From Challenge to Opportunity: How the Missouri Works Initiative is Changing Lives

AFL-CIO

From Challenge to Opportunity: How the Missouri Works Initiative is Changing Lives

July 9, 2026
Addie Ferber

The Missouri Works Initiative is a non-profit organization sponsored and supported by the Missouri AFL-CIO. The program was formed to eliminate barriers to economic opportunities by connecting Missourians to the necessary resources to build life-sustaining careers. As a long-time partner of the Missouri AFL-CIO, United Way Ozarks Region is proud to play a small role in the impact of this important program.

Our United Way team recently sat down for a conversation with Tyrone & Tylisha, a brother-sister duo whose lives were changed by the Missouri Works Initiative.

“I was hopeless as heck before I found the program.”

Before finding the Missouri Work Initiative, Tylisha & Tyrone had worked fast-food jobs and experienced unstable living conditions. After Tylisha and Tyrone found themselves homeless, they knew that they needed to create a different story for themselves. Tylisha discovered the Missouri Works Initiative through a girlfriend during her time in sober living. Her friend described the program as “free gas cards & weekly payments.” But Tylisha soon found out that the program would completely change her life.

After completing the program, Tylisha received not one, but two, excellent job offers within days due to skills and certifications gained from the program. Thanks to her new job, “my quality of life has been significantly greater,” said Tylisha. She is now making a livable wage and no longer survives paycheck-to-paycheck. Tylisha recently bought a house for herself, her fiancé, and her two children and is breaking generational curses. Tylisha now sees a future that is sober and limitless due to the Missouri Works Initiative.

Following in his big sister’s footsteps two years later, Tyrone graduated from the Missouri Works Initiative program and very quickly secured a roofing job. Tyrone says the skills he has learned have made him a leader and his peers are now interested in the program due to the change they’ve seen in his life. As he begins his new career, he is excited for the future he now sees ahead of him. One he could not have imagined before.

We asked the duo if they had any words for the people who have invested in this program. They told us, “This program is awesome, and we greatly appreciate it!”

Students find training and opportunities with the many local labor groups that participate in the Missouri Works Initiative. The labor groups involved are: