Success Stories

A Circle’s Story

My name is Katherine Dieterie and I am a Graduated Circles Leader in Sussex County, NJ. In fact, I am becoming an Ally to a new Circles Leader.

I have come a long way from where I was 2 years ago. I had lost my job 3 years ago and when I joinedCircles I didn’t realize how depressed I was feeling.I was lost and not myself. Within the firs week of becoming a Circles Leader I signed up for classes to re-train myself so that I could find a job that would sustain me until retirement. I started taking classes to become certified as a Medical Coder.

This amazing group of men and women helped me to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to change my life sitting around and wallowing. We were going to lose our house to foreclosure and I didn’t know what else to do to try and stop that. I had been looking for a job for over 2 years at this point and I was becoming very frustrated and depressed. I hadn’t had an interview in over 6 months at the time I joined Circles. With the help of everyone that is involved at some level with the Circles program, they assisted me in finding myself, they were instrumental in getting me back to who I was. They literally changed my life.

Things at home were very strained with all of us. My husband was feeling a great strain being the only one working and not really seeing an end to the misery we were living. Knowing that there were people out there that were in the same situation I was in, in some form or another, and coming together to support each other was comforting. We began to realize that we could bring ourselves out of this with the help of all the people involved, hard work and commitment to make our lives different.

It gave me my mojo back and allowed me to feel useful along the way also. I really felt that there wasn’t anything I was going to get out of this, but I joined for my daughter, to help her get involved and hopefully be able to change her life. Little did I know that it was going to change my life so dramatically!

I am now gainfully employed and just was given a raise after seven and a half months working in a position I had never done before. I got my confidence back and I was able to sell myself and truly believe it. I think that’s why I was hired and I was able to show them who I am as an employee and a human being.

We also were able to save our house from foreclosure by doing a re-modification of our mortgage.We now have a payment we can afford and manage for the long haul. We have also reduced our consumer debt and are paying off 2 credit cards that we have left. We are at the end of the tunnel.

Our lives as a whole family have changed completely. It had been a hellish 2 and a half years but it has made us, as a family, stronger and we know that we can get through anything together. And we also know that we have a great group of people to be able to rely on for just about anything we may need along the way.And now I am going to help a newly graduated CIRCLE Leader move forward to meet their goals by becoming an ally or mentor to them.

Yvonne’s story

“When I was just a teen. I decided that by the age of 25 I would be married, have two kids, my house, and a Honda Civic. Well, I wasn’t too far off. By the age of 28 I was married, by 30 I had my second daughter and by 31 I had my house.I never got the Civic but I did end with a brand new car.I joined NORWESCAP Family Self-Sufficiency about one year after I started receiving housing assistance thanks to the help of Mark Bizzarro, Sherry Sims and Margarita Howard. knew then that I was on my way to accomplishing my goal of home ownership, with the help of Jean Blevins and NORWESCAP. I attended more than the required number of Financial Education workshops and joined Housing Partnership’s Program.There were so many other avenues I took to get where I am today, A FIRST TIME HOME OWNER!

I would like to thank NORWESCAP, and the Boonton Housing Authority for their assistance and for believing in me. I also want to thank my father for his generous help and my family for dealing with me during the stressful process of finding my first home.That process in itself was not easy, from short sales, to homes under contract, being out bid and failed inspections.

BH recently began the IDA program with the goal of home ownership. While driving a school bus and attending school at William Paterson part time, she was offered a twelve-month teaching position at $40,000 annually. Despite many financial setbacks, she was able to save $2,900 with her new job. She attributes much of her success to the financial education she received through the IDA program, including budgeting and how to be an educated consumer. Ironically, by attending the home ownership education, she realized that now was not the time for her to buy a home. Instead, she changed her goal to building her own tutoring business

A recently separated mother of two young girls came to the Career & Life Transitions Center. Though struggling financially, she was ineligible for food stamps. Without the extra cushion provided by such benefits as Child Support and Rental Assistance, she lived by borrowing against her credit. She has a business degree and decided that she needed a career change and further schooling because she could not afford the commute back and forth to New York City for her job as a single parent.

When she became a client of the Career & Life Transitions Center, she visited with the Case Manager and the Career Training Advisor. The Center provided letters for her to receive a tuition scholarship to attend the Warren County Community College Certified Bookkeeping course. As she had not yet found a job when she completed this training, she decided to attend the Computer Training class at the Center, which includes Online Job Searching and Job-Readiness Training. She had almost completed the Computer Training when she happily learned she was hired full time in a local township office.

A young woman came to the Family Success Center only able to speak Spanish.Pregnant and unsure of her future, she did not know what to do. Though a victim of domestic violence, she faced criminal charges or deportation from accidentally hurting her batterer. Immediately she was connected to resources in the community. With the NORWESCAP Family Partner’s support, she was able to get a public defender, and the charges were reduced to a fine. She needed to speak English, so she began to attend language classes during the day and evening while she continued to work. She started as a dishwasher at the minimum wage, but after five years of employment at the same restaurant, she now earns $13.50 per hour as Assistant Chef.

She now speaks English well enough to converse with her children’s teachers, has attended every workshop we have offered and has taken advantage of other community resources. Determined to maintain her job, she used public transportation or asked for rides to work until she purchased her own vehicle two years ago. Her son is now a second-year preschooler at the Early Childhood Center, and she uses the before- and after-school care on site.