U. S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis speaks in Atlanta

Hilda A. Solis, US Labor Secretary takes questions from the media after speaking to the US Department of Labor Symposium: Job Clubs & Career Ministries on the Front Lines of Getting Americans Back to Work held at Cascade United Methodist church in Atlanta on October 5, 2011 and standing behind her is Rev. Dr. Marvin Anthony Moss, Cascade United Methodist Church.

I was called at the last minute to cover a meeting being held at Cascade United Methodist Church here in Atlanta on jobs. Hilda L. Solis, the US Labor Secretary was going to be the keynote speaker.

As with most of these last minutes meetings, you need to be able to be very flexible and understand what the key reasons the client wants you to cover the meeting.

My goal was to show that the church was hosting the event where the US Labor Secretary was the keynote.  I think the first photo helps capture that it was a newsworthy event and with the UMC logo on the podium showed they were hosting the event.  The Pastor of the church is in the background helping tie even more the church into the event through the photo.

In my opinion an extended caption with that photo tells the story. 

Corentiss Holmes from Georgia Trade-UP speaks as Madam Secretary Hilda L. Solis, U.S. Labor Secretary listens

After speaking Madam Secretary Solis took questions and invited to the podium the Georgia Trade-Up group that was attending.  They had just gone through training and now needed jobs.

Solis told of her story of going to college on a Pell Grant and being the first in her family to graduate from college.  While her story and the story of President Obama both were able to make it from very humble beginnings to the highest offices in the country the issue of education was not what was fixing the present situation of unemployment.

Solis was here to promote President Obama's plan before congress. 

Solis talks about her journey using Pell Grants to go to college and the importance of science and technology degrees today.

I am not writing this to talk about what she was speaking to the group about as much as to show how I covered the event.  I wanted to show professional looking people who are out of work and needing jobs.

I needed to show this in addition to the podium shot because this is what she came to Georgia to help fix. 

Audrey Jones talks about how she is looking for work now on panel discussing getting Georgians back to work. She had been in the banking industry but was now looking for work in healthcare. Do you have a job for her?

The panels included people from the faith community who were having job clubs to help their members and people from the community find jobs.  They have meetings where experts come in to give tips that could be on how to use LinkedIn, Facebook, how to write a resume and even some gave out gas cards to help them find work.

The idea is to share what they are doing in hopes that more faith communities start these groups because it is through the networking people learn to cope and find jobs.

Brian Ray of Crossroads Career Network leads a panel discussion on Getting Georgians Back to Work.