Celebrating our Community: Illuminating Futures 2024

Dear CWEE Community,

Last month, we were thrilled to gather our CWEE community for our annual event, Illuminating Futures. I want to extend my deepest gratitude to those of you who were able to join us for the evening, and to those who were with us in spirit, showing their support for CWEE even if they weren’t able to attend.

Over 100 guests joined us in the evening’s celebration as we honored our career-seekers and the amazing change that is happening in their lives. Our participants are overcoming significant challenges to achieve their dreams and create brighter futures for themselves and their families.

A very special moment in the evening came when our featured speaker, Judeth, took the stage to share her story. Judeth is a well-known and well-loved participant who has been with CWEE for five years. During that time, she has shown great strength and tenacity. Her story is one of resilience in the face of opposition, and overcoming the odds to achieve success. You can read a piece of Judeth’s message to the CWEE community below:

“When I first started at CWEE, I only expected to get my GED. I didn’t expect to gain a community of support, have deep conversations about myself and my future, or form relationships with the staff and other participants. When I was in high school, no one took the time to talk to me about my dreams and what I wanted to achieve in life. CWEE gave me the opportunity to dig deep and figure out what I want for myself and my future.

When you’re on benefits, it’s easy to feel like your goals are out of reach. Coming to CWEE showed me that I can break the cycle of staying on benefits and achieve bigger things. CWEE set high expectations and gave me the opportunity to show myself I could meet them… Even after all this time, I still remember the lessons I learned when I first started my CWEE journey, and I know I will continue to carry those with me.”

With the help of our community, we were able to raise over $50,000 in support of our holistic workforce program. These funds will directly impact CWEE participants through no-cost mental health services, individualized job readiness training, essential resource access, motivational coaching and no-cost GED prep classes.

This year, we anticipate serving 1,250 career seekers and their families. We truly could not do this work without you! Your generous support and continued partnership with CWEE is bringing real, lasting change to families in need – thank you for being with us and our participants on this transformational journey!

Weren’t able to join us for Illuminating Futures? I would love to connect with you and invite you to reach out to me to learn more about getting involved. You can send me a note at biwaszkiw@cwee.org

I want to close with some poignant words from Judeth:

“Last year for this event, CWEE asked me, “What message would you send to your future self.” The message I wrote was, “Judeth, good job! You didn’t quit! Sky’s the limit! You can do anything!
I love you.”

Looking back now, I was my biggest cheerleader and I’m proud that I didn’t quit.
Now the sky’s the limit.”

In Partnership,

Brittany Iwaszkiw