Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

the b.s.:

Dress for Success helps get and keep jobs

Bruce Spotleson

Bruce Spotleson

VEGAS INC Coverage

Please hold momentarily while I try to recall recent events ...

Let’s begin here, with the May 10 official location opening of Dress for Success Southern Nevada, a nonprofit organization that helps women seeking employment. Much credit is due founder Paige Candee and Executive Director Paula Lawrence for putting long hours into a project with long-term benefits to our business community and residents.

Candee figured out a while back that people can’t get a good job without the right attire and presentation. So, in space given them by the Nakazaki family, she and her team have established a boutique full of gently worn business clothing and accessories, also donated.

It can often take more than clothing to land and hold a job, and Dress for Success also offers professional and life coaching, networking and peer group support.

“The goal is not just to get the job, but to keep the job,” Lawrence said. The organization aids disadvantaged women, and in doing so, helps business owners and managers.

“We’re training their employees,” Lawrence said.

They accept clients ages 16-60 referred by social service and employment agencies, schools, government agencies, churches, charities and other organizations. They’ve already assisted more than 100 women.

“It’s our goal to help every woman we serve launch and sustain a successful career,” Candee said.

Great cause. Sincere people. Find out more at dressforsuccess.org.

•••

The Henderson Chamber of Commerce put on a special symposium on the Affordable Care Act on May 8, attracting about 40 locals desperately seeking clarity. A Henderson Convention Center panel representing both health care and private industry explained the rationale behind some of the new programs, took questions and sought to clear up confusion and misconceptions about forthcoming national and state changes. They talked about the benefits and timeline of President Barack Obama’s plan and the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange, which is actually separate from it.

The audience was told that 86 percent of small businesses don’t currently offer health care coverage due to high costs, and heard predictions that such expenses could more than double in the next decade — unless remedial steps are taken.

Panelists reminded the crowd that businesses with less than 50 full-time employees — estimated at 96 percent of all businesses — will be exempt from any requirement to offer insurance. It was stated that only 0.16 percent of all businesses will be required to add insurance coverage.

Another clarification was that, should the president’s plan be found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, the state will still have an insurance exchange in place.

Rhett Buttle, national outreach director of the Small Business Majority, reminded people early in his presentation that some provisions of the law are “wildly popular.” But he also acknowledges the confusion faced by small business owners.

“This is a lot of change, no denying that,” he said.

•••

The May 9 luncheon celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Las Vegas News Bureau was a collaboration of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and the LVCVA, whose CEO Rossi Ralenkotter described the impact the Bureau has had in promoting us as a tourist destination.

“For the last 65 years, the world has seen Las Vegas through the eyes of the News Bureau and its photographers,” he said, as some very cool and special celebrity photographs were displayed.

And although nuclear testing is on a temporary hold locally, Holly Madison was introduced at the event as the new Miss Atomic Bomb 2012.

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Finally, the law firm of Snell & Wilmer played host to its fourth annual “Paint the Town” art exhibit and auction on May 11, a charity fundraiser for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

When lawyers create let their hair down on their own turf, like Snell & Wilmer’s team did, you have the makings of a good event.

As the music played on, partners Leon F. Mead II and Michael Stein worked the room to point out an eclectic collection of works, courting bidders in what are on weekdays much more tranquil hallways.

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