Melissa Rosario shares her inspiration for giving back to the community programs that helped her along the way
When Melissa Rosario first considered buying a home six years ago, it was a goal that felt out of reach.
“I didn’t know what I didn’t know,” she says. “I had no concept of what it took to buy a house… it seemed so far out of my grasp.”
But Google led her to Community Progress Council and the first-time homebuyer program, and when she completed the workshops and met one-on-one with a Housing counselor, she realized her hard work had paid off.
“It gave me that affirmation, oh I have been responsible for decades, building savings, working a steady job,” Melissa said. “It gave me the confidence I needed to actually go out there and do it.”
A few years later, when a Board Member asked if Melissa might be interested in volunteering with Community Progress Council and serving on the board, it felt like a natural fit.
She gives back to Community Progress Council now, she says, because she once benefitted from these same services — both the Housing and Financial Education program at CPC, and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program in another state, when her son was young.
“Too many people out there are saying, ‘You should do something about that,’ or ‘Someone should,’” Melissa says. “If you see or identify a need in your community and you’re able to fulfill that, you should.”
More specifically, Melissa champions the holistic approach of wrapping around someone and providing them with multiple resources, a key component of Community Progress Council’s comprehensive, integrated approach to working with families.
Beyond her Board service and her role on the Fund Development Committee, Melissa has supported Community Progress Council — and many other local nonprofits — through Cornerstone Barbershop, which she co-owns with her husband, Jason McGarry.
Over the 7 years the barbershop has been open, Melissa estimates they’ve raised $12,000 to $15,000 for nonprofits through raffles and other asks.
“Everybody thinks that you can’t make a difference,” she says. “I think that if you just take a radical approach to reaching out to your community, everybody would be surprised by what you’re able to do.”
She takes that ambassador role seriously.
“People need and want to see where and what their dollars are doing in a local way,” Melissa says. “The best way to do that is by sharing the personal impact. That’s why I talk about how I once was a WIC recipient, and that I used the first-time homebuyer program.”
“When a person has found self-sufficiency and has built their life, it’s easy for others to assume their situation has always been that way. I like to talk about it because I want to remove any aspect of embarrassment or shame. I also want to let people know that it could be your neighbor who was once receiving those benefits.”
As Community Progress Council looks toward its future and the vision to co-locate York City-based services into one building, Melissa is excited to be “a cheerleader” for the impact that Community Progress Council is having — and will be able to expand upon in the new location as they bring all services under one roof.
“I think that people don’t fully understand all of the resources that CPC offers, all the connections that CPC can make, and the beautiful impact that coaching makes,” Melissa says.
At a recent completion ceremony for the Getting Ahead in A Just-Gettin’-By World program, the impact of that personal relationship that participants develop with their coach was easy to see.
“Everybody wanted their facilitator and their coach to come up and be in their photos,” Melissa says. “To me, that said more than anything about the relationships that are developed in CPC programs.”
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Community Progress Council empowers people to move toward economic self-sufficiency. But, we can’t do this work without donors like Melissa — and you!