Every year during the first full week of May, Goodwill Industries International along with our community-based Goodwill® organizations across the U.S. and Canada celebrate Goodwill Week to highlight the Goodwill mission — transforming lives through the #powerofwork. This year, #GoodwillWeek runs May 7-13.
While the U.S. economy is steadily improving and the unemployment rate continues to remain low, many communities continue to struggle with poverty, homelessness and lack of access to good-paying jobs. Goodwill has a long history of helping people acquire the skills and training they need to find meaningful employment so they can support their families and contribute to their communities.
Local Goodwill organizations first celebrated Goodwill Industries Week in May 1951 as a way to educate people about the Goodwill mission, defined at that time as, “helping people with disabilities help themselves.”
Today, Goodwill serves anyone facing challenges to finding employment, including people with disabilities and disadvantages, older workers, youth, veterans and military families, and people reintegrating back into society from the justice system. Goodwill helps anyone, regardless of educational level or economic background, reach their full potential through learning and the power of work.
Goodwill sells donated items in more than 3,300 stores in the United States and Canada and online at shopgoodwill.com®. The revenue creates job placement and training programs to help people earn paychecks and build their careers.
Eighty-seven cents of every dollar a consumer spends at Goodwill goes back into local communities to help people build careers of significance and lives of meaning. Every 25 seconds of every business day, a person served by Goodwill earns a good job.
Goodwill Week comes at a critical time to shine a light on individuals in need, as well as on our 155 Goodwill organizations, community partners and employers across the country who are working together to provide training and support services to those who need them.
