Let’s launch this thing:

introducing the dream job club

My sweet friends,

This week I’m setting in motion a special project I’ve been trying to find funding for over the last year but since we’re all eventually going to die (and take down white deers down with us) I thought I would use our beloved community to launch it.

a daily conversation with my editor.

In the recent past I volunteered with Best Buddies, a non-profit that creates opportunities for friendship with and employment for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). In my work with the group, I conducted mock interviews with disabled people looking for jobs. As part of that volunteer work, I did a mock interview with Jason, a brilliant young man with a disability who lives in California and who was looking for a job. A few months later, I was elated when he reached out to tell me he had been hired for a job in a library! It was one of the coolest and most satisfying texts I had ever received. 

Jason’s text got me thinking…”wouldn’t it be great to create a club that matches dope disabled candidates with jobs that are perfect for them?”

As I’ve written about before, people with disabilities are systematically denied the right to work. It’s legal to pay them 5 cents an hour (yes, actually) and because of institutionalized ableism, disability becomes both a cause and a consequence of poverty. The rate of poverty is more than twice as high for people with disabilities than it is for the rest of the population and they’re more likely to report struggling to pay for rent, food and utilities and living paycheck to paycheck. Two in three people experiencing longer-term poverty have a disability. 

This crisis of the persisting untapped potential in the disability community is occurring as a record number of people have quit their jobs and as employers scramble to find workers to replace them.

Given the surplus of driven and talented disabled people, and the dire need for workers to fill jobs why aren’t we help helping more people with disabilities find more community, meaning and purpose in their lives?

So we are doing it. We are launching this. If you’re a person with a disability looking for your dream job, or know someone who is, you can email dreamjobclub@gmail.com with your information. If you’re selected (for now it’s just me, but hopefully as we can grow this with volunteers or resources we can help everybody) you’ll be featured in Airplane Mode and our community will try and match you with potential employers. If you’re a person hiring or who works at a company that would be interested in being matched with candidates, you can also send me an email at the same address. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for updates on The Dream Job Club and spread the word because the power and reach of this project is only as big as all of you.    

Most importantly, without your financial support for this community, The Dream Job Club wouldn’t be possible so I want to thank you for being a paid subscriber of Airplane Mode and giving me the ability to spend time on this very special initiative and grow it. I know there’s a lot of reasons to feel bad about the world right now, but the best way to overcome learned helplessness is to start doing something. 

I’m delighted to do this with you.

Sending lots of bear hugs

-Liz