To be within the Horizon Empowers family is to be on the human journey of rescue, restoration and empowerment. Though many may be in different stages of the journey, we still walk through it together. That is what it means, after all, to be a family.
To be an alum of Horizon is not to have simply graduated from a place — but to have come from a place that nourished us. That, in some way or another, we had become like sons and daughters there, and that kinship still carries us.
Dorice knows something about that.
Dorice entered Horizon Empowers with the fresh grief of her parents’ death. Along with that, she carried the death of her hopes and dreams for a future. This is too heavy a burden for anyone, let alone a 12-year-old. Not too much longer, young Dorice met someone who made her a promise: she would go to school. Others surrounded her and saw the hopes that had been thrown to the floor. Together, they helped her pick them up.
Dorice walked the path toward empowerment, and eventually graduated from Horizon — not to mention graduate school, where she earned her Master of Science in Finance. Now, Dorice walks a tandem path of her own empowerment while walking with others through their own rescue and restoration as a youth engagement program coordinator in Horizon’s Kenyan community.
Dorice walked the path toward empowerment, and eventually graduated from Horizon — not to mention graduate school, where she earned her Master of Science in Finance. Now, Dorice walks a tandem path of her own empowerment while walking with others through their own rescue and restoration as a youth engagement program coordinator in Horizon’s Kenyan community. Dorice had this to share about an interaction she recently had with a Horizon youth during a party at the Micro Community: “In the midst of celebrating, she told me that she wanted to work hard and be like me. That melted my heart.”
Watch this video to see the fruit of empowerment in the lives of four Horizon alumni:
Horizon alumni walk a wide path of empowerment stretching out into the future. But their past footsteps don’t simply fade away: they are the very evidence of being adopted into a family who walked the path, too.
When Dorice joined Horizon, her family grew much wider. But as she has continued to walk her own path of empowerment, family has taken on even deeper meaning — like last year, when she became a mother to her first-born son.
This, too, is the fruit of Horizon alumni-hood: a new generation, growing up with parents raising them to be empowered individuals — because they themselves know the journey it took to get there. For alumni of Horizon Empowers, the depth of empowerment only grows with time.
Dorice is coming to this year’s Gala to share her personal story of empowerment. Don’t have your tickets yet? There’s still time to register to join us in Lancaster, PA, or remotely as well.