Career Closet of Santa Clara County

Geographic areas served: Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties

Programs: The core program provides business clothing to disadvantaged women. All direct services are provided by volunteers and each individual appointment lasts 1. 5 hours. Each client receives an interview outfit, which consists of a suit, or slacks, blouse, jacket, as well as shoes, purse, scarf, jewelry, and lingerie. In addition, each client receives approximately 1 weeks's worth of clothing, which allows mixing, matching and augments her wardrobe to enable her to spend income on essentials other than clothing. All clothing, shoes, purses, jewelry, etc are donated items through the public. The average worth of the items provided is $125, which is calculated based on using the salvation army's merchandise valuing system. Career closet dressed 1320 in 2010-2011.

program service accomplishment two was a continuation of the contract with santa clara county to adminsiter tarp funds to calworks men enrolled in their employment program. Through an agreement with the men's wearhouse, each man received 2 pair of slacks, 2 shirts, a tie, a pair of socks and a pair of dress shoes. We paid an average of $275 for each wardrobe, submitted the receipts to the county and received reimbursement for the funds.

the third program service accomplishment is also an extension of the tarp contract with santa clara county, which allowed career closet to offer hair cuts at a local salon; we paid $20 and the salon donated the other $10 of the service. We also offered skin care classes, which were taught by a mary kay representative. In this class each person learned how to properly take care of their skin and apply proper make up for the work environment. Each person received a skin care set and a starter set of makeup. The mary kay representative donated $25 of product per kit and career closet paid the remaining amount, which averaged $68 per person.