Pictorial: Fall 2025 Getting Ahead Graduation

This week we celebrated an incredible group of individuals who completed our Getting Ahead course as part of our Bridges program! The group met once a week for the last four months to learn how to increase their income, decrease debt, become more self-sufficient, decrease social services assistance, and increase awareness of dental, vision, medical and financial services available in the Copper Country.

More than anything else, this group got together each week to create hope and stability for their families.

The evening was incredibly powerful with a speech from recent graduate and now facilitator Angela Coon, an address from Copper Shores Board of Directors President Bernadette Yeoman-Ouellette, remarks from facilitator Aimee Kempen, comments from the graduates themselves on what the program meant to them, and then presenting each of the graduates with a certificate and plaque to honor their journey.

This is the sixth cohort of Getting Ahead graduates who have finished the program since it was launched in early 2023.

Be Part of the Program

Applications are currently being accepted for the seventh cohort that will start in late January. This program is completely free for participants and Copper Shores does its best to remove all barriers that might stop someone including providing transportation, food and childcare during the training, and gift cards for investigators following each week's session. 

Quotable Moments

• “Hope is what this program brings to people.” - Rich Simpson, Program Coordinator
• "Something felt different right away (with the Getting Ahead course). There was no judgment, just support and care. I had hope.”
• "Getting ahead didn’t just help me understand what resources, it helped me find my voice.” - Angela Coon, graduate and now facilitator of the course
• "I didn’t feel stuck, I felt like I had possibilities. I am living proof that second chances are good and real change is possible." - Angela Coon, graduate and now facilitator of the course
• "Hope, even the smallest spark, is the beginning of every come back." - Angela Coon, graduate and now facilitator of the course
• "When the board looked at issues in our community, it kept coming back to poverty. We knew we needed this program. I don’t know of anything that can have such a profound impact on our community." - Copper Shores Board of Directors President Bernadette Yeoman-Ouellette
• “This group has been an inspiration to each other and to us every week." - Getting Ahead Facilitator Aimee Kempen
• “They learned living in poverty is far more than just about money." - Getting Ahead Facilitator Aimee Kempen
• “I’d like to thank the Barbara Kettle Gundlach Shelter Home because they saved my life.” - Getting Ahead Graduate
• “Instead of feeling defeated, I was able to come away from this course feeling hopeful for the future.” - Getting Ahead Graduate
• “I see progress in my future that I didn’t see before.” - Getting Ahead Graduate
• “From a young age I knew the monster under the bed was 'stuck'. Everyone I knew was struggling with stuck. My mom, my dad, my grandparents. These perfectly fine people could never find enough to outrun these circumstances. I felt like I was watching a boulder roll down a hill toward my children, a boulder my parents would never have wanted to see. Stuck can’t scare me anymore.” - Getting Ahead Graduate
• “For the first time I don’t feel like I’m tied to a sinking cinder block.” - Getting Ahead Graduate
• “Before this class, I was a menace. Halfway through the class I realized how easily I could change by going step by step.” - Getting Ahead Graduate
• “I walked into this class not knowing what we were really doing, but knowing I needed to change.” - Getting Ahead Graduate
• “I have the tools I need to do the work now. I really appreciate everything this class has given us. All of these people are really like family. Thank you.” - Getting Ahead Graduate
• "To create more stability and get out of poverty, it takes an awful lot of hard work, and that’s what I’ve watched these people do.” - Rich Simpson, Program Coordinator