The Expo portion was smaller than Wood County's, with three attendees, but the Reentry side had a big turnout. I'd say about about 25 ex-offenders showed up to hear from community agencies as well as apply for assistance and get one-on-one help with polishing resumes and applying for jobs.
Doing outreach beforehand for this event was something of an adventure. We visited a whole bunch of small Henry County towns that I'd never been to: Deshler, McClure, Holgate, Hamler.
Some I'd never heard of. Some of them, like Hamler, I didn't even realize I was in at the time. Enroute between two planned stops, we would sometimes see a promising church or other agency and stop to drop off information, only knowing we were somewhere between Deshler and Holgate. Only later, when looking up the address, did I realize there was a town called Hamler and that's where we were.
At the event, most of the people I talked to already got food stamps, or lived with a full household of family members whose collective income was too high for food stamps, but I did help a few people register to vote.
The first guy I helped apply for a job was pretty computer savvy. He already had a decent resume, but I got to exercise my picky copy editor's eye to make minor stylistic changes to help it look more consistant and readable throughout. I helped him attach the resume to an online application for a truck driver job and he was pretty excited about his prospects when he left, smiling wide and thanking me profusely and shaking my hand.
Another guy I worked with, on the other hand, was starting pretty much from scratch with computers. He was a one-finger pecker and needed detailed explanation even for moving and clicking a mouse.
I helped him set up an email account and it was amazing to see his face light up when he finally got the hang of scrolling and just laughed and said, "Wow! Will you look at that!" as the words on the web page streamed by.
To practice getting a message and responding, I sent him an email that read "Congrats! You just checked your email!" and when he finally oriented himself to the screen and realized what I had written, he laughed and painstakingly replied "Thinkyou."
So clearly there is a long learning curve ahead.
We went through the steps to opening a window, typing in an address, and logging in to his email account several times, but I still think he'll struggle with it when I'm not there helping...
But I could tell what we had done was enough for one day and the event was wrapping up anyway, so we never ever got around to making him a resume or applying for any jobs.
As he was leaving, the Reentry coordinator was yelling after him to be sure to check Craig's List, or this posting, or that online, etc, etc, and he nodded and wrote down the addresses, but I'm sure he had no idea what she was talking about. (Who is this Craig, and why does he have a list?)
So I don't know how far he'll get with his job search alone...but hopefully his granddaughter he lives with can help him or he can find a computer class locally.
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