United Way – Support now, Success Long-term

Many success stories you get to hear about in connection to the services United Way supports will speak to immediate needs. Someone who’s lost housing, needs food, or who is seeking crisis counselling are situations where the individual needs help fast. There are many great examples of how those needs are met by community agencies because of the funding that comes from United Way, but here’s one about a long-term result and success.

Some years ago, a teenage father came to the John Howard Society of Durham to get assistance with employment. At just 17 years old he had dropped out of high school and was responsible for the care of his newborn daughter and his partner. In his mind, the key was to get a job and support his new family, so he came to JHS after hearing that it had links for youth to good job opportunities.

Working with an employment counsellor, he took life skills workshops and then was able to get a job placement with Information Oshawa (a United Way service today) where his strength and interest in computers could be applied. He completed the placement, and continued to work with JHS staff on career and goal planning. With excellent support and guidance, he soon recognized that further education was indeed important and necessary for his future success, and so he returned to school, Durham College, as a mature student. He completed a certificate and then a diploma program there, with marks very near the top of his class, which was completely opposite to the kind of student he had been in high school. In fact, he became a math and science tutor through the college’s own on-site support program during that first year of his diploma program, a role usually reserved for 2nd or 3rd year students.

Armed with higher education, he was able to open new doors for himself in both the non-profit and corporate sectors. He worked with outdoor environmental education services, in water quality testing, as a laboratory technician in the automotive sector, and continued to upgrade his skills.

It’s now 16 years since he first received that help and guidance from JHS, and the for the last 6 years he’s had the unique opportunity to give back to the community by working for the very same place that once helped him - JHS! Without United Way supporting the core of this agency, I might have slipped through the cracks and into a very different path. I had no idea I would end up here, that wasn’t part of the plan in my youth, but being of value to my community was. Your support for United Way can make a difference in someone’s life, like it did for me.

I