“The greatest public program the government can provide minorities is a job.”
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
NEED (the Negro Educational Emergency Drive) recently celebrated its 10th annual Workforce Diversity Fair for local employers and college students to determine if there were internship opportunities for the summer.
President John F. Kennedy once said the greatest public program the government can provide minorities is a job. For 53 years, beginning the year of his assassination, NEED has supported more than 23,000 deserving young people by providing nearly $25.7 million in scholarships. NEED’s vision is to unlock the power of education by helping youth meet their highest potential and enhance their quality of life, thereby strengthening the Pittsburgh regional economy.
Pittsburgh is seen by some to be a very nepotistic city where connections are everything. Many African Americans in Pittsburgh do not have the privilege of being born into families that can provide connections to jobs that can lead to meaningful careers. That can help explain why minority job opportunities are limited.
Marcia M. Sturdivant, president and CEO of NEED, said this is why these fairs are so important for minorities.
“Many of our students do not have the networking opportunities that some other students may have and we want to give every student the opportunity to learn about job opportunities open to them.”
Sturdivant touts the fact that all internships are paid. So far there are more than 22,000 alumni students of the Workforce Diversity Fair.
“We have the best and brightest students that this region has to offer,” she said. “If you are from Pittsburgh, an African American who has graduated from college, 9-10 times you were a recipient of NEED.”
Without NEED, she said, many of these individuals would not have the opportunity to pursue higher education, complete higher education, move on to become employed and add to the regional economy.
Many of the students who go through the Workforce Diversity Fair end up being full-time employees of the company they interned for. They begin to be an asset to organizations not just in terms of diversity but also in terms of being good, solid employees and motivated bright minority students that can add to their organization’s wealth and livelihood.
Employers always look for well-rounded students. They don’t just want students who have a strong academic background, but also have work experience to show their aptitude in a particular career. While most students at the fair were juniors and seniors, one student keen to getting a leg up on the rest in experience and connections was sophomore Kendre Crawford-Blue.
Crawford-Blue said she is currently in between majors at Penn State University, but describes herself as “trying to get my foot in the door” in the rehabilitation and human services fields. When asked what a sophomore was doing looking for internships so many years before being eligible to being able to work in her field, she replied, “I think it’s very important because it’s like if you don’t have experience in your field and then you go out into the real world then you’re just stuck. I go to a big school and trying to get an internship is very competitive. Internships are very scarce.”
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