‘Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin-By-World’ program planned

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The Wapakoneta YMCA has announced the launch of a new initiative, “Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin-By-World,” a 16-week program offered on Tuesdays from 6:15 to 8:45 p.m. from March 14 through June 27 at the Wapakoneta Y, 1100 Defiance St., Wapakoneta.

Each week participants will gather to create plans to build resources for a life marked by greater financial security, personal opportunity, and community connectedness. Participants examine their own situations and experiences to design a personal path for “Getting Ahead.” In January local residents Rachel Barber and Bob Scherger trained in the “Getting Ahead” program, and are now certified facilitators for the process.

The Getting Ahead curriculum:

• Involves rigorous work completed in a safe learning environment with the support of a facilitator and co-facilitator.

• Enables participants, called “investigators,” to examine their own experience of poverty as well as explore issues in the community that impact poverty − banking, housing, jobs, transportation − providing critical information the community can use to take action to end poverty.

• Guides investigators through an assessment of their own resources and how to build those resources as part of their move to self-sufficiency.

• Puts the concepts, tools, and relationships in the hands of people in poverty to make a difference in their own lives and in the life of their community.

“We are excited to host the ‘Getting Ahead’ program for our community,” said Josh Little, chief executive officer of the Wapakoneta YMCA. “This program is another example of how the YMCA serves our community in diverse ways and lives our mission of being for all. Helping people get ahead strengthens the foundations of our community.”

Free supper and child care will be provided to persons participating in “Getting Ahead,” and each will receive stipends in the form of gift cards, both at selected stages in the process and at the conclusion of the program.

“Getting Ahead” has helped thousands of families across the United States and throughout the world build better lives for themselves, and now the program has arrived in Wapakoneta and Eastern Auglaize County. (For more information about “Getting Ahead” and “Bridges Out of Poverty,” upon which the program is based, visit ahaprocess.com.)

To learn more about “Getting Ahead,” or to recommend or register a participant for this free program, contact Josh Little at the Wapakoneta Y, 419-739-9622. The class is limited to 12 persons.

Staff report

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