United Way of the Bay Area Blog
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When Nicole, a SparkPoint coach gets out of bed in the morning, she knows she’s going to be empowering low-income community members to take control of their finances. She helps people create a budget, access financial assistance, get good jobs, improve their credit and start saving. Coaching – and supporting a person’s complete financial picture [...]
We’ve all wished we had a newer, better car at one point in our lives. But for Andrea Keeling, it was a crisis. Her van was so old that she couldn’t start it with a key. When she wanted to use it, Andrea had to jack up the hood and risk being shocked to turn [...]
United Way Vice-President, Tse Ming Tam grew up in abject poverty. He and his five brothers and sisters scrounged around restaurant alleys for food, and Tse Ming was functionally illiterate through age 25. His personal struggles have informed his life work, combatting poverty in the Bay Area. And it is because of his visionary work [...]
East Bay Congresswoman Barbara Lee beamed with pride at United Way’s SparkPoint Oakland grand re-opening: “Good things are happening here in Oakland! People across the country ask me about economic empowerment and how to move people out of poverty. I’m proud of the fact that we’re doing that here. SparkPoint is paving the way to [...]
Last December, Laverne Oakley had to tell her youngest son that there weren’t going to be any Christmas presents. Her son thought Santa was mad at him for being a naughty boy. For her older son, Laverne was having trouble piecing together bus fare at the end of the month to get him to school [...]
United Way’s SparkPoint American Canyon cut the ribbon on its new, larger location where more community partners can provide services to a greater number of local residents. According to Stacy Lopez, the SparkPoint Employment Coordinator, “It’s exciting that we have a larger location that allows our community partners to provide resources to a greater number [...]
The American Dream of homeownership has become more elusive in recent years. And when someone loses a job, that dream can be snuffed out completely. But with the help of United Way’s SparkPoint, people are recovering and reigniting their dreams. Fabiola Aranda husband lost his job a couple of years ago. For her family of [...]
Unemployed…worried about money…months of looking for work. Sound familiar? That was Briana’s story. After looking for work for almost a year, Briana got advice from her mom, a volunteer at United Way’s SparkPoint. She suggested that Briana check out the career counseling and job coaching services available at SparkPoint American Canyon. Briana was matched up [...]
Last week, United Way gathered 120 poverty-fighting professionals from more than 70 organizations for the second annual SparkPoint Retreat. Participants – all of whom work at SparkPoint Centers in the SF Bay Area – came together to celebrate their hard work and success. Through interactive workshops, participants shared challenges, best practices and goals for the coming year. [...]
I met Edmond, a United Way SparkPoint client, at the residential hotel where he is a clerk. The hotel mostly houses former addicts and people with a criminal record. It’s not a happy place, and Edmond tells me residents get mugged every day. Edmond gets paid only $8.50 an hour with no health benefits. He [...]
