3 from Orleans honored by GLOW Workforce Development Board
Photos by Tom Rivers
BATAVIA – Jesse Cudzilo, executive director of the YMCA in Orleans County, is presented with a business recognition award from Kelly Kiebala, director of the Job Development Agency in Orleans County.
The GLOW Workforce Development Board presented its awards to businesses, adults and youths on Friday during an annual meeting at the Terry Hills Restaurant in Batavia.
The Y was honored for its many years of offering job training to youths and adults through child care, recreation and camps, maintenance and custodian work, and interacting with the public at the front desk.
The Y allows its Pearl Street facility in Medina to be used for job fairs, and for Job Development staff to interview people for programs.
“They are certainly living up to the YMCA’s mission of giving people of all ages, backgrounds and walks of life the opportunity to reach their full potential with dignity,” Kiebala said.
Cudzilo always finds a way to support a Job Development initiative, she said.
“The Y exists to serve the community,” Cudzilo said in accepting the award and partnering with other organizations. “If you can think of it and it can be done, we’ll do it.”
Other businesses recognized on Friday for supporting Job Development clients and programs include: Wrights Beverages Distributing in Batavia, The Livingston County Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Mount Morris, and Ken’s Carpet Center in Warsaw, Wyoming County.
Orleans County presented its adult participant recognition award to Shontea Lewis. She is shown accepting the award, which was presented by Pam Chatt, an employment & training counselor for the Orleans County Job Development Agency.
Lewis was praised for using job training funds to enroll in a phlebotomy certification program. She passed the exam to be a certified phlebotomy technician and is now working with CSL Plasma in Rochester.
Lewis, in accepting the award, thanked Chatt “for her assistance and advice to help me advance in life.”
Peter Anderson (left), senior employment specialist for Orleans County Job Development Agency, presents the youth recognition award to Malachi Mt. Pleasant, who earned his GED at age 16 and then completed an arc and flame welding program at Monroe Community College. He was at the top of his class and now works full-time as a welder at Empro-Niagara Inc. in Lockport.
The three other counties – Genesee, Wyoming and Livingston – also presented adult and youth recognition awards to people assisted by the Job Development Agency.
Shelia VanAuken, an employment counselor at Livingston County Office of Workforce Development, presents an award Vitalii Tsykilov, who was able to flee war-torn Ukraine and settle in Livingston County with his wife and daughter in October 2022.
Tsykilov in the past year has learned English and earned a CDL-A to be licensed truck driver. He works as a regional driver for a commercial freight company.
He is grateful to the community for helping his family build a new life in the United States.
“I really appreciate the opportunity,” Tsykilov said. “Thank you everybody.”
The GLOW Workforce Investment Board in its annual report from 2022 said it served 2,413 customers in the four counties, among those include 1,852 on unemployment insurance and 121 veterans. The program assisted 301 businesses with listing job orders. Altogether, the GLOW organization helped with 2,402 new hires.
