Year Up Chicago Hosts Opportunity Breakfast to Celebrate Five Years of Closing the Opportunity Divide
Chicago, Illinois (PRWEB) October 01, 2015 -- Celebrating five years of its proven programming, the job training nonprofit Year Up Chicago will host its third annual Opportunity Breakfast tomorrow morning at 7:30 AM at the Union League Club in Chicago. Since 2010, Year Up Chicago has helped more than 600 young adults achieve their professional and educational goals, while providing Chicago’s leading businesses with a pipeline of trained and highly motivated talent.
Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County Board President, and Julie Chavez, Senior Vice President and Market Manager for Bank of America, will speak at the event. Year Up Chicago will also present the Opportunity Award for Outstanding Partner Engagement to Allstate Insurance.
“The Opportunity Breakfast highlights the great work that’s being done throughout our city to help connect young adults with companies in need of talent,” said Jack Crowe, Year Up Chicago Executive Director. “We’re excited to celebrate the achievements of our students, corporate partners and community leaders in closing the Opportunity Divide.”
Guests include Chicago executives, philanthropists and community leaders, as well as Year Up Chicago students and leadership. The goal of the Opportunity Breakfast is to bring attention to proven approaches for addressing the Opportunity Divide, which separates 6 million young adults the United States who are currently out of work and out of school from the 12 million jobs requiring post-secondary education that could go unfilled in the next decade.
Year Up Chicago currently serves 160 young adults annually, and is building capacity to serve 1,000 students each year. Year Up Chicago students receive six months of technical and professional skills training followed by six-month internships at corporate partner firms such Allstate, Bank of America, Hyatt and JPMorgan Chase. Nationwide, 85 percent of Year Up graduates are employed or attending college fulltime within four months of completing the one-year program, with average starting salaries of $32,000/year.
About Year Up Inc.
Year Up's mission is to close the Opportunity Divide by providing urban young adults with the skills, experience, and support that will empower them to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education. Year Up achieves this mission through a high support, high expectation model that combines marketable job skills, stipends, internships and college credits. Its holistic approach focuses on students' professional and personal development to place these young adults on a viable path to economic self-sufficiency. Year Up currently serves more than 2,700 students a year at sites in Arizona, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Jacksonville, the National Capital Region, New York City, Philadelphia, Providence, Puget Sound, San Francisco Bay Area, and South Florida. To learn more, visit http://www.yearup.org or http://www.youtube.com/yearupinc.
Roberto Zeledon, Year Up, http://www.yearup.org, +1 857-305-9995, [email protected]
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