This past fall, SFMade helped City College of San Francisco connect to SFMade member Cut Loose to provide free, on-site ESL classes to Cut Loose’s employees.
SFMade recognized an opportunity for Cut Loose to invest in its employees and connected them to CCSF’s Adult Education Program. Cut Loose is a local manufacturer specializing in hand dyed apparel, with over 55 full-time employees. CCSF’s Adult Education Program offers free noncredit courses to help students gain skills to improve their lives.
The ESL classes were held at Cut Loose’s production facility for 8 weeks, and students could join the advanced class, beginner class or both if they wanted extra practice! Each class was 1.5 hours long and in total 27 Cut Loose employees attended.
Cut Loose hosted a “sign-up party” complete with food and flyers to encourage their employees to enroll in the class. 30 employees enrolled that day and in doing so they officially became CCSF students. At the end of the 8 weeks, Cut Loose also hosted a graduation where they presented each student with a signed and framed certificate and congratulated them on their hard work!
After the 8 weeks the employees felt more comfortable communicating with their co-workers and vendors about work issues, talking to their children’s teachers and building personal relationships both at and outside work.
We’re thrilled about this successful partnership between Cut Loose and CCSF and hope to see more businesses invest in their employees in similar ways! If you’re an SFMade business member interested in providing your employees with a similar resource please email [email protected] for more info.