Our Story

Our Founder, Rose Williams has a long history of working alongside low- income families. Realizing that poverty is a complex problem, she researched and discovered Dr. Ruby Payne’s book, “A Framework for Understanding Poverty”. Dr. Payne’s definition of poverty is– the extent to which one does without resources. Money is only one of eleven resources needed for a stable life.

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Seeing a need in the community, in 2017, Rose began the first local Getting Ahead group. Here we investigated how to build our resources and developed  plans to reach goals. Getting Ahead participants and volunteers come together as a close -knit group supporting each other.

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The Getting Ahead in the Valley initiative can be found in 47 U.S. states and 7 countries. We have been fortunate to have the support of individuals and community organizations. It does “take a village” to continue to provide Getting Ahead in the Valley to individuals that are ready to move from poverty to stability.

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Rose became a certified Bridges Out of Poverty trainer and Getting ahead in a Just Getting’- by World facilitator in 2014. We are fortunate to have three other certified Getting Ahead facilitators; Scott Franciscus, Brittney Jones, and Cymantha Santiago- Nunez.