Ten individuals graduated from Catholic Charities of South Carolina’s (CCSC) Getting Ahead program in December 2025. The courses are designed to help people experiencing poverty understand why they are “just getting by” and to build concrete plans toward long-term stability.
The graduates—Brandon Anderson, Martha Cobb, Willa Dorsey, Kashonda Grant, Bernard Hazel, David Hazel, Jacqueline Hazel, Rosa Hazel, Chanda Sanders, and Tammie Scott—completed this financial literacy and life-skills course just before Christmas. This milestone celebration was especially significant as it marked the first class facilitated by two former graduates, David and Kendra Blango.
The program is based on the “Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin’-By World” curriculum and the “Bridges Out of Poverty” framework. It has been offered at CCSC’s Georgetown office twice yearly since 2018 and is now expanding to Charleston and other field offices. This expansion is part of Catholic Charities’ broader outreach services, which assist more than 50,000 individuals annually.
### Building Pathways Out of Poverty
Participants attended group sessions over 16 weeks, exploring the realities of poverty, local community barriers, and the “hidden rules” of economic class. Each participant completed a personal “future story,” where they built budgets, identified local resources, and set practical goals around employment, education, housing, and family stability.
Crystal Geathers, grants specialist for CCSC, helped initiate the Getting Ahead program in 2017 alongside Sister Mary Francis Bassick, a Daughter of Charity. Geathers emphasized the program’s importance, stating it provides participants with the support and tools needed to recognize their own potential with new clarity.
“We walk alongside individuals who are working hard to build stability for themselves and their families. Getting Ahead helps them not only understand the challenges they face but also discover their strengths, set meaningful goals, and create a path toward lasting change. It empowers people to realize that their future can be different, and that they already have what it takes to get there,” Geathers said.
The program boasts an impressive 97% success rate. In its early years at the Georgetown location, at least 35 individuals completed the program, many achieving significant life changes.
### Stability Means Everything
Graduates have moved from unsafe, unstable housing into safe, subsidized apartments after learning to navigate housing systems and expunge records. Others have launched small businesses—including a lawn-care company—by applying the financial planning, resource-building, and confidence gained through the workshop.
Rhett Young, executive director of CCSC, shared that “mission” drives this statewide nonprofit. Their work is inspired by St. John Paul II’s *Redemptoris Missio* (Mission of the Redeemer). He explained:
> “The missionary is urged on by ‘zeal for souls,’ a zeal inspired by Christ’s own charity, which takes the form of concern, tenderness, compassion, openness, availability and interest in people’s problems. Jesus’ love is very deep: he who knew what was in man (Jn 2:25) loved everyone by offering them redemption and suffered when it was rejected” (RM 89).
“This is the bedrock of all of our programs,” Young said, “to serve with the heart of Jesus with a zeal for souls inspired by Christian charity—caritas.”
Adding to this, Kendra Blango remarked, “Learning in love always helps when trying to get ahead.”
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For more information about the Getting Ahead program and other services provided by Catholic Charities of South Carolina, please visit their official website or contact their offices directly.
https://themiscellany.org/former-graduates-lead-program-seeks-break-cycles-poverty
