Help Connect

April, 2019 activity report for Help Connects support of the Salvation Army’s Atlanta shelter.

Tony and I supported the Salvation Army for all four weeks in April. Mike T. pitched in and helped one week. During March we had to shut down the lab one day because of a lack of coverage. For the first session on each day we had more people than operational PCs (12). During the second session we averaged 10 people. We understand that new replacement PCs are on the way to the center. We would then be back up to our full allotment of 16 PCs.

In addition to repairing the Lab’s PCs and upgrading their software (installing Malware) we also rearranged the cubicles in the lab. The rearrangement was necessary because new tile was installed. You may recall the condition of the old carpet in the lab.

As new people (red dots) enter the lab, we insist that they have working email accounts. We set up, or recovered 12 accounts during April. Also, everyone must be able to use the Internet to search. This translates into searching for companies, jobs, apartments, etc.

We also helped enhance 8 resumes and uploaded them to selective job sites. We helped numerous veterans locate their military or health information.

The Salvation Army has reported that at least 150 individuals that passed through the lab were helped during 2018. By “helped” they mean that their financial outlook was greatly improved.

Comments are always welcome,

Tom

Help Connect support activity, April 5 & 12 in support of the homeless at the Salvation Army shelter.

On April 5 I was supported by three new potential volunteers, Kirk, Sazid and David.

We had no internet service for both classes, Comcast had the line to the lab turned down. In spite of this, we still had students working on the PCs. Kirk helped tried to isolate the internet issues before we found our a line to the lab was down. David worked with a student planning out his resume Sazid worked with Jerry on converting his PDF resume to Word. I had sent him a text copy of his resume last week that I had converted to text. Sazid helped enhance his resume.

All in all it was a very productive session. All the potential volunteers received badges and indicated they wished to join our group. They were given access to our master schedule along with additional information on our, and the Salvation Army’s operation.

On April 12, Kirk and I arrived at the Salvation Army and found that the internet was down again, so we cut our classes short by 30 minutes. We will call Kristi, the Administrator, before traveling down again. We were able to help a few clients with resumes. Kirk took it upon himself to type and enhance a two page letter that a disabled (PTSD and more) Vietnam veteran wished to send to the VA to request additional benefits. He was very appreciate. I helped a lady set up her newly purchased portable PC in the cafeteria. Since she is part of our group I suggested that she hook her PC up to the spare ethernet position in our Lab.

In order to help our new volunteers with their job search I suggest that they Link-in with the people copied on this email. I would request that all Help Connect supporters help the new people with their job search.