My Story: Rachal Underwood

After relocating back home to Los Angeles from Atlanta in 2010, I was uncertain of how things would turn out for me and my family. Being a single mother of a 2-year-old son and unable to find work within the legal profession, I was willing to try any job.

Then I was presented with an article about a Certified Nursing Assistant and Home Health Aide training program being offered by Goodwill SOLAC. After doing a little research, I contacted them to express my interest in the health care training program. The very next day my road to success began.

Goodwill Industries’ Beyond Jobs service is phenomenal. It provides single mothers with the tools we need to find work and the skills needed to maintain longevity in the workplace. I received work-readiness training that included résumé writing and character building exercises.

Goodwill also hosted an employer’s breakfast, where I had a chance to sit down with employers, ask questions and interview for employment. I’m excited to say I was hired by one of the attending employers, and began working two weeks following my completion of the program in April of 2011.

Currently, I am still employed as a home health aide for the In-Home Supportive Services, as well as finishing up my vocational nursing program, which I will complete in May 2013.

I’m also contracted with Goodwill SOLAC as a nurse mentor. Being a participant in the Beyond Jobs program has afforded me a lot of opportunities, from having my success story interview published in Black Enterprise magazine in June 2011 and being able to help someone else write their own success story as a nurse mentor. And for that, I am forever grateful.