Jenn Perchak has been one of the pioneers in AFSCME’s Free College benefit program, which is open to all SHARE members. SHARE has heard several really great reports about this benefit, and we’re very happy to know that it’s making a difference. As you can see, Jenn is mighty busy, but that hasn’t kept her from impressive success earning a spot on the Dean’s List and then her first college degree. Here she is in her own words . . .
I swore I would never work in the medical field. My mom is a registered respiratory therapist and LPN, so I grew up around hospitals, and swore I would never work in one. When I had my oldest child nineteen years ago, I was looking for a job to do. My friend said to take a one hundred hour course to become a CNA and if you passed it then you would be paid for the one hundred hours in minimum wage. However, I was getting sick of working weekends and holidays. So I decided to become a medical assistant, and now work in the Endocrinology Department at UMass.
My favorite part of this job is interacting with the patients. I have a patient who found out that I raise cows with my mom and now he calls me “beef” and it's pretty funny. My mom had learned about the bad quality of the meat sold in stores, and so she asked her husband if she can buy a cow. That was a gateway to now having sixty-five cows. I help my mom out with sixty-five grass-fed non-GMO certified cows, and have a store in New Braintree with her.
Outside of working on the farm on the weekends, I work forty hours at UMass, I have four kids, and I also decided to go to school full time online through the union. I just finished my associate degree and graduated with a 3.9 GPA in June. Now, I am working on my bachelors and just got accepted into Central State of Ohio with the Union bachelor’s program. Going to school has been fun! The classes were not as tough as I thought they would be. It has been super interesting to learn so much.
It is really easy to sign up for college through the union. You just go to the SHARE website and click the link. I found out about this through a coworker who was starting Nursing school through this same program. She just told me that I should do this and so I am doing it!
My favorite part about school is that I can apply what I am learning to the farm that my mom and I run together. I am studying Business Management so when I had to write a business plan for school I wrote one for the farm. When I had to work on social media marketing for school, I applied it to the farm.
If you are dedicated to school and work you can do both! Just take advantage of this opportunity as much as you can. I was just looking at my associate in Business Management and the price of it without FAFSA and the union is $59,000. After FAFSA, the Union paid for the rest. People say that unions just protect the bad employees but I have been with UMass for eleven years and my dues have not equaled 59,000 dollars. We deserve this and more.
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In the past, I was anti-union until I worked at UMass. Now that I have been in the union, I would not trade it for the world. I have always worked with [staff organizer] Bobbi-Jo from the beginning. It is so nice to have her around and she has been so supportive of me through school. I have known Bobbi-Jo for eight years now and I don't even know if she is technically my union representative now but I told her that you are stuck with me! I can call her any time and I know that she will be there for me.