Fillerup Employment

Over the last half decade, millions of people have not only lost jobs, and run out of longterm unemployment compensation, but they have also become so discourage by the lack of available work, that they have abandoned the workforce and have been left to survive any way they can. (See HERE)

And the people hit hardest have been the poor, causing the number welfare recipients and the amount of government assistance to skyrocket. (See HERE and HERE and HERE)

It seems that wherever we drive these days there is no shortage of people next to the roads holding up signs agreeing to work for food, or some such things.

 
As bleak as the job market appears to be, it is good to know that there are individuals and companies striving to change things for the better, and who offer dignifying assistance.

It is in this vein that I am pleased to mention  Fillerup Employment, which I helped establish in 1996, though I haven't been affiliated with the company for a decade or more.

What makes Fillerup employment so unique is that it provides temporary employment targeted for the impoverished, indigent, Native Americans, homeless, and unskilled labor.

I don't know how things work now, but in the early days, the company owner, Craig Fillerup, would drive his SUV around in the mornings to the homeless shelters, food banks, popular off-ramps, and other place where the downtrodden tended to congregate, and he would gather up as many as he could and take them to jobs he had scrounged up the day before, and put them to work.

This not only made it possible for these good souls to earn enough money that day to feed and take care themselves and their families (the average wage was around $10 an hour at the time), but it wasn't uncommon for the temporary work to turn into full time employment.

Instead of giving handouts, Fillerup Employment provided jobs. Or, in other words, metaphorically, rather than giving people a fish, Fillerup gave them a net and a productive place to cast it.

The company not only provided work for those in need, but it also helped its own employees make a living, not to mention that those they helped no longer required government assistance--which is a major to tax payers since the country hasn't for some time been pay but 2/3rds of its own bills.

I hope I am not alone in being inspired by this kind of bootstrap ingenuity and honorable solution to financial problems.