Community Resource Fair Targets Orange County’s Underserved Population

The Community Corrections Division of Orange County Corrections is hosting a Community Resource Fair on Thursday, June 30 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Orange County Jail’s South parking lot.

We’ll host a variety of vendors, providers and employers to facilitate awareness of resources and opportunities available to meet the needs of the citizens of Orange County and surrounding areas. In particular, the fair will target resources available to recently released inmates, offenders on community supervision and the homeless. Since 96 percent of Orange County inmates return to the community, it is always the goal of the Orange County Corrections Department to return them there in a better state then when they came to the jail. This fair will provide resources to help them succeed as law-abiding citizens.

If you are a vendor or employer, and would like to participate or would like more information, please contact Hope Simpson at 407-836-3044 or via email at Hope.Simpson@ocfl.net.

We will have more than 40 community resources, vendors and nonprofits onsite for the Community Resource Fair. Some of them include National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the Urban League, United Against Poverty, the Florida Restoration Rights Coalition, Valencia College, the Salvation Army, the Victim Service Center, the Army Recruiting Office, Career Source Central Florida, First Step Staffing, Orlando Technical College, Healthy Start Coalition, Operation New Hope and many more!

The idea is to assist people who are down on their luck or who need a little boost, and to provide them with help for a more stable environment to include employment, educational resources and affordable housing.

Linda Brooks, Manager of Community Corrections & Inmate Programs says, “People who have had a brush with the law often just need some tools to put them on the path of moving forward in a positive direction and that’s the whole goal of this fair in bringing the resources all together in a centralized location and making them available to the community.” For many people who are struggling, transportation is often an issue so having the resources in a single location is key.