On Tuesday March 20, 2007, over 30 men and women boarded Atlanta Workforce Development Agency’s (AWDA) Cyber Bus to search for employment opportunities and speak with representatives from community organizations that can provide them with various resources.

The Samaritan House, founded in 1986, works to transform lives by helping homeless men and women gain self-sufficiency through personalized employment readiness and life-stabilization programs. Their employment readiness program The EDGE—Earning Dignity…Gaining Employment, is a comprehensive daytime employment readiness program supporting approximately 500 homeless men and women a year in their search for permanent employment.

“The Samaritan House can see anywhere from 50 to 70 people on any given day,” said Charcella Green, Executive Director of Employment Readiness for the Samaritan House. “We do not have enough computers to allow everyone to do online job searches and look for the resources they need. We’ve been very pleased to have the use of the Cyber Bus. It has been a real asset to us.”

Collaborating with AWDA, the Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., the YMCA of Greater Atlanta, the Working Women in Transition (WWII), and Beehive.org all accompanied AWDA to the Samaritan House to assist customers in finding the resources right for them.

Dora James boarded the cyber bus to fill out an application for AWDA services and to post her resume to the beehive.org website. “I was so excited about the opportunity to have one-on-one attention to help me find a job.”

Lemuel Calloway said, “I am here to search for a job. It’s is so special to not only have this unique bus here with extra computers, it was great to have the personal attention I received. They really helped me understand how to do a job search online. This was a wonderful experience.”

AWDA’s Cyber Bus is outfitted with state of the art computers and wireless internet access. City residents can go on-line to fill out pre-applications to AWDA and use the Atlanta Beehive website (www.beehiveATL.org) to post a resume to Monster.Com and find needed employment information as well as where to find childcare, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) information. Residents also E-file their taxes for free right there on the Cyber Bus using the Atlanta Beehive’s free tax filing tool.

Lemuel Calloway uses AWDA’s Cyber Bus to connect to employment opportunities.