NICI Invests in Workforce Development Through Proactive Community Services
Proactive Community Services (PCS) aims to empower individuals and encourage behaviors that promote long-term healthy lifestyles, economic self-sufficiency, and independence through individual achievement. Its jobs readiness program — Proactive Employment Solutions — provides successful preparation and placement services in disadvantaged communities targeting the long-term unemployed, under-employed, dislocated, or hard-to-place residents in the south suburbs of Chicago.
Proactive Community Services’ second $100,000 Impact Grant from Northern Illinois Community Initiatives (NICI) will expand the job readiness program through transportation stipends, healthcare and childcare services, and covering subscription costs for a platform that connects workforce development participants to potential employers. NICI supports PCS's approach of removing barriers to employment, and improving individual economic mobility.
“From this partnership, we expanded employment services in Chicago’s south suburbs for low-income individuals living in high-need communities with the overarching aim of closing the wealth gap along with creating economic stability through living wage employment with benefits for participants.
It is our pleasure to partner with NICI to further support the economic growth of disinvested south suburban communities.”
— Eula L. Burge, CEO