The City of Knoxville’s Save Our Sons initiative in partnership with Knoxville Community Development Corporation (KCDC) hosted the East Tennessee Mobile Career Coach at Walter P. Taylor Homes, 317 McConnell St., on Friday, Oct. 28. Career Coaches are mobile centers with services similar to what is found in a Tennessee American Job Center. Vehicles arrive on the scene to provide a mobile computer lab with Internet access, create a venue for workshops, and serve as a recruitment center for companies seeking to match needs with prospective employees.
Claybourne’s Chicken and Waffles Food Truck and the Dream Center’s Mobile Food Pantry were also on site.
The purpose of Save Our Sons is to work with community partners to address persistent opportunity gaps and to eliminate violence-related deaths among boys and young men of color.
“Studies show that providing jobs stops crime. Collaborating with the East Tennessee Mobile Career Coach and KCDC makes sense because we are all invested in providing well-targeted programs that generate meaningful behavioral and life changes,” said the City’s Community Relations Director, Avice Reid. “Inviting Virgil Braxton with Claybourne’s Chicken and Waffles and Pastor Ross Jones and the Dream Center Mobile Food Pantry allows the community to participate and join in Save Our Sons’ mission to increase opportunities for young men of color.”
The next East Tennessee Mobile Career Coach event will be Friday, Nov. 4, from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at Vista Apartments, 957 E. Hill Ave.