Goodwill Career Center to Aid Area Job Seekers

Area job seekers can be better prepared to land work, with the help of a new career center that now is offering services for free.

Goodwill of the Southern Alleghenies’s newly opened career center in Johnstown’s Moxham neighborhood is to offer a range of services – from basic remediation in reading or math and high school diploma or GED preparation to work readiness and employability skills to case management and connections to community resources and career counseling services. The center comes through a partnership with the Cambria County CareerLink and Pitt-Johnstown, which is to send students to assist those looking for work.

Goodwill Job Center
Jen Pfeil, an employment counselor at the Goodwill Career Center, helps Anthony Wiley of Johns­town search for work at a computer station.

“This is part of an ongoing commitment to not just be in the community but to be of the community,” Goodwill President and CEO Bradley Burger said.

The organization’s model – an entrepreneurial approach to doing good – has spurred ongoing growth, Ray Wrabley, interim chair of the Business & Enterprise Division at Pitt-Johnstown, said.

The university and Goodwill share interests in encouraging people to reach their potential – and in efforts to improve the community, Wrabley said.

“This is a good example of marshalling resources to serve needs,” he said.

Students will help center users study for GED or improve basic skills as part of Pitt-Johnstown’s “Real World Action Program,” an initiative that has funneled student help to the Moxham area for other volunteer work, too, for the past seven years.

CareerLink Site Administrator Jeff Dick emphasized the value of center staff and volunteers helping individuals move closer to an education – and eventual career – by first obtaining a GED. The center also will be the access point to CareerLink services, which have been available at the Goodwill headquarters since 2000.