success stories
The Gateway Gaston
Success Stories
This service has helped us out in situations where we come up empty handed with our resources. I have often told clients to give me a call back if they don’t get a phone call from y’all, and to this day I have not received a call back saying they are still waiting. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for helping make this tool simple and allowing us to utilize it.
Interning at the Gateway showed me why we need this type of service. Some people are unaware of the different types assistance that they can receive and the Gateway helps them navigate the system.
Gateway is a wonderful resource for our church that enables us to discern where our pastor’s helping money should be spent. We refer all folks who stop by our church for assistance to Gateway and are very grateful for the way Dwayne and others respond to their situations. I also know that the Gateway is a resource I can call upon to help meet the needs of those in our community.
Here at GGBA, we have partnered with the Gateway for over 3 years. This agency has trained personnel that interviews, refers, educates and joins partnering agencies to provide the most essential assistance to those in true crisis. Through their detailed database, those ‘scamming’ or constantly relying on churches can be recognized. The outcome of the Gateway’s efforts is to give a ‘hand up’ rather than a ‘hand out’.
The Gateway helps raise awareness to create a community without ‘walls’ or stigmas. They Gateway allows me to help people I couldn’t on my own.
The Gateway has been an intricate part of my success. Not only did I find assistance with situational needs, but I found encouragement and support that continued over time.
Several months ago two of our local crisis agencies referred a family to the Resource Connection Gateway. This family took the hand-up that was extended by our Gateway partnerships.
Move ahead several months to today when I met face to face with the person. This one who was given a hand-up is paying it forward by organizing the effort to offer integrated services to our community’s homeless children. Follow this site for more details but I must tell it was so encouraging to sit down with someone who realizes that giving back is critical to true community.
Thank you so much for your assistance to this family. I am so glad that your experience has been as mine has been–a family that just wants a hand-up. I am so excited for this family that they finally have a home and a place to call their own. And I am so grateful that resources like Resource Connection Gateway exist. Your assistance is helping a family turn a house into a home for their children.
We first encountered this story via our Career Resources Session with his mother. She engaged in the steps we offered. Then she enrolled in college herself. Then she and Chris and the younger daughter completed NetworX. As you can see this family’s hard work is changing the trajectory of their lives.
http://www.gastongazette.com/news/20161209/gaston-teen-gets-full-ride-to-ivy-league-university
I opened my browser to read the paper this morning and found this piece on one of our Gateway clients.
It is especially nice that they not only acknowledged the Gateway’s role in connecting them resources but also their willingness to take our ‘Hand-up” permitted us to collaborate with the United Way.
This family came to our front desk after being referred to the Y — the Central front desk immediately entered their names into the gateway and we offered financial wellness class and dinner to them the very next day. Then, of course, we made the United Way referral.
Thanks to each of you for the role you play in serving our community.
http://www.gastongazette.com/news/20161223/starting-over-in-gastonia
Recently I was approached by a young man I recognized but could not quite put my finger on who he was or how I knew him. It turns out that he is a frequent Gateway Referral (10 referrals since May 2016). In fact, he was the single-most challenging referral I have ever encountered. He was argumentative, at times verbally abusive, and and unwilling to engage beyond the current moment / need. But we handled each encounter dignity, always clarifying boundaries, and offering a hand-up, never just a hand-out.
Well, the reason I could not recognize him today was because for the first time since I first encountered him he was clean, sober, and healthier. Today he was seeking to take the first step for re-housing himself as we have consistently encouraged him to do. He accepted our guidance and headed out to take care of the portions he can do for himself. He will let me know when he has completed this step. Then the Gateway and our collaborative partners will continue to walk with him to the next, and the next, and the next steps on his journey.