Brooklyn's Progress
October 2002

The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce's long-running Good Help Program has a dual mission: to support local employers by providing them with qualified staff and to improve the lives of community members by connecting them with satisfying employment. Good Help's most recent success story began a year ago when Director Michael Rosenthal introduced Norman Brodsky, CEO of CitiStorage, Inc., to the Job Training and Placement Division of the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service. CitiStorage needed staff for difficult-to-fill, entry-level positions -- and the Bureau needed work opportunities for trained, disabled workers. Within a short time, the Brooklyn Bureau and CitiStorage established a training site at CitiStorage where, under the supervision of Bureau staff, carefully screened disabled workers receive integrated, industry-based training. To date, over a dozen Bureau trainees have been hired at CitiStorage in positions ranging from stock worker to van driver to computer operator. The collaboration has allowed formerly underemployed members of the community the opportunity to assume meaningful employment while affording CitiStorage a supervised, temporary work force without the cost of hiring permanent employees. The Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service (www.bbcs.org) is a not-for-profit (501C.3), non-sectarian community-based social services agency that provides a wide array of critical support services to vulnerable children and families and disabled adults. It is one of the seven New York Times Neediest Fund agencies. Founded in 1866, the Bureau has 620 staff; over 500 volunteers and 20 sites throughout Brooklyn. The Bureau is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors comprised of 41 corporate, professional, and civic leaders as well as community representatives. During the past year, BBCS has served more than 25,000 individuals.