LIFT

"It wasn’t until I began to send out my revised résumé from my work with LIFT that I started getting responses."

Howard Walters, a LIFT-Philadelphia Board Member, recently sat down with Angela Allen to talk to her about her life experience and what she has achieved since starting work with LIFT-Philadelphia.  The following is an excerpt from Howard’s interview with Angela.

Ron Lawrence originally came to LIFT-Philadelphia to file his taxes.  Though his tax return was fairly simple, he was struck by how thoroughly LIFT volunteers answered his questions and provided him with directions.  They made sure that Ron knew about additional services LIFT provided beyond tax preparation, and the next year, Ron remembered those services when he was searching for a new job, and contacted the volunteers again.

Gary Farmer had been steadily employed in the travel industry for over 20 years and had recently been promoted to supervisor in his department at a national airline.  When the recession hit and he was laid off, Gary struggled to comprehend the news. “I was looking for work and in many ways had nowhere to turn,” he says.  A friend suggested that he turn to LIFT, and upon entering LIFT-Philadelphia's West Office, he quickly found hope that he would be employed again.

William Ward was facing an uphill battle this past year.  He was living in a shelter and trying to scrape together enough money to find his own place to live.  When the pretzel factory that he worked for informed him that they were banning tips, the major source of income for the factory workers, William was forced to find a better-paying job.  He approached his counselor at the St. John’s shelter in Philadelphia and was soon referred to LIFT-Philadelphia’s North office.

When he first arrived at LIFT-Philadelphia's North office, José Ortiz expected to simply file his taxes and leave.  But upon hearing about LIFT's numerous other services, José revealed that he was living in a homeless shelter and needed help finding employment and stable housing.

As a former food preparation worker, José's first instinct was to pursue more work in a kitchen.  Volunteers helped José draft a stronger résumé and introduced him to LIFT-Philadelphia’s co-locators at Philadelphia OIC, who were able to provide him with information about their culinary arts training programs.

"Working at LIFT has given me an unstoppable desire to continue to fight poverty and strive for ideals that I have come to value as a student advocate."

Read more about LIFT-Philadelphia Site Coordinator Anisha Sinha from her hometown newspaper, The Photo News, and see why Anisha feels passionate about LIFT's work and seeing Philadelphia clients succeed.

Trang Pham has risen among the ranks of LIFT-Philadelphia volunteers at a lightning-fast pace.  After discovering LIFT at a service fair at Temple University, Trang, then a freshman, immediately signed up to volunteer and was so taken with her work that she applied to become a Student Director within the first several months of her service.  Since then, her Site Coordinators have deemed her one of the major leaders in the office and her fellow volunteers consistently rely on her expertise—and Trang is only a sophomore at Temple University.

In her first days as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, Katie Sanders participated in PennCORP, the university's pre-orientation program where incoming students explore issues related to urban health, education and poverty in West Philadelphia. After touring LIFT-Philadelphia’s office and hearing from volunteer Mark Pan about his experience, Katie was hooked.