Founded in 2005, Dress for Success Pittsburgh was established to empower women to become self-sufficient and exit poverty. From our beginnings in a church basement serving 69 women the first year, we have grown to four branches serving five SW Pennsylvania counties and working with over 150 referral partners. Today, we provide clothing and employment readiness support to women across the region.
While we may be best known for providing suits and professional clothing to women, we are first and foremost an anti-poverty organization that focuses on providing a continuum of support and opportunities for vulnerable, low-income women to compete, advance, and support themselves and their families without the need to rely on public assistance.
We achieve our mission through providing suiting and uniform items for women. Women are referred to us who are currently interviewing or who have secured work and need appropriate clothing items. The women we serve work with suiting specialists to choose appropriate clothing for their needs. Additionally, during these consultations, women are provided with interview preparation skills.
Mainstay Life Services is an extraordinary organization with a very distinctive mission:
To provide life-long, high-quality support services, ensuring that people with developmental disabilities lead fulfilling lives and realize their vision of a desirable future.
Mainstay Life Services constantly strives to make our vision a reality:
People with developmental disabilities will live within a community that sustains them and benefits from their participation. Mainstay Life Services will be regarded as the region’s provider of choice for individuals and families seeking services, and as the region’s employer of choice for qualified and committed professionals.
As one of the largest and most diverse social and human service organizations in the region, Goodwill serves thousands of people each year and helps thousands of individuals find jobs. We provide a broad array of employment-related education and workforce development services for people with special needs and barriers to employment, including individuals with developmental and/or intellectual disabilities, displaced workers, participants in welfare-to-work programs, people who are homeless, have limited work experience or education, job skills or training, veterans, youth and older workers, and people with criminal backgrounds.
An average of over 90% of all revenue raised by Goodwill supports our job-training and employment programs.
We have more than 30 stores and several other businesses to help to support our programs and to provide training and employment opportunities for clients. Revenues from Goodwill stores – along with income from our other business units, salvage sales, contract work, rehabilitation grants and fees, and public support – go directly to job-training services and equipment needed by people with disabilities and disadvantages.
Pennsylvania Women Work is a statewide 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering women in career transition through job readiness, emotional growth, education, training and employment. Our flagship program, New Choices, has served thousands of women across the Commonwealth and assisted them in breaking the cycle of poverty to build better lives for themselves and their families!
The United Labor Agency is a non-profit 501 (c)3 based in Cleveland, Ohio incorporated in 1971. ULA has a strong history of providing workforce development services, and currently holds WIOA contracts in Pittsburgh/Allegheny County as well as Ohio. The United Labor Agency currently performs WIOA Title 1 Adult and Dislocated Worker services for PA CareerLink Pittsburgh/Allegheny County and has since 2015 and also administers additional federal, local and private grants, in both Pennsylvania and Ohio providing services to help individuals achieve the satisfaction of their basic human needs, and to provide opportunities, programs and employment to reach their full human potential.
Toyz Electronics is an Ed-tech company focused on building a more diverse workforce for the future. We have an App that empowers diverse and disadvantaged students to become the Superhero versions of themselves and get to select Universities like Carnegie Mellon and MIT or pathway to sustainable careers in creative, hardware, software, manufacturing, or entrepreneurship. It’s based on our Black Superhero Father and Son co-founder duo. Father Damola Idowu enrolled at Syracuse University at 16 studying Mechanical Engineering and Economics. Son Wole Idowu enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University at 15 studying Electrical and Computer Engineering. We are based at the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University.
The Homeless Children’s Education Fund (HCEF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 1999 to support the educational needs of children experiencing homelessness in Allegheny County. Over the years, HCEF’s role in the community has developed and expanded to meet these needs. HCEF relies on support from community foundations, corporations, and individuals and receives no governmental funding.