Ed Oh | Live United

Get A Job- MatchBridge Summer Hiring Series

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With the approach of summer, the team at MatchBridge has been very busy placing youth in various kinds of internships and jobs. Last week MatchBridge teamned up with Ghirardelli Chocolate Company to interview 14 candidates to shore up their concessions operations at AT&T Ballpark. After the interviews and a little deliberation, the team from Ghirardelli decided to hire all 14 candidates. The hiring manager was “so impressed with the talents that you brought in, that we decided to extend an invitation for all of them to work with us.”

The success with Ghirardelli did not stop there. After a couple weeks, they found themselves needing a few more hands on deck and came back for a second round of hiring. After the second round, they emerged with another four hires.

Also, The Galileo Learning Camp, the Girl Scouts Camp, and the Golden Gate Parks Conservancy Program partnered with MatchBridge youth members on exciting opportunities to get outdoors, protect the environment, and work as seasonal camp counselors. So far nine youth have been invited back for interviews, and one youth has been hired as a Team Leader.

Lastly, the third summer of our Real Estate 4 Tomorrow’s Adults program is about to begin and it’s looking to be the best summer yet. The initiative was created when United Way partnered with Bay Area real estate executives and MatchBridge, to create new pathways to employment. This year’s goal is to place 35-40 MatchBridge youth into RE4TA summer internships. After our two RE4TA Intern informationals, 30 interns have been recruited and are ready to work for the summer.

If you happen to be a real estate employer and are looking for an intern for the summer (at no cost to you) please contact Amy Thole at (415) 808-4434.

(photo via flickr user fragglerawker)

Speaking the Language of Taxes

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Last year more than $47,000 million was returned to Bay Area tax payers

When Earn It! Keep It! Save It! said they needed translators fluent in Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Vietnamese, United Way Community Project MatchBridge was more than happy to respond.

Earn It! Keep It! Save It!, a community project of United Way of the Bay Area, is a free, tax-preparing service offered to qualifying individuals and families. Earn It! Keep It! Save It! (EKS) operates more than 180 free tax sites across the Bay Area, where volunteer tax preparers help individuals and families claim their maximum tax refund.

With so many sites across the ethnically dense Bay Area, the need for translators was high. With all the talented young adults at MatchBridge looking for part-time work, the partnership made perfect sense.

Twenty-seven of MatchBridge‘s youth members came into the orientation to potentially offer their services as translators. EKS, United Way, and MatchBridge staff held interviews and fluency tests that many of the members passed with ease. Earn It! Keep It! Save It! partners with hundreds of community organizations and free tax preparation providers, such as Tax-Aid, to process almost 50,000 tax returns each year. They also provide low- to moderate-income households with access to public benefits, low- or no-cost bank accounts and financial education. Most importantly they make sure that eligible taxpayers claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) which can amount to as much as $5,600 per family.

Due to the complex nature of the free financial services that Earn It! Keep It! Save It! offers, translators play an essential role in serving the families and individuals who have limited English fluency.

If you are a Spanish speaker and you’re interested in being a translator, MatchBridge and Earn It! Keep It! Save It! are still recruiting. Leave a comment with your email.