For Sam Yee, it’s personal.
“I’m giving back because so many people gave to me,” she says. “Plus, it just feels amazing.”
A former COTS resident, now housed and on a successful career path with the Exchange Bank, Sam volunteers in our food programs and our holiday free store. She’s also been a riveting speaker at several of our events.
“Volunteers were so kind and so nonjudgmental when I was at COTS,” Sam says. “They helped me in so many ways, including helping me to take a breath and relax. I needed that so I could get to work.” She has a long list of people to thank, from the people serving food, to the helpers who worked with her in classes or who watched her son Evan so that she could work, study or meet with a case manager.
Giving back is even better than receiving, she says.
Serving food, “I always noticed with each person that they were so happy to get a meal. The gratitude lit up my heart. It’s humbling, really. My heart always feels full when I go there.”
Her favorite part of the holiday free store is kids coming in to shop for their brothers and sisters and grandparents shopping for their grandkids. Kids would take delight in picking the perfect gift, and would brag about how they knew better than anyone what their siblings would like.
“Grandparents, when they left, you could see that there was a weight lifted,” Sam says. “Some of them told me, ‘These are the only gifts the kids are getting.’”
Sam assembles a team of her bank colleagues to help with the holiday store every year. We could not provide gifts to our families without the donations and labor from Exchange Bank employees and customers. We are grateful to them. And we can’t thank Sam enough for spearheading the effort.
Sam twice spoke to a crowd of over 400 people at our COTS hour. This year, she hosted the event along with our board member Chris Ranney.
“The first time I did it, when I told my story, I wanted to do it because there’s such a stigma around homelessness. People are afraid of homeless people.”
“I wanted people to know that homeless people aren’t bad. They just don’t have a place to lay their head. All I needed was some help, and, look, I’m back on my feet. I wanted to share my story so that people could see that a little bit of help can really change a life.”
She hosted this year, “because I love COTS so much. Anything I can do for COTS, I would love to do it.”
For people who are considering volunteering, Sam says, “Try it. You don’t realize how much of an effect you’re having. You might think it’s small, but it’s a huge deal for people who might need a little bit of sunshine and a little bit of help.”
Thank you, Sam!
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