Berrien County program helping neighbors find jobs

BENTON HARBOR, Mich – Berrien County program is helping neighbors find jobs along with boosting personal and economic development.

The Mosaic Christian Community Development Association helps people both who have a criminal history or need help gaining skills to land a job.

“They give you the necessary steps that you need to be better doing whatever it is that you need to do in the community,” Mosaic Jobs for life graduate and resale shop store manager Latasha Shelby said.

Many Mosaic CCDA “Jobs for life” graduates go on to work for Mosaic at their resale shop and Café and Mosaic’s CEO Andrew Robinson says the skills acquired leads to the programs graduates’ future success.

“What does it mean to be at work at six o’clock in the morning or what does it mean to listen and follow directions, we have a lot of people who come to us who have never been employed for longer than a month and because of that we try to give them the skills needed to not only survive in the workplace but to maintain a job,” Robinson said.

A new element, The Mosaic court referral program which is set to begin April 8^th will partner with the Berrien County Courthouse to help offenders find and finish community service tasks.

“Our job is to get those individuals who the judge says hey we’re gonna sentence you to 400 hours or 200 hours and we take those individuals and we find a place a non-profit organization for them to be able to serve and be able to fulfill those hours,” Robinson said.

Mosaic says they’ve helped hundreds of people get on track in their 10 years of business and with their current and future programs they plan to expand their reach to spur more personal and economic development in the future.