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My Time in the Pennsylvania DHS as Part of the TCP

Helping Organizations Help You

By A. Alexis KreiserPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Over the summer, my mother insisted that I get a job, and she suggested a ride operator at an amusement park, so I applied and I got it. Not too long after that, she suggested that I get a job in the Pennsylvania Temporary Clerical Pool because it paid more than the other one. I politely declined, saying that I already had a job. However, my mother is the kind of person that, when she suggests that I do something, won't stop suggesting it until I actually do it. So, I applied, took the typing exam, and got in. (For the record, when this happened, she said I could quit my first job, but I hadn't even started yet, so why would I quit without at least trying it first?)

Anyway, those in the Pennsylvania TCP get bounced around from department to department for different periods of time. As far as I know, those periods of time can range anywhere from one month to one year. They can truly be any length of time.

One of the departments I got bounced to was the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services in their LIHEAP division. For those that don't know, LIHEAP stands for Low-Income Home-Energy Assistance Program. This is the program that helps low-income Pennsylvanians make sure they have heat for the winter, because winters here in the Keystone State can get very cold.

My main task was to call around and make sure that there was enough LIHEAP paperwork to go around. This paperwork included applications and brochures, and the paperwork came in English and Spanish. I was given a spreadsheet of organizations that typically receive LIHEAP paperwork.

These organizations included county area agencies on aging, senior centers, mass transit authorities, dialysis clinics, food banks, Red Cross locations, churches, electric companies, and others. I dealt with a whole garden variety of organizations that received LIHEAP paperwork, and these organizations were located in all 67 counties of Pennsylvania.

This spreadsheet that I was given was, as I found out, quite outdated. The aforementioned spreadsheet didn't have any of the organizations' phone numbers, so I had to Google them by name. The results contained, amongst other things, their phone numbers. When I reached the organizations through this phone number, I had to confirm that their address was the same. Sometimes it would be the same, and sometimes it would be different. Sometimes the LIHEAP paperwork they needed would be different, sometimes the name of the organization would be different. Sometimes the phone number I would be given would be out of service, so I had to look up the organization by address, and sometimes I would get the same phone number and sometimes I would get a different phone number. Sometimes this number would work and sometimes it wouldn't.

All of this, as you might imagine, might make this daunting task quite frustrating, and, not gonna lie, sometimes it was, but it was also one of my favorite things I have ever done. It felt like I was learning more about my home state while simultaneously making sure that organizations around the state had enough LIHEAP paperwork for the season. I was doing something I really wanted to do — I was helping people... Well, to be more accurate, I was helping organizations help the low-income population of Pennsylvania make sure they too can stay warm this winter, which was really awesome to do.

One last note: If you live in Pennsylvania and want to see if you are eligible for LIHEAP benefits, you can apply starting on November 1. Here is the website: http://www.dhs.pa.gov/citizens/heatingassistanceliheap/index.htm

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About the Creator

A. Alexis Kreiser

Freelance author. I write about what I want which is mostly stuff about science and politics - or my own life.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter/Instagram/Snapchat: @Lexie_FM

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