Martha Bennett

Morrilton woman helps adults find jobs, dignity

Martha Bennett of Morrilton spent 22 years in banking before taking a position as employment and training coordinator for Experience Works, formerly Green Thumb. Bennett said she’s an optimist. “The glass is almost full all the time; it’s never half empty. I don’t have time for that. That’s what I tell people in my program — we have to do better all the time,” Bennett said.
Martha Bennett of Morrilton spent 22 years in banking before taking a position as employment and training coordinator for Experience Works, formerly Green Thumb. Bennett said she’s an optimist. “The glass is almost full all the time; it’s never half empty. I don’t have time for that. That’s what I tell people in my program — we have to do better all the time,” Bennett said.

Martha Bennett of Morrilton sometimes breaks a rule in her job.

She is employment and training coordinator for Experience Works, which helps people 55 and older find jobs. The coordinators are told to “be friendly with everybody, friends with no one,” she said.

It’s hard not to cross that line, Bennett said, when she meets people like Rena Cole, a displaced homemaker who came to Bennett with no technical skills but a great attitude.

“I love her; she’s just like my mom,” Bennett said. “She had never worked a day in her life because her husband, her father — they were ranchers in a big way — had taken care of her. All she had to do was cook meals for ranch hands because her husband took care of her.”

When the woman’s husband died, it wiped them out financially, Bennett said.

“She didn’t know what to do; she didn’t have any money,” Bennett said.

The 73-year-old woman moved to Morrilton four years ago to be close to her sisters, and she heard about the Experience Works program, formerly Green Thumb. The program isn’t allowed to advertise, Bennett said, except through public-service announcements and community calendars in the media.

“[When Cole came in], she said, ‘I don’t have any skills at all, but I’m willing to learn if someone will just give me a chance,’” Bennett said.

That’s what Experience Works is all about, Bennett said. Cole worked as Bennett’s assistant in the Morrilton office and is now the manager of J Renae’s, a boutique Bennett opened in March across and down the street from the Experience Works office.

“She’s getting on-the-job training,” Bennett said.

Bennett, who supervises nine counties, said Experience Works partners with nonprofit organizations to place older adults to learn skills in locations such as a county courthouse or an American Red Cross office. They might learn to be administrative assistants or groundskeepers, she said.

“We ask these people, ‘Hey, what do you like to do? What do you want to do?’ Some say, ‘I drove a truck for 20 years. That’s all I know how to do, but I would like to be a groundskeeper,’”

Bennett said.

Bennett said host agencies are contacted by her or

her assistants.

“We say, ‘If you will give Miss Smith an opportunity to learn something new, we will pay her salary for 21 hours a week,’” Bennett said.

Experience Works pays minimum wage, and participants are expected to look for employment while they are being trained.

“We ask [the hosts] to encourage our people to job search. If they hear of somebody in the community that has an opening, we want them to say, ‘Oh, my goodness, I have the person for you.’ We’re going to give them someone else; they’re always going to have someone in their organization they’re not going to have to pay.”

Bennett said she touts older adults’ dependability.

“They can tell time. If you tell them they need to be at their assignment at 8 o’clock, they are going to be there at 7:30,” she said.

Individuals in the program have 24 months in one training position, and if they haven’t found a job, Bennett will rotate them to another host agency. When it’s time for them to leave, sometimes those host agencies balk at losing a good worker, and they find money to hire them.

“That’s when you’re giving spirit fingers and ‘woo-hoo’ and the happy dance,” Bennett said.

After the participants find a job, Experience Works tracks their progress for 13 months, she said.

Bennett started eight years ago with Experience Works after a 22-year career in banking. A native of Morrilton, she attended Petit Jean Vo-Tech, now the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton, but she didn’t graduate.

She didn’t have a degree, but Bennett said she had a strong work ethic, something she learned from her parents.

“I guess just my parents were both work horses, and they always wanted me to better myself. Mother worked her whole life in factory work, and she wanted better for me,” Bennett said. Her father, Orval Jones, who died in 2008, was a construction worker. “I get choked up when I talk about him. I miss him so much; he was my best friend,” she said.

She learned to ride motorcycles with her father, and it’s still her biggest passion, she said. She owns two Harley-Davidson motorcycles, one of which her 6-foot-3-inch husband customized to accommodate her 5-foot-1-inch stature. She’s a member of the national Harley Owners Group, as well as the Toad Suck Chapter No. 2543 Harley Owners Group in Conway.

