By Thea Jarvis

Despite the apparent upturn of an economy that has long lingered on the fringes of failure, the gray spectre of joblessness continues to shadow many an American family.

While the government plays politics with jobs, bills, unions scramble to fight employment cutbacks, and major corporations reorganize in an effort to please disgruntled stockholders, the day to day distress of the man and woman out of work remains a hard reality.

Loss of work is a lonely, frustrating, frequently demoralizing experience. Ask any one who shows up at parish job clubs, banks and networks now dotting the Archdiocese of Atlanta, and you will find that fact borne out in spades.

Such groups have sprung up over the past couple of years in church communities as an answer to the scourge of joblessness sweeping the country. They have grown from an awareness that the need is great and something can indeed be done within the confines of small group dynamics.

The results, thus far, have been gratifying. In four job-focused organizations surveyed, the thread of success has been real, though motivation for continuing the job dialogue has been based on a sense of outreach rather than immediate, overwhelming results.

Job clubs are open to the larger community, though initial participation has been drawn from internal parish membership. The innerspring of each local group is a core of dedicated parish volunteers. Guest speakers are frequently brought in to share their expertise, but many times they are also parishioners with related interests.

All four job clubs studied are reaching out a hand of support to show that somebody cares, somebody will listen, somebody will try to help.

The big daddy of the archdiocesan efforts is the job club at St. Jude’s Church in Sandy Springs. Though the area might be considered an affluent northside neighborhood, the problem of unemployment was running high when the group was founded some two years ago.

“ Most positions are being displaced by technology,” parishioner Jim Knocke said of the crisis he finds in the Sandy Springs area.

Knocke, a member of the team that coordinates the effort and a founder of the group, sees mostly white-collar unemployed coming through the doors at St. Jude’s.

Job sessions are held weekly and draw 60-70 people, the largest grouping in the archdiocese. Despite the numbers, an emphasis on training and skill development makes for an effective, supportive environment.

“We try to equip (participants) with skills so they can go out and find the jobs themselves,” Knocke explained, noting that such an approach seems to be “really working – they’re getting through” to the job markets.

Skill development involves training in resume-writing, interview set-up and handling, personal evaluation and role playing. Guest speakers lend their talents and local advertising spreads the word about the club’s availability.

According to Jim Knocke, neighborhood papers, The Wall Street Journal regional edition and the church bulletin feature job club news. In a recent WSB-TV special, the St. Jude’s job club was profiled as a creative approach to a problem that shows no immediate signs of disappearing.

With an annual budget of $600, Jim Knocke calls the program “outstanding,” particularly compared to the cost of similar private or public efforts. “No program I know of is run so cheaply,” he concluded.

A smaller outreach that grew from St. Jude’s ministry is the jobs network at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Alpharetta. Patterned on the Sandy Springs model, it serves the north Fulton County area and draws a “moderate turnout,” according to John Cavanagh, one of seven or eight parishioners involved in its inauguration just last February.

“Small is not all bad,” Cavanagh emphasized, adding that the setting is “a good place for people to find out they’re not in it all alone.”

Although St. Thomas’ approach is not weighted in favor of matching jobs with potential employees, the network does maintain a “job book” listing current openings.

“We are not a job bank, but we’d like to know of any jobs that are available,” Cavanagh admitted with a sense of the practical. Feedback from employers who have hired through the network indicates that worker performance levels are high.

“The people in the network seem much more involved in actively looking for a job,” said Cavanagh, attesting to the quality of participation within network ranks.

At the weekly sessions, guest speakers offer advice on the job search process. Group discussion allows for an interchange of ideas and feelings, even a sharing of new employment leads. In this process, a very natural type of counseling easily develops.

“Generally, we almost always find (participants) are coming back at least twice,” John Cavanagh feels, indicating a healthy turnover and moderate success for the network, which is only a few months old.

Another archdiocesan model, undertaken at about the same time St. Thomas was beginning its network, is the job bank at St. John the Evangelist Church in Hapeville. This program is specifically geared toward matching an unemployed individual with a job.

Mae Strand, who with a fellow parishioner mans a phone line that implements the program, feels that so far the effort has met with “a fair amount of success.”

The majority of those offering employment through the job bank have short-term, minimal needs – yard work, housework, etc. “Many who call and need work are overeducated for these jobs,” Mrs. Strand has found. “We expected a greater response from potential employers who offer jobs in higher classifications.” One larger corporation, a food processing plant in Norcross, did volunteer some jobs, but geography proved a problem. A portion of St. John’s parish population consists of newly arrived Vietnamese refugees who are looking for job opportunities. For them, Mrs. Strand knew, the Norcross possibilities were good if not for difficulties of transportation.

“It was so far out,” she observed, that those without ready means of travel couldn’t handle the distance.

For the present, the focus of St. John’s job bank will remain substantially the same, although Mae Strand and her co-workers plan to expand the base of potential employers through more extensive publicity.

At a recent meeting of the unemployment support group of Holy Cross Church in Atlanta, the problem faced by St. John’s – getting enough participation on all fronts of the jobs crisis – was likewise realized.

This newest of the job clubs is starting out small and looking for more members. “We need to encourage each other to contact people personally,” parishioner Cece Reimer commented. “When someone is down and depressed, it’s hard to get up the stamina to come.”

Reimer, who initiated the Holy Cross group, stresses an atmosphere of mutual sharing and support during the weekly meetings and tries to involve parishioners who may have knowledge of job opportunities.

Recent sessions have included persons involved in the job search, newly employed individuals, and volunteers who can offer skills of resume typing, counseling or news of job openings.

Diane Huey, a member of the Archdiocesan Department of Social Services and a former employment counselor for the Georgia Department of Labor, helps to coordinate and facilitate the program, though an eventual goal is to draw leadership from the group itself.

“We’re not an employment agency,” Ms. Heuy explained, citing skill-sharpening and limited networking as clear directives. “We are to be primarily a support for people, lending psychological and spiritual help.” Of the jobs programs contacted, all seem to be convinced that their commitment is a necessary and practical one. Although characterized by varying stages of growth and development, each effort appears determined to overcome obstacles and work toward a flexibility that will foster a unique and creative arena of dialogue and direction for the unemployed.