Ask any family we serve what stands between their loved one and a job, and the answer almost always includes transportation challenges. This remains one of the biggest barriers standing between our participants and the jobs, community connections, and independence they are working so hard to build. A bus route that ends three miles from an office. A shift schedule that doesn’t line up with paratransit hours. A caregiver who has to leave work mid-day because there is no other way to get their adult child home. These are far more than minor inconveniences…They are the difference between someone starting their first job and someone staying home.
That is why we are so grateful to the orsa foundation for awarding Living and Learning $6,000 to support mobility and transit-related services for the 2026-27 fiscal year.
The orsa foundation was one of our first funding partners to recognize transportation as a distinct and urgent piece of this work and our mission, rather than a footnote to employment or vocational programming. That early belief truly mattered. It gave us the resources to begin addressing transit barriers directly, and it gave us something just as valuable: a foundation to point to when talking with other potential funders about why this issue deserves dedicated attention. Support like this builds momentum. It has helped us open doors with additional partners who are now joining in, expanding what we can offer and strengthening the case that transit access is workforce development.
The ripple effects reach further than a single bus ride or paratransit ticket. When a participant can reliably get to and from work, they gain more than a paycheck. They gain routine, confidence, and a stronger foothold in their community. Often, that same reliability frees up a parent or caregiver to return to their own job, easing financial pressure on the whole family. Connection to transit becomes connection to community, to routine, to the kind of independence that changes how a family plans its future.
None of this happens without funders willing to step forward on an issue that can be easy to overlook. The orsa foundation saw the need early, and their support continues to help us turn transportation from a barrier into a bridge for the people we serve.
Thank you, orsa foundation, for standing with us in this work.