H. Spitz Foundation supports initiatives and programs serving the residents of Lackawanna County and Northeastern Pennsylvania. Robert H. Spitz was born in Scranton and was a 1955 graduate of Scranton Central High School and the University of Miami, Florida. Before retirement, Mr. Spitz had been employed by the U.S. Department of Labor and was also the owner of several local Arby’s restaurants. Since 2015, the Robert H. Spitz Foundation has provided over $4.6 million in funding to the community. The Scranton Area Community Foundation serves as the administrator of the Robert H. Spitz Foundation.

In photo (left to right): Brittany Pagnotti, MBA, CFRE, Donor Relations and Communications, Scranton Area Community Foundation; Angela Seibert, Outreach – Center for Community Resources, Child and Family Programs Director, Cathy Fitzpatrick, Grants & Scholarship Manager, and Frank Caputo, Grants & Communications Coordinator, Scranton Area Community Foundation.