MISSION VIEJO : Women’s Center to Offer Jobs Program

Alma Vanasse was writing the grant proposal for a program to serve unemployed, unskilled women when she was further inspired by a woman who walked into her tiny office at Saddleback College.

The woman, who appeared to be in her 30s, had been sleeping in a car with her 9-year-old son before a church referred her to the college’s Adult Opportunity/Women’s Center for help finding a job.

It may have been that example, which Vanasse cited in her proposal, that won the school the $25,000 grant to begin Project VIEW, or Vocational Information and Education for Workers.

Vanasse, director of the center, said the state community colleges grant will be used to launch the new program, which is aimed at former homemakers forced into the workplace, single parents and single pregnant women.

Through one-on-one counseling sessions, skills assessments and job-searching workshops, both men and women should ultimately become marketable, said Linda Farnell, the project coordinator who helped write the grant.

“We’re hoping that participants will become self-sufficient, have raised self-esteem and be educated in the career-planning process,” she said.

Although Farnell and Vanasse expect to help mostly minority and economically disadvantaged women, the program is also open to divorced men raising children. They said they expect the program to kick off within a week after funds are released and hope to reach 75 to 100 people by June.

Vanasse noted that in many cases, women come to Orange County with their husbands and put careers on hold to raise children. But if their husbands leave, the women often are not able to afford the high rents or mortgages common to the area.

“We have a high standard of living (in Orange County),” Vanasse said. “The wealth is not always there, especially for women. I see a lot of people sleeping in their cars, unfortunately.”

The program is seeking two part-time workers to help out, Farnell said.

“We want single parents or displaced homemakers,” she said. “We want cultural diversity and someone who wants to learn computers.”