Dress for Success helps Valley teens prepare to enter the workforce

PHOENIX - Dress for Success has spent the past two days at Camelback High School teaching the students how to put together a resume and dressing them for success.

"The need was so great and this was a population that was getting overlooked and we don't want these young adults to become what is known in our community as opportunity to creating more barriers to employment," Lisa Doromal said.

In 2015, Doromal, who's the founder and CEO of Dress for Success Phoenix, launched another program called the "Teen Workforce Initiative," which is a way to prepare high school students for the workforce.

Doromal says half of all students in the Phoenix area don't go on to pursue a secondary education.

Dress for Success took the tools right into the classroom, thanks to a $50,000 grant from U.S. Bank, and is now able to help more students.

"Now, we have a second mobile unit just dedicated to the 'Teen Workforce Initiative,'" Doromal said.

The mobile unit is stocked with shoes, blazers and everything need to dress for success.

"The people from Dress for Success helped me pick out this outfit, they showed me some options I could choose from and they kind of fitted me for what I was going to look like," one person said.

"You just feel very grateful that you're a high school [student] and you have all of these business clothes and you're ready to go into the workforce," another person said. "Not many high schoolers can say that."

In its first school year, the new truck is expected to provide more than 1,000 students with 200+ hours total of job readiness training. It will also help distribute more than $130,000 worth of interview and work attire.