Bonita is the friendly face who greets you in the lobby (or will be once it is safe to open our doors again). She joined Integrity as a receptionist and a member of the intake team. Bonita is actually an alumna of Integrity’s job training programs after being referred to Integrity by AARP. She was so impressed by Integrity’s ability to train people and have them placed in jobs, that she wanted to stay with the organization. “Helping people to find jobs, especially those who may have had a criminal background, I was really impressed with that. And I just see it as a way of paying it forward.”
Before working at Integrity, Bonita worked in a few different industries, including working as a substitute teacher and doing literacy tutoring with underperforming students for Atlanta Public Schools.
Helping people, and in turn, the community, is what Bonita looks forward to most in working for Integrity. “When you touch one individual, you’re touching that person’s family, you’re touching that neighborhood and it’s like a domino effect. Us being in this pandemic, knowing that we’re all in this together and knowing that I’m doing something to help someone is what I look forward to every day.”
Along with Bonita, Integrity is also welcoming Roderick, our new job developer. As job developer, Roderick matches clients with job opportunities based on their skills and past work experience.
Roderick comes to Integrity building on his past experience with the City of Atlanta’s Workforce Development Agency, an organization with a workforce development mission similar to that of Integrity. Roderick also has experience training people for the workforce through working with California Congresswoman Maxine Waters on Project Build. This project focused on training people in various skills such as fiber optics training, nursing, and forklift operation. “It was an incredible experience, working with her, because I never expected that to happen.”
Roderick’s favorite thing about working at Integrity is getting people employed, especially during a time when job numbers are going down due to the pandemic. He looks forward to getting even more people placed once things return to normal after the COVID pandemic. “My favorite thing is to get people jobs, because that is so important in the community. Getting a person a job is really what gets me going.”