Kaliah connected with StepUp in March 2021, as she was facing challenges to finding employment due to a history of justice involvement. She had reached a speed bump on her journey called life and needed support. Since then, she has worked diligently to change the narrative her past wrote for her and has used the “sandwich approach” from the Employment Training Workshop to share her story with potential employers.  

Through employment training, she sharpened her resume and interview skills and accessed community resources that have benefitted her family. Just a month after completing employment training, Kaliah landed a job with MVP staffing.  She loves her work schedule, which allows her to be flexible with the schedules of her three children (9, 8, and 4). Kaliah and her children hope to join Step2 Life Skills next. Since Kaliah reached out for support from StepUp, she feels like she can win her race. 

We celebrated the graduation of one Life Skills participant and two Real World participants on March 26th with a virtual ceremony. We are so proud of the dedication and commitment to the process and to their purpose that these graduates have shown.

"Spend some time with yourself because your purpose is inside of you. You don't have to look far, you don't have to look to other people. You will find your purpose sitting right there inside of you." - Jamar Davis

Nauresha joined Life Skills in January 2020 with her six month old daughter. She did not have her driver’s license so she was paying $40 a day five days a week in Lyft fees for transportation. She was ready for a change and wanted to do something different for her daughter.

Fast forward to December 2020, Nauresha graduated from Life Skills with her driver’s license, a new car, a new apartment furnished through The Green Chair Project and a full-time job with Amazon. 

Nauresha counts many of the accomplishments she had during her time in the program as some of her greatest.  “Since Life Skills I’ve got my license back, I got my car, I got a place and I start school in January so everything pretty much because I wouldn’t have thought about starting school again if it wasn’t for Life Skills.”

“My biggest takeaway from Life Skills is to never settle, keep pushing forward. If you have a goal then go for it and don’t let anything hold you back.”

“You have the power from this day forward to continue to grow.”
– Shareasa Dunn, StepUp Alumni

Our December 2020 Life Skills graduates made StepUp history as our first class to complete the entire program virtually! We celebrated with over 60 participants and their family members, staff and volunteers on Thursday night. 

Graduate Spotlight: Delshawn

“I found out about this program by mistake, but I think it was by design.”

Delshawn was supposed to pass on some information about StepUp to a friend, but ended up seeing the benefit of it for himself too. He graduated from the most recent Life Skills program in December along with eleven other participants. 

“StepUp transformed my life because I have been searching for the drive that I lost over the years so I was looking to do something to get out of my comfort zone."

He graduated as the class speaker, with excitement over his renewed passion for setting and achieving his goals alongside a class of peers that became a network of support and encouragement.