1000 Words: Fellowship

It can be hard to describe to people what the LA Fellows experience is before they've lived it firsthand. Knowing that a picture is worth 1,000 words, here are a few words to try to explain.

A group of professionals, all strangers to each other, come together for nine weeks of training. They come from diverse fields: entertainment, finance, information technology, education, law, customer service, transportation, hospitality, publishing. They come from all over the Los Angeles area, from different ethnicities, ages, education backgrounds. They seem to have little in common except for the circumstance of being unemployed. And yet...

Once the training begins, the Fellows find connections deeper than "what do you do for a living?" They find that they are all giving people who are willing to commit 100 hours to a nonprofit organization. They are committed to a cause, namely finding a job, and willing to do what it takes to complete that important mission. They are curious. They are open to new ideas, to learning how to do their job search better, and live better in the process. They are ultimately resilient. The discovery of their similarities bonds the Fellows. They find that in sharing what they know, diversity of experience is a unique advantage of this program.

The LA Fellows program works hard to nurture a supportive environment where participants can work on finding and removing the things that are getting in the way of finding that next job. Sometimes there are tears, sometimes there are difficult conversations, but there are also tissues, hugs and lots of "AHA moment" insight dispensed. Camaraderie is built and friendships are formed. Networking is about relationships and LA Fellows forge relationships that make them stronger individually and collectively.

Learn more about the LA Fellows program at www.lafellows.org.