Sometimes, with all the violence, hatred and anger in the media, you wonder if there’s any good in our world at all. You watch a theft on the news, and turn around and see poverty on the streets. It turns out, surprise surprise, there are good people in this world after all. There are parents and teachers living right here, who have spent their life for others.

The first? My mom. I lost my grandmother a few years ago, but my mom lost more. A mother. A supporter. A confidant. Since she was unable to help her mother in her final stages, she felt a need to give back somehow. My mom was never the the kind of person to grieve for long. She had to do something. Before long, she did. And with that, FirstLight Homecare came to Rancho Cucamonga. FirstLight is a non-medical homecare franchise.

“My mom fell sick and I was not close by to take care of her. As much as my dad was doing, we still needed someone to provide respite care. That experience has left a deep impact and a genuine need to help families have a peace of mind when caring for their loved ones when they themselves cannot be there all the time,” my mother said.

The second person, Greg Bradbard knew from the start that he wanted to help people. He didn’t want to be marketing for a profit. He wanted to make a difference. So, Bradbard studied psychology and behavior. He was led to a nonprofit organization as an intern and went on to make it a full time job.

“I knew from the beginning that what I wanted to do was something that helped people. I didn’t want to be in a job where I was just producing a product, but something where I was making a difference every day. I went to college and I studied psychology and social behavior. That led me to an organization where I did an internship. It was there where I kind of fell into nonprofit management and learned what nonprofit organizations do.”

In Bradbard’s daily job at United Way, the nonprofit organization where he works, he meets many people. From people at work to people on the streets, they all have a story. One special person was a woman named Cynthia.

“Cynthia was a mom of four kids and I met her several years ago. Her kids were on a program that we were running called Kids Pack. She was having a tough time supporting her family and getting her kids to school and the whole thing, but great lady,” Bradbard said.

“About two years later, she contacted me and said, ‘Hey, I want to come volunteer.’ She wanted to give her help to the organization. So we brought her in and trained her in our call center, called 211, where anybody can call on the phone to get help. We trained her as a volunteer to answer the phones and what we found was she was really good at it because she was just like so many of the people calling us. She knew, she had experienced the same things,” he continued.

“Pretty soon after that, we had a job opening in that call center and we were able to hire Cynthia as a staff member. Through that, Cynthia got her first full time paying job and could support her family. She was able to get off of [a government system]. She came to me and she said, ‘Now that I have this job, I’m going back to school too.’ So she actually went back to school at Chaffey College. It was as a result of us meeting her and providing support for her kids [at school]. It was really cool to see that come full circle.”

Finally, Mrs. Macias, a teacher at our own school. She said she always wanted to work with kids, and that she has a passion for teaching.

“I have always really enjoyed working with children and I love teaching and I love working in education, and so that’s why I became a teacher.”

She also told a story of one child, whom she met in her career while teaching autistic kids to swim. She says that he inspired her to go into teaching.

The reason why I got into my field was because I used to teach kids with autism how to swim. I had this one kid and he did not want to go in the water. Every day, we just worked on putting one foot in the water and by the end of the whole swimming lessons, it took a month for him to do it, he finally went full body and jumped into the water. That was the moment I realized that I wanted to be in this field. It just inspired me.”

“The feeling you get when a kid achieves something is pretty awesome, especially a kid with autism. If you have a passion working with kids, [I’d recommend this job]. And if you have patience. But if you don’t, then no. If you like working with kids and if you like finding creative ways to come up with teaching [ideas], then I definitely would.” she said.

So, now we’ve convinced you that there’s hope for humanity after all. Hopefully you’ve been inspired to think beyond the traditional jobs- and go for a nonprofit or charitable occupation.