“I found more than I was looking for at Cara”
The following is told by Elaine, an employed participant of Cara, January 2024 Cohort.
“I left my job to pursue entrepreneurship full time in May 2017. My businesses did well at first, but then the pandemic happened, life happened, and my business started to decline.
“I knew I had to reenter the workforce, but I struggled to find a job despite my professional background. I have 10 years of experience in the lab, a STEM degree, I can formulate products, but I wasn’t able to find a job anywhere. The feedback I kept getting was that I was either overqualified because of my years of experience, or I was underqualified because of my employment gap.
“As bills piled up higher and higher, my mental health declined more and more. I started to panic because I didn’t have a stable income to keep up with my mortgage payments.
“Then I heard about Cara through my aunt. She went through Cara, and it really helped her get her life back on track. I said, ‘Hey, I need help,’ and she simply told me, ‘Contact Cara and see what they can do.’
“What I needed when I came to Cara was money to pay my bills. What I found when I got there was so much more.
“There are people with so many different backgrounds at Cara. I come from a corporate background, there are people who have come out of prison, some people have never worked a job before, others were struggling with grief or mental health. Hearing the different stories of how we each came to Cara – seeing how others changed their mindset to cultivate their own success – it was all so motivating to me. It was one of those things where you realize you have more in common with somebody than you might think at first.
“One of my favorite things about Cara was seeing how it can transform people. So many people come in skeptical, me included. They want to dress a certain way, have a certain type of mentality, or have different assumptions or expectations. By the end of my cohort, people were acing their interviews. So many of us came into Cara thinking it was going to be some kind of way and leaving with a completely different experience.
“I felt so supported at Cara.
“Now I have a job working for the state, I’ve closed that gap in my employment, and I’m working toward putting that white lab coat on again. It feels good to have a consistent source of income, and to get the experience of punching in the clock again. Cara reminded me how good it feels to have a job again.“
Your support this season makes an immediate, impactful difference in the lives of Cara’s job seekers. Transform a life this Season of Giving at www.caracollective.org/give.
