When Zack was nearing the end of his time with Job Corps, which he enrolled in right after his high school graduation, he knew that he needed to find a new outlet for his desire to learn. “I wanted a place where I could continue to better myself and my skills. I needed somewhere to go and someone to keep me accountable”, Zack describes. “That’s how I found Literacy Volunteers.”
Ever since he was young, Zack wanted to be an engineer. “Well, first it was an airline pilot, but let’s focus on this for now”, he jokes. He struggled a lot in school, both with math and with reading. “I would ask for help but no one would really take the time to help me. Instead, they would just push me through to the next grade, and then I would struggle more. I tried my best to catch up but as a kid, I could only do so much.”
“I’m interested in engineering because I like math. I struggled with that too as a kid, but I liked it because I was able to finally become good at it”, he explains. “Reading is not exactly connected to my career goals, but it was a confidence thing. I didn’t want to grow up still not learning how to read.”
Zack always knew he wanted better for himself, but he discovered along the way that he had to make the hard decision to cut out a lot of people in his life who were going down the wrong path. “If I had kept hanging out with them until now, I would never complete what I want to do. So I was like, ‘Okay, I need to stop hanging out with them and do what I got to do. Focus on my future, focus on my life.’”
Even after seeing real improvement in his reading skills, and after we assisted Zack in securing a livable wage job, he still makes the time to continue classes at LVGH. “Before I first started, I didn’t know exactly how it was going to go but I decided to just show up. It’s going really well. I feel like I get better every day and can actually succeed in getting a job in engineering in my five-year plan.”
“When I’m done here, I want to go back to school again”, Zack said proudly. “I just don’t want to give up on life.”
