Registration open for resource fair for ‘justice impacted youth and families’

MOSES LAKE — Registration is open for a resource fair focusing on youths and families who are or have been involved with youth services and are working their way toward a better future.  The “Employment and Resource Fair” is sponsored by the Grant County Juvenile Court and Youth Services and is scheduled for July 1. Advance registration for participants is required.  

Tammy Roloff, a treatment counselor for Grant County Youth Services and one of the organizers, said the goal is to help “justice impacted youth and families.”  

That includes a wide range of people, Roloff said. “It can be foster children, dependency, anything (where) a family has gone through the court,” she said.  

Roloff works with youth who are under supervision, she said, and part of that program is teaching job skills.  

“One of the things that we discovered is that getting employment can sometimes be difficult, even with the skills that we teach them, (to find) what is out there, what is open,” she said.  

There are job fairs and hiring events, career fairs at local schools, but those didn’t always work for young people in the program, she said. Some of their families also faced challenges in finding employment and support.  

“The vision is also to give meaningful opportunities to families that are working on positive change,” Roloff said.  

That led Roloff and her coworkers to sponsor a resource fair themselves.  

“We (were) looking for resources that could be available to families, and that was where this idea kind of exploded. It has been absolutely amazing, the support we’ve gotten from the community,” she said.   

The resource fair has attracted a mix of participants. 

“We have employment agencies that will be at the event, and some that are being represented, where youth or families can fill out the application and (the organizers) will provide those applications to the businesses for them to review," Roloff said. "We have volunteers that are going to be manning some of those tables for those applications. We also have employers that will be there.” 

WorkSource and SkillSource will be represented, she said, as well as groups like Goodwill Industries, OIC of Washington, Renew (the county’s behavioral health agency) and Hope Source. Military recruiters will be available to talk to young people.  

“The Latino Civic Alliance (will) be assisting youth that day to help them create a resume if they don’t already have one,” Roloff said.  

The job fair will include a clothing bank as well. 

“We were taking donations for clothes, because we have a lot of kids that come in that don't have a lot, so we would take donations and then hand out clothing to kids, hygiene items, stuff like that,” she said. "We decided to add in an employment clothing closet to this event, and it went crazy.” 

Young people and adults will find clothing they can wear to an interview or to work, she said. The clothes are free to the recipients. 

“We (said), ‘We need to get some clothes in here and help these kids have something that they can feel confident in walking into an interview to get that job, so they can take those stability steps for their future.’ Even our judges have donated clothing for our clothing closet for this event.” 

Because it’s focused on a specific group, Roloff said, advance registration is required. People can register by contacting Roloff or Amy Rodriguez at the Juvenile services office, by email at [email protected] or [email protected], or visiting the juvenile services office in Ephrata, 303 Abel Road, Ephrata, or 1008 W. Ivy Ave., Moses Lake.