“I consider myself a success story, so getting a chance to interact with disadvantaged high school students and helping them to see that success is within their reach is extremely gratifying.”
- Delicia Jones

Beginning in 2006, our office kicked off its support of an education-themed community involvement strategy. This was a natural fit for me because education is something that I am very passionate about.

Although I grew up in a middle class family, I saw where my parents came from, and knew about the struggles they experienced getting to where they are. Throughout my life I’ve used that as a stepping stone to propel me in my own drive for success. But, it has been my experience that some teenagers in the under-served communities don’t value that kind of drive and dedication to education, it’s not considered “cool” or something to strive for. So, that is a big part of why I feel so passionate about promoting the value of education to students who may not have access to the support or guidance they need to understand why it is so key to their future success. Taking part in IMPACT Day projects provides me with an outlet to do that.

When it came to deciding the focus of our most recent project, we engaged with school officials at Reagan High School to determine what their greatest needs were and developed a plan to not only address some of those needs on IMPACT Day, but to plant the seeds for future initiatives.

We developed the skills-based volunteering aspect of our IMPACT Day project which included a series of seminars and panel discussions with Deloitte senior managers and partners that helped Reagan summer school students begin to think about their futures, better understand the importance of a college education, learn more about the reality of what it takes to be financially secure, and open their eyes to some of the career possibilities that could be within their reach.

On IMPACT Day, I was also involved in a lot of the hands on work being done to physically improve the school facilities, including painting the bathrooms with graffiti-resistant paint to address the vandalism that had been taking place.

In the end, all of the work we did on IMPACT Day was extremely gratifying to us, as volunteers, and definitely seemed to be well received by the students. But, even more importantly, it set the stage for our year-round commitment to provide the information and direction needed for disadvantaged students in our community to improve their potential for future success.

A colleague and I now lead a monthly Leadership Workshop at Reagan for high-performing juniors and seniors in which we use Deloitte Foundation’s Life Inc. program materials to assist us in helping the kids evaluate their own talents and interests and consider potential careers that would best leverage their strengths. Many of the students we work with are unaware of a lot of the career options out there, so, just by exposing them to new choices we are able to open doors that they hadn’t known even existed. And, when it comes to getting young people on the right path to a successful future, opening their eyes to new possibilities and helping them to take the first step, is really half the battle.