GLIDE Pathways Program
As the Senior Development Director at GLIDE, I loved to bring frontline GLIDE staff members to donor cultivation events to share their stories, and encourage people with wildly diverse class backgrounds to interact in meaningful ways. At one such event, I asked my GLIDE colleague to read something aloud. I was stunned into silence when I realized that she could not read. I felt her embarrassment and shame at how our society had let her down in so many ways. Why were we promoting programs for people in the Tenderloin, but not for our own colleagues, many of whom were former clients and were quietly suffering from debilitating educational deficits?
Along with several other colleagues - in the HR department, as well as the Meals and Community Safety Programs - we quickly put together a proposal called the GLIDE Pathways Program to provide individualized educational opportunities for GLIDE staff members in the areas of literacy, ESL, computer skills and financial wellness. We succeeded in forging a multi-year partnership with the Saul Zaentz Foundation to fund the Pathways Program, creating life-changing growth and opportunities for hundreds of GLIDE staff.
