Providing YEP Students with Professional Attire

The Young Entrepreneurs Project (YEP) teaches our adolescent participants how to talk the talk and walk the walk when it comes to career readiness. Through our three part approach of academic learning, mentoring and real-world experiences, YEP graduates leave the program with the skills and attitude necessary for employment. This past Friday, four YEP students took their journey to career readiness even further, travelling to Solutions at Work to chose free professional attire so they now can not only talk and walk like employees – they can dress like them too!

Too often, deserving individuals cannot secure employment because they lack the means to purchase professional attire. Solutions at Work, a Greater Boston based non-profit, addresses this concern. Serving more than 6,000 people living in poverty annually, Solutions at Work helps homeless and low-income people achieve self-sufficiency annually by providing them with children’s items, moving services, professional clothing, and computers. Their professional attire program, Solutions Wear, provides free interview-appropriate clothing and accessories to more than 850 men and women who are enrolled in area job training programs.

Four students from YEP’s Charlestown High School took a field trip to Solutions Wear’s Cambridge site. Here, they were met by staff who helped them each select three interview-appropriate business suits. The clothing was fitted to each student’s build and style, so that they can enter interviews with confidence and panache. All four students commented they were grateful for the free clothes, and one student – not normally the type to smile – light up the room with flashes of his pearly whites. All four students left with filled bags of professional clothes and a future filled with hope.

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