Stories of Transformation-Gloria's Story

Throughout her experience with homelessness, Gloria learned an important lesson: you must be able to humble yourself. Gloria came to Atlanta Mission’s overnight shelter “Home Sweet Home” looking for answers—she had been a hard worker all her life, she also was determined, but she just hadn’t been able to take that next step in her journey to ending her story of sad homelessness. The team at Home Sweet Home works and worked together with each woman and child to address their unique and specific needs. Ultimately, for women like Gloria, the goal is to find a job that will provide a sustainable income that eventually leads to a humble housing. She says she was at Home Sweet Home for about two and a half years, and while at the shelter she joined the Atlanta Mission @Work program. Atlanta Mission @Work is an extension of Atlanta Mission that specializes specifically in workforce development for clients who are ready to take the next step in their journey of ending homelessness. The program finally helped Gloria reach that goal of attaining a sustainable income. Learn something new Gloria says the @Work program helped open her up to techniques and training that she could apply in daily life to help her earn and keep a job. Anyone in need can do it. “I think what I learned from my time with @Work is that you have to learn to be submissive with yourself,” Gloria says. “There are many that may say, ‘Oh I know this, I know that. Do you really?’ “You just have to push that to the side and put yourself in a position where you can learn something new and take it with you.” Through the @Work program, Gloria was able to get a job working with a cute local restaurant. She’s now been employed at the restaurant for a year and a half. She says through the training which she received with @Work she’s learned how to better work closely and collaborate with other team members, even if she happens to find herself disagreeing with them. She says that she’s “been trying to recommend the program” to her boss because she feels like other people, she works with could benefit from the training, as well. @Work Ensured Her Success The process of transformation is never ever an easy one. Gloria learned this painfully quickly. She says while she was enrolled in the daily classes at Home Sweet Home, she often found herself pestered by the “redundant” activities, just as a young teenager might be with schoolwork. She states now that she’s graduated from the program, she quickly (comparatively) understands how important these repetitive activities were to ensure her success. “Some of my favorite instances during @Work were each morning during the morning motivations,” she says. “I’m not going to be dishonest here—initially, I was like, ‘Oh, this is so same-old, same-old. We’ve got to do this every single day?’ But then, on the flipside, I’m done with @Work and I realize that that was truthfully kind of fun. I find myself missing it now. “Now I try to always just remember the repetitive training that I did, apply it, and keep working hard.“ Be willing to change Atlanta Mission’s @Work program gave Gloria hope in the long run. Hope that she might one day end her experience with being hopeless in her homelessness, hope that she could find a job that would provide her with a livable income, and hope that she would eventually move out of the shelter and into a place of her very own. But the program, while beneficial for her, is not for everybody, she meekly explains. “While there are many people that could benefit from @Work, you have to be willing to actually do the work,” Gloria says. “You have to be willing to put yourself in a position to learn more and put yourself in a position where you can open yourself up to different ideas.” While the job and the program may be a challenging experience in and of itself, Gloria says the hardest part can be the limit you put on yourself. She honestly says you need to learn to accept help and that you don’t have all of the answers if you want to make progress. Now who really does?

“If you can’t open yourself up to these new ideas and activities, you’re not going to learn and you’re not going to be able to apply what you’ve learned to reach your goals, no matter how impossible they may have seemed in the past.” she says. “At the conclusion, you’re only hindering yourself.”