Wayfinder Blog

Category: Annual Report 2018

Ryan Fernandez is a Wayfinder

Ryan is a former intern from our Transition Services program. How did Wayfinder help you overcome your biggest obstacle and thrive? I had only experienced my side of being visually impaired. Wayfinder gave me exposure to people with different visual impairments. It gave me an advantage in my master’s program. What does being a Wayfinder mean…

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A Loving Family: Meet Melanie

“Many people thought I was going to break when I went into foster care,” says 19-year-old Melanie. “But I knew that I was strong enough to become the person I wanted to be.” At age 15, Melanie entered the child welfare system and was placed with a foster family. “I was nervous and a little…

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Meet Melanie

Former Foster Youth in Wayfinder’s Foster Care and Adoption Program When you first came to Wayfinder, what was your biggest obstacle? What did Wayfinder do to help you overcome it and thrive? My biggest obstacle was feeling that nobody heard me or believed me. My social worker helped me. She would talk to me on…

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Meet Frankie Jones

Wayfinder Residential Counselor at The Cottage, a Transitional Shelter Care Program How do you bring Wayfinder Family Services’ mission to life? I show the residents that when you work for something, you will be rewarded. When you help someone, when you show compassion to someone, compassion will come back to you. What does being a…

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Finding Another Way to Help People

At age 10, Ryan Fernandez realized he could no longer see on the baseball field. He was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, which causes degeneration of the central visual field. Ryan explains that what he can see 20 feet away is what someone with good vision can see at 250 feet away. He cannot see detail…

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Lorenzo cooking in a Davidson Program for Independence apartment

Cooking Up Joy For Others

One morning, Lorenzo Paz woke up with a pain in his forehead. He thought maybe he had had too much to drink the night before. By the afternoon, the pain was worse. “I went into the hospital walking and came out blind,” Lorenzo remembers. “I got blind in one day.” A freak infection took Lorenzo’s…

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baby Elena sitting on picnic blanket

Meet Hector and Maria

Meet Hector and Maria  Parents of Elena, a Child in the Early Intervention Program When you first came to Wayfinder, what was your biggest obstacle? What did Wayfinder do to help you overcome it and thrive? Elena was born at 24 weeks. Our biggest worry was, what was she going to be behind on? And…

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