When I was a kid, my dad worked in warehousing. He worked for the same company, doing hard labor, for over a decade. When I was 8, he decided that he was tired of working long hours, having a boss he couldn’t stand, and being so exhausted he couldn’t even enjoy time with his family. He made the hard decision to work nights so he could attend college classes during the day. After two long years, our whole family sat in the audience cheering him on as he walked the stage at graduation. With his associate’s degree, he got his first network engineering job. Now, 9 years later, he has an amazing job with an amazing company. While he is making more money than he ever imagined he could, he is also finally in a career he enjoys, with coworkers and management that he can genuinely call friends. While it took my dad years to realize he deserved more than a dead end job, my mom never fell for the lie that money would make her happy.

            When I tell people my mom has worked at Target for over 17 years, they tend to ask me what level of management she is in. While these are completely valid assumptions, it is always funny seeing the look on people’s faces when I tell them she has actually been a team member since the day she started. My mother is 48 years old, and she chooses to check out customers, unload trucks, price items, and dress baby mannequins. In her tenure at Target, she has pretty much been begged to accept a promotion dozens of times. Unfortunately for them, my mom knows what she wants. She doesn’t like being in charge of other people, but she likes working the floor and being a mentor to the younger employees. She may not make nearly as much money as she could have been at this point, but she is happy, and that’s all that truly matters (as long as the bills are paid).

            In the 3 years since I decided I am going to be a non-profit fundraiser, I have lost count of the number of times I have heard the exact same sentence: “You know you’re not going to make any money, right?” I’m not going into my future, trying to figure out how I can make the most possible money. I am trying to figure out what will make me happy, and what I can look back on when I’m old and be proud of myself for.

            I grew up as a poor kid, in a poor neighborhood, with a disability, a horrible sense of fashion, and not a care in the world what anyone thought about me. I spent countless hours helping my sister collect donations and hold raffles at car shows and spent dozens of Saturdays at bowling alleys, outdoor movies, walks, and any other fundraiser my family could make it to. I know what it’s like to be lost and confused in a whole new world before a non-profit you have never heard of sends you a gift that opens the door to a community ready to support you. For me, it’s never been about money or recognition. It’s always been about helping people. If that means I never make a dime, so be it. As long as I’m making a difference, I have everything I need.