Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowMore than 2,000 people, many of them recently laid
off from factories or restaurants, filled a convention center to compete for
about 200 seasonal and part-time jobs with Fort Wayne’s minor-league baseball
team.
Saturday’s turnout at the Grand Wayne Center for jobs ranging from ushers to
parking lot attendants offered a good look at the extent of northeast Indiana’s economic woes, said Fort Wayne TinCaps spokesman Michael Limmer.
“It hit me when I realized and saw that many people,” he said.
Limmer said the big turnout boosts the team’s chances of hiring good people
to serve as ushers, ticket takers, parking lot attendants, ticket office sales
staffs and service jobs such as food preparation.
The team, which changed its name last year from the Wizards to TinCaps,
starts its season April 16 at the new Parkview Field.
After two months without a steady paycheck, 43-year-old Helen Miller left
Saturday’s job fair with a new job as a cashier for the TinCaps – a job that
will pay $7.25 an hour.
Miller, who arrived at Grand Wayne Center shortly after 7 a.m., said she was
second in line to vie for the open positions.
“I’m ecstatic,” the Fort Wayne resident said. “I really needed it.”
In response to Saturday’s big turnout, organizers began taking applications
an hour before the scheduled 10 a.m. start time, Limmer said.
Job seekers first completed their applications and then gave five-minute
interviews, after which some applicants advanced to a second, more in-depth
interview.
But when it became apparent the wait times for interviews would stretch into
hours, Limmer said the team decided to instead take applications only and follow
up with applicants later rather than cutting the five-minute interview to two
minutes.
By the time the process was changed, more than 500 people were waiting to be
interviewed.
Geraldo Hughes, 33, of Fort Wayne, was among those who showed up after the
interviews were cut off. He lost his job at a fast-food restaurant about six
months ago after he became ill.
Hughes said he’s taken time every day since to find work, but few interviews
have resulted.
“It’s been rough,” he said.
Woodburn resident Trena Lifsey, 39, waited Saturday for her husband to fill
out his application. She said her husband, Perry Lifsey, 36, was laid off from
his job at Taylor Glass in Payne, Ohio, two days before their wedding in
September.
Since then, they’ve relied on his unemployment checks and her income as a
cook at a Woodburn convenience store, where she earns $10 an hour.
“It’s tough,” Trena Lifsey said.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.