Mae Burden received the Employee of the Year award on Tuesday from the Older Kansans Employment Program. The Lyon County Historical Archives was named the Employer of the Year, with director Brenda Lavington accepting the award.
OKEP presented the honors during a ceremony Tuesday morning at the Emporia Senior Center.
The annual awards are given to the employee and employer whose performances with OKEP have been outstanding. Narrowing the fields down to one winner in each category was a challenge, according to program director Sally Holliman.
“I went over that for a whole week trying to decide who, because there were so many who were worthy,” she said.
The program serves people 55 and over who want to work part-time, full-time, or temporary hours. OKEP is located at the KansasWorks office, 512 Market St.
“We can find them temporary, part-time, any type of job that they need or want,” Holliman said.
Job openings come through the state job center, newspaper employment ads and the Service Employment and Re-Training Corp. (SER) in Wichita.
Holliman has about 100 active workers through OKEP at the moment, but estimated that about 200 had been involved so far this year.
Their job interests are varied, though caregiver jobs are prevalent.
“I have 33 caregivers that go into the home and take care of people who don’t want to go into nursing homes, or maybe have fallen and need someone for a month or so,” Holliman said. “Usually these are people who are retired health-care workers.”
Burden’s work at three jobs through OKEP earned her the annual employee award.
“She’s a caregiver in about three different places. That’s why she got it,” Holliman said.
Burden works afternoons, evenings, and nights. “She’s a very busy gal. She’s one of my younger ones.”
The historical archives received the award for employing a large number of OKEP workers part-time.
Arrangements for the archives jobs were made by SER, Holliman said. SER representatives come to Emporia to make arrangements with different businesses that are willing to employ people over 55 on part-time and full-time bases.
SER pays the salaries for the workers at the historical archives, who are hired through OKEP, she said. At last count, six older employees had part-time jobs at the archives.
“They cut and clip paper clippings and they do filing, and then they do archival work, which is restoring stuff that’s brought in to be exhibited,” Holliman said. “Just all sorts of things.”
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