Forward Training Center graduates hold bake sale to further careers

Two graduates of the Forward Training Center of Hood County Jobs for Life program are proving that through teamwork and the power of friendship, achieving your goals can be as easy as pie.

Felisha Buchannan, 29, and Jasmine Austin, 20, are using their newfound friendship and individual talents to help further their food industry careers.

Austin aspires to be a culinary chef, while Buchannan's goal is to open her own bakery. Both enrolled in the eight-week Jobs for Life program to further their knowledge and find their purpose in life.

“I wanted a fresh start, and I wanted to try something that would be good for me,” Austin said. “It came out really well. I liked it a lot and it put me in the right direction. It saved me.”

“I was already working, but I wanted to start my own business, grow and find my strengths,” Buchannan said.

JOBS FOR LIFE

Founded in 2011, the faith-based Jobs for Life program offers job skills training and preparation for the workforce with resume writing, mock interviews and vocational plans for careers.

Through the program, Buchannan and Austin developed the confidence needed to succeed in their respective career fields.

“It's about lifting people up to find their potential,” said Katy Offutt, executive director of the Forward Training Center. “This program has proven to be a great success of starting someone to understand ‘I am important because I was created by God,’ and I need to work. Through work, a person uses their talents and skills which he has given them to find meaningful work. It isn't just to work; it's a matter of, ‘What am I good at?’ which is what these beautiful women have determined and discovered — and that's what the beauty of it is when they can nail that and then they go forward.”

As recent graduates, Buchannan will begin working on her five-year career plan, while Austin attends Central Market cooking classes in Fort Worth.

To help raise money for Austin’s classes, the pair held a bake sale on Nov. 19, with Buchannan lending her talents and skills to help her friend succeed.

“We needed funding to send Jasmine to these cooking classes and Felisha really went above and beyond and said she wouldn't mind helping out a friend,” said Esther Schreiber, who became a mentor to the girls, through the FTC. “We had a handful of anonymous donors too that wanted to donate to help out for the cause. It was amazing. We wound up with our goal of $210 for three classes for Jasmine, so it was a very successful fundraiser, and I’m very proud of both of them.”

As a team, the girls helped each other. Buchannan was able to practice her baking skills while Austin raised money to jumpstart her career.

"(These classes are) just going to be until I can save enough money to go to culinary school in Fort Worth, so I'm really excited about it,” Austin said.

‘THANKFUL’ FOR FTC PROGRAM

When Austin first joined Jobs for Life, it took a while for her to be receptive to the program.

“When I first started, I wasn't really sure what I was getting into because I was coming from a bad situation, but it got better through the classes,” she said. “It wasn't so much of that I didn't want to learn; it was just of the fact that I felt like I couldn't. But the people there really helped break me down in a good way. They busted through my walls. I didn't want it at first because I was pushing away constantly and I just didn't want to feel like they were there for me — but they had been nonstop there for me, even after the classes, and it felt amazing. I'm really thankful for what I got out of this situation. I got really great friends, I got an amazing mentor and I got people who were always there for me.”

As for Buchannan, she said the program helped her grow as a person.

“(It gave me the) strength in myself and confidence in myself to be able to do something, to be able to strive to do what I want to do, and have that confidence in myself to be able to believe that I can do it,” Buchannan said. “They gave me that good, pure love that I needed to be able to send me in the right direction.”

Buchannan said she learned how to grow her clientele, speak confidently, build a resume, dress properly and learn computer skills.

"They showed me all kinds of cool tools and gadgets to be able to just grow in knowledge and understanding the things that I want to do,” she said. “They sent me right on the good path and direction, and I'm so thankful for it.”

“She's grown so much,” Austin said of Buchannan. “When we first started, she was always more focused on the books. She wouldn't really talk out much. It wasn't until our mentor Esther gave us a challenge to bake her something that I really saw her go more into her personality and more of her loving self that I had never seen. I am very proud of her and I'm very proud that she's become the person she is today.”

Laurie Lilly, a mentor and instructor at Jobs for Life, said she watched the girls blossom in the two months they were in the program.

"What a difference it made for them to have the structure of the training and have a mentor like Esther that really walked them through the program,” Lilly said. “We walk them through a career assessment and what their talents are. When we get in the career assessment, then we move into what they need to know for the resumes and their interviews, helping them feel comfortable talking to people and it opens up a whole new world. They're just beautiful examples of what we do and how they take on the task at hand and jump right into it.”

IN NEED OF MENTORS

Schreiber served as a mentor to Austin and Buchannan for two months and said it was a great experience — but the Granbury Chamber of Commerce ambassador didn’t want to be a mentor at first.

“I didn't want to be a mentor. I didn't want to come here,” she said. “But the chamber said that we needed mentors and I volunteered. I got these two gals, and I thought, ‘Lord, what are you giving me?’ … But I was there for them, and now I'm hooked. I loved it. It was a great experience for me, and I'm not going to be out of their life. I'm going to help them and I want to see them succeed.”

“The mentors, they really are amazing people, and they put their whole heart into helping us grow and teach us and they're so very supportive,” Buchannan said. “These people come out and spend their day with us, and then even after the programs, they still do everything that they can to help us grow, and it is so very encouraging. This program could definitely use some more people if they would like to come in and be mentors.”

Lilly confirmed that they are always needing more mentors, especially with the addition of new programs in the future.

"Mainly, we rely on God to provide people with hearts that believe in what we do because we give them the tools in which to succeed,” Offutt said. “It's not a handout. They worked very, very hard to graduate this program. There's a lot of homework, there's a lot of work involved and there's a lot of self-inner work that's done.”

CAREER GOALS

Austin said her favorite dish to cook is chicken pad Thai. Her goal is to attend college and eventually move to Miami to be “part of a big business of culinary chefs.”

“It's more thinking of ‘How can I get from point A to point Z,’ but in baby steps, while still looking at the bigger picture,” she said. “It's mostly just me trying to see where I can go from here and trying to figure out how to get there with what I've got right now.”

Buchannan plans to open her own bakery and expand to Oklahoma. She currently vendors around the Granbury downtown square and Indian Harbor. She said she is working on creating gluten-free and diabetic desserts.

“My aunt is a diabetic and she really inspired me because she would always eat bad junk,” she said, with a chuckle. “I love to bake in general, like I can bake cakes, cupcakes and cookies. I started kind of making some diabetic cookies and messing around with that and my aunt really liked it. I definitely need to work at growing that, but I'm hoping within the next five years, I'll be able to have a bakery open.”

To learn more about Forward Training Center, visit forwardtrainingcenter.org or call 817-573-6677.