Community partners join forces to open career doors for DC residents

Official Statements

• District of Columbia Counterdrug Task Force, November 9: “WASHINGTON — Gary Thomas wore what he said was his first suit to a citywide job fair in Southeast Washington, D.C. Oct. 8, 2026. The 20-year-old Ward 8 resident came looking for a stable income to support his 2-year-old daughter.

  At the fair, Thomas found more than one option. “There’s a whole bunch of stable incomes in one place,” he said, naming the Army recruiting and the construction trades as the opportunities that stood out to him the most.

  Thomas was one of 150 attendees at the Jobs Not Guns and Jobs Not Drugs Citywide Recruitment and Resource Fair, hosted by the National Association of Minority Contractors, Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area Chapter (NAMC-WMAC). The fair connected District youth and adults with jobs, training and support services.

  The Marshall Heights Community Development Organization and the D.C. National Guard Counterdrug Task Force Drug Demand Reduction Outreach (DDRO) team co-hosted the fair at St. Luke Roman Catholic Church’s Community Center. It was the 22nd event NAMC-WMAC has held with partners since 2021. More than 75 employers and organizations exhibited at the fair.

  “I am so pleased that we had all of these people, and we all worked so hard to make this happen,” said Rosalind T. Styles, president of NAMC-WMAC. “It’s not just about me, it’s about us. This is what I call a collective effort.”

  That collaboration is built into the program's history. Styles and NAMC-WMAC Event Coordinator Dotti Love Wade created Jobs Not Guns to support the District's Building Blocks D.C. gun violence prevention strategy.

  The program connects residents with employers, training and apprenticeship programs, and support services. Jobs Not Drugs was later created to address the opioid epidemic East of the River in Wards 7 and 8.

  Preventing drug use before it starts is also the focus of DDRO, one of the fair's co-hosts. The DDRO team works alongside community partners to strengthen protective factors, the conditions and influences that make young people less likely to use drugs. Sgt. 1st Class Belita Lynum, the team's noncommissioned officer in charge, said employment is one of those factors.

  “A protective factor is basically something in a person’s life that helps reduce risk and supports healthier choices,” Lynum said. “Employment is one example because a job can provide income, structure, purpose, responsibility and connections to other people.”

  "We are working on the primary prevention side," Lynum said, "we’re building relationships and working alongside the community before something becomes a crisis."

  Lynum said making resources available is only part of that work. "It's also not enough for resources to simply exist. People have to know about them, have a pathway to access them and actually be able to use them."

  For Styles, finding that pathway took persistence. When asked what she wanted attendees to take away, she pointed to her own path.

  "Never give up," she said. "I had a child at 17... I went to night school to get my high school diploma." She went on to attend the University of the District of Columbia. “I always wanted to know what else I can do,” she said.

  Thomas is just starting out on his own path. He said he had tried to get a friend to come to the fair, and he plans to tell that friend what he took away from the day: "Try to put yourself in places and rooms you're not comfortable in, because you never know the outcome."