Previously incarcerated, jobless and living in a shelter — High Point resident Nancy was out of options. A mother with two kids and one grandchild, Nance was haunted by her past mistakes.
“I had been unemployed for about ten months, which is the longest I had been unemployed,” Nancy says. “And because of some bad choices I had made, I got myself into a situation, and I couldn’t get a job.”
Motivated by her children to achieve something with her life, Nancy entered Triad Goodwill’s Careers On The Outside program in 2018, and quickly joined their Work Experience Program immediately after that.
During this time, Nancy’s dedication to improving her life through the power of work was apparent to everyone around her. She acquired housing on her own, and upon completing the programs was immediately recruited to work at one of Triad Goodwill’s Retail Stores and Donation Centers in Jamestown, where she was fast-tracked from a part-time job to a full-time job in record time.
In just over one year, working with Triad Goodwill helped Nancy rediscover a sense of purpose and value.
“You just have no idea, to come from losing everything and having nothing to feeling like somebody noticed there was some potential in me still, to just feel valued again,” Nancy says. “And it just starts changing your mindset. Your children start noticing, ‘Hey mom’s changing.’”
With retail stores and donation centers across Alamance, Caswell, Guilford, Randolph and Rockingham counties, Triad Goodwill works to create stories like this every day. And through the power of work, Nancy has not only improved her life, but inspired the lives of her children:
“Even though they aren’t young children anymore, they have always seen me as an achiever. And my motivation was to find myself and prove to them that my mistake doesn’t define who I am.”