I was laid off as a director of operations for a medical warehouse.
And then my fiancee was telling me, hey, I'm doing this certificate in Skokie,
trying to see if I can get the grant.
Why don't we take a look at it?
One of the classes that stood out was the Oracle database, and I told myself, Hey,
I want to go in and do this because I did this in my previous job,
but without a certification.
So I can't really move it to a different company.
So I wanted to go ahead and do that.
So we both applied for the grant.
So one of the main factors is I have the income base Skokie residency
and the motivation to continue going into an education program.
I don't see them face to face or anything like that.
So it is a blinded election as well.
And a couple of weeks later I got the call saying I was accepted for it.
Like you said, life happens.
You know, if you need resources for Internet resources
for housing resources or health resources along with
child care necessities as well, because those are the main barriers of why
folks haven't been able to continue with their education programs.
There was a hotspot available, the library that I can get embarrassed that way.
I don't have to use my internet home.
They love telling me their success stories about their classes,
their grades and everything like that.
I think they love knowing that somebody is here that cares.
After four, five years at a company and then being laid off kind of
lowers your morale, saying, hey, do I want to go back out there and continue,
especially now?
They want they want people with experience.
They want people with education, people with certifications.
It's kind of hard to say, hey, take a chance on me
just because I've worked here for five years.
So this grants and these things,
it helps make me and everyone else to be able
to go ahead and move forward and kind of get out of that little hole that we're in.