IMPACT STORIES

Gil Gonzalez-Jacob still remembers what he wore to his first real job interview nearly four years ago: a blue dress shirt with a bow tie and black slacks. Sitting beside him, Gil’s mother talked him up to the interviewer in Spanish. “She was pretty much interviewing my mom for me,” he says with a laugh.

Elizabeth Magok went on dozens and dozens of job interviews. But she never got a call back.

Elizabeth, now 30 years old, grew up in South Sudan and came to the U.S. as a refugee five years ago. To support her four children and send money to family back home, she took minimum-wage jobs in food service, hospitality, and retail. But the language barrier prevented her from finding a higher-paying job.

“When I came here, it was really hard for me to understand,” she says. Elizabeth speaks softly, and though her English has improved tremendously, you have to lean forward to catch her quiet, melodious voice. 

"Mommy, Book Buddy came today!"

That's the excited refrain Danielle Marion's son Maxwell repeated nearly every week of his preschool year:

"Before Book Buddy, he didn't read too many words," Danielle says. "His vocabulary for what words he could read definitely expanded beyond the handful of sight words he knew."

Danielle adds that Maxwell also learned more about physical books: the cover, the author, when to flip the pages. He especially liked getting his new book each Friday—making sure to place the book safely in his locker to take home at the end of the day.

All this Book Buddy talk from Maxwell piqued Danielle's interest in the program.

When Connie Hall first saw fresh produce at her local food pantry, she had an idea: What if she used her talents to recycle those fruits and vegetables into long-lasting products for the community?

Someday, Donna Mitchell might make a film about her life: the homeschooled Des Moines student who went on to publish novels and produce independent films. It will be a long road, but Donna is up for it. She has already cleared the first hurdle: earning her high school equivalency diploma (HSED) through the Bridges to Success program.

Seven years ago, Amina Nuhanović was laid off from her job as a CPA. She didn’t sulk. Her experience coming to Iowa as a Bosnian refugee at the age of 13 had taught her to be strong in the face of adversity, to keep going no matter what.

Three-hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Most of them never get seen, much less transform the atmosphere of an entire school. But when McCombs seventh-grader Zoey Hannan (far left) watched a video of a mentally challenged student being lured to a party and tormented, she did something many of her peers would never consider. She looked outside herself—a popular 13-year-old with high self-esteem—and realized that her own actions could help others.

There are a lot of things a six-year-old can do with a bag of rocks. Build a castle. Lay out an imaginary battle. Roll them around like cars. Learn to read. That last one is what Bill, a kindergartner at Norwood Elementary in Des Moines, did with the help of his mentor Larry Collins.

When Carrie's son Sam was diagnosed with anxiety and bi-polar disorder, she found that accessing help and resources for childrens' mental health was very difficult. After learning about United Way's work finding solutions and resources for childhood mental health issues, Carrie got involved. She now volunteers and speaks to groups to make sure parents and others in central Iowa know help is available, and United Way can show the way.