Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you for visiting my fundraising page for Inspiration Corporation! 

I have been interning at The Employment Project (TEP), a program of Inspiration Corporation, for a few months now.  TEP helps individuals who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless identify career options, make work choices, and ultimately gain long-term stability through employment.  And TEP is just one part of an innovative organization that takes a truly multidimensional approach to ending homelessness.  It hosts an award-winning social enterprise restaurant, a kitchen training program, and myriad supportive services.  Now, to continue assisting the homeless amid budget cuts and economic crisis, Inspiration Corporation needs your help.

Inspiration assists thousands of individuals in Chicago.  Kimi, on the right, joined Inspiration Corporation’s program in 2003.  She suffered a tumultuously long and painful history of abuse, abandonment, and homelessness.  Despite all of this, Kimi came to Inspiration with high goals.  She had been working part or full-time to support herself since she was 17 years old.  She told me that when she joined Inspiration, she was “determined to work” because she “didn’t know how not to.”  Kimi was desperate for an upwardly mobile job, permanent housing, and an opportunity to enter higher education.  And after years of hard work with Inspiration Corporation, Kimi is now enrolled in a two-year college program, has her first transitional apartment, and is working towards her new career goal: to start her own social enterprise that trains homeless youth to enter the food service industry.

Kimi has surmounted a lot of seemingly insurmountable barriers.  But Kimi still has a long way to go in gaining stability.  She was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer, and will need financial and emotional support to beat it.  She will need a lot more training after she graduates college.  And she will need permanent housing in one year.  To continue helping Kimi along her empowering journey toward self-reliance, Inspiration Corporation and I would love your help.

I work as a Career Specialist for this organization, and soon I will get my own caseload to directly support new participants like Kimi.  And with financial assistance, I will be better able to help deserving individuals who, for too long, have been ignored.  So I humbly ask for you to donate to this beautiful organization, so that we can help Kimi – and the thousands of others like her – attain these basic human rights: housing, steady employment, and emotional and physical stability.

Donating is completely secure. And it is the most efficient way to support my fundraising efforts, as your donation will go directly to support the hard working people who need it the most.

To learn more about Inspiration Corporation, watch the video to the right, visit any of my colleague's campaign pages, or visit www.inspirationcorp.org.

Many thanks for your support. And have a wonderful Holiday,

Nicole