“Our chapter is so wonderful. When we go on rides or go on poker runs, we give half back to a nonprofit organization. We do wonderful things for people,” she said.

Bennett’s father was a part-time musician, and she played the fiddle, guitar and piano, which she still plays. Growing up, she was in a bluegrass band with four other teenagers.

“We went all over the place,” she said. The band auditioned as an act for Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, and made it. However, the promoter wanted one of the band members to learn banjo, and he struggled with it. “We said forget it,” Bennett said, laughing.

Bennett said she made a lot of good connections through her band, and she always leaned toward business. She started working at a bank in Morrilton, which eventually became Regions Bank.

Her first job as a customer-

service representative was to make customers feel “warm and fuzzy,” and she moved up through the ranks.

“I did everything in the bank,” she said. “I was a corporate trainer through Regions. I traveled here and there when they would acquire a bank. … That was one of the hats I wore. When I left, I was doing consumer loans, selling life insurance and health insurance. I was a senior sales person, and I had had enough. I was ready to make a change.”

Bennett saw a newspaper ad for the Experience Works training coordinator.

“I said, ‘Gosh, I can do that. It’s just one thing; it’s not wearing all these hats,’” she said. “I felt like this position fell in my lap.”

Her experience at Regions Bank was invaluable, she said.

At Experience Works, as the supervisor for nine counties, she was able to pick the county in which she wanted to set up her office. She chose Conway County, her home. She also supervises Pope, Yell, Van Buren, Johnson, Logan, Sebastian, Franklin and Crawford counties, as well as 72 employees.

“People come to us for all reasons, from all walks of life. They may have been on top of the game … and everything changed,” she said. “This is truly helping them, giving them a sense of purpose.”

Participants’ income must be under the poverty level, and they are required to take classes at a community college or adult-education center in their areas. They are required to get four hours of computer training a week, too. It’s free, provided by Experience Works through the U.S. Department of Labor.

Participants can stay in the Experience Works program for 48 months, but the goal is for them to find employment within a year.

Bennett said the biggest problem is that the senior citizens fall in love with “their jobs,” which are not actually jobs — just training.

“We tell them, ‘This is not a job; this is a training program to better yourself.’ They’ll say, ‘I love my job. Oh, I love my boss; oh, and my co-workers.’ And all of that is wrong. That’s why we’re constantly making sure our people are taking their classes. When I go in [to an agency], the first thing I say is, ‘Hey, how’s the job

search going?’”

Bennett said one reason she opened her business — other than she was “bit by the boutique bug” — was to help Cole get experience. Bennett knew that by having Cole there during the day, she could swing two jobs.

Cole said she lived in California before moving to Morrilton.

“I knew I needed to try to find some kind of income to supplement my Social Security. I had been trying to find a job, but people don’t want to hire older workers, especially one who has no training,” Cole said. “I couldn’t turn a computer on. I knew nothing about anything. I couldn’t compute. I couldn’t text. If I answered my phone, that was high-tech.”

Her niece met another Experience Works participant who suggested that Cole apply for the program. Cole said she interviewed with Bennett and was placed in Bennett’s office, where she learned computer skills

and more.

“She’s been absolutely fabulous to me from Day 1,” Cole said. “I don’t know what I would have done without her. She’s like a daughter to me now; I’ve been around her so much. She’s really good at her job, and she takes care of us [participants], and that’s what we appreciate.”

Cole’s story is just one of many, Bennett said. A man who owned a number of Taco Bell restaurants had a heart attack, and he had to revamp his life. He was an Experience Works assistant in Pope County, but he recently got a job and is leaving the program. Bennett said that although she will miss him, she celebrates his success.

‘This is a feel-good job,” she said. “It’s a great feeling at night when I go home and I know I’ve helped someone who’s been living in a car, or like Rena — she was a displaced homemaker. She didn’t know what to do.

“These are people, they’ll call me at night and just want to share what they’ve learned in school. This is what’s wonderful — they scan and email me their certificates of completion in computer-based training. This is a 65- or 75-year-old person scanning an email, and most when they walk through our door don’t know how to turn on a computer.

“These are people who are sitting in their homes with the living-room

curtains closed. They feel like they don’t have any hope. I feel like we’re restoring their dignity — and they love it.”

Bennett has found her place, too.

“I love my job,” Bennett said. “I tell people, ‘This is an opportunity most people don’t get. Make the most of it because we can improve your life.’ They give back to the community in service hours. We’re building relationships in the community.”

And sometimes making friends — but don’t tell

anybody.

Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.

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