Earlier this Spring, ManifestWorks welcomed our 4th employee, Maya DeNola, a licensed Social Worker with a background serving those impacted by foster care, incarceration and homelessness.
Maya writes: “Over my nearly 20 years in social services, I have worked with people experiencing homelessness, youth who grew up in foster care and a wide range of those impacted by incarceration. One of my biggest lessons in this work has been to focus on the strengths and not the deficits, a lesson central to ManifestWorks: You are not the worst things that has happened to you. Instead, you are who you decide to be, through your hard-work and the connections you cultivate."
Maya joins our team as we take stock of how to serve participants while they are in the program and after.
We are enormously proud of the way our program changes lives, significantly boosting the independence and salaries of alumni and slashing their reliance on welfare. Still, we know most everyone we serve has experienced trauma, and we want the ManifestWorks family to thrive professionally and personally long after graduating.
Maya is a great fit to our philosophy.
“In a way I have never experienced before, the program manages to provide a special kind of tough-love,” Maya shares. “Through no-nonsense teaching modules, real-life practical skills-building and massive amounts of genuine care, participants quickly find a path to success. At ManifestWorks, it’s not that your past doesn’t matter. Rather, it doesn’t define you."
"Instead, participants are invited to redefine their best, most authentic and successful self. And if you stumble, ManifestWorks will pause, lean down and help you lift back up.”
Next year, one goal is to deepen the way we support participants over time. Maya's contribution to ManifestWorks distills this commitment.
