When I was in high school, I worked with a class of kids that had special needs. I would work with them preparing them for Special Olympics, helping them with job skills and many other life skills. When I graduated high school, I had a young lady with special needs walk behind me and a young man with special needs walk in front of me so that I could assist them during graduation.
This is something that I’ve been passionate about for years. For three years, I was on the Special Olympics Oregon Planning Board, and I’ve worked as a provider, but most of what I’ve done has been volunteer work. I have a mentor that started an agency in another county, and he encouraged me to start my own agency. I’m so glad that I listened to him. My background is in ministry, as a pastor, and a missionary, yet I felt that I have stepped into my destiny.
I love what I do. My greatest joy is to see that when our providers and families have a great connection and the needs are being met and supports are being given to bring greater independence. Why the name Empowered Services? When I first started the agency, I had to decide what I was going to name the agency. I came up with a lot of different ideas, but I finally decided to call the agency Empowered Services.
Through the years, I’ve worked with diverse populations of people such as the homeless, I’ve worked overseas doing disaster relief, and I worked as a pastor and a missionary. And I was in Haiti after a severe earthquake. I found that there is a fine line between helping someone and enabling them. You can come alongside someone and you can help them, and then you help them again, and then you help them again. The next thing you know, you’ve created a dependency where they can’t function without your help.
Through the years, that’s not what I’ve wanted to do. I’ve wanted to come alongside people and assist them to see greater independence. So I came up with the name Empowered Services. That’s exactly what I want to do. I want to empower people. Sometimes it’s easier to just do a job by yourself that needs to be done, but that’s not really helping the person. Instead, we come alongside, we teach, we train.
And we come along with those life skills that are needed. What that looks like for each customer is different. For some it might be learning to tie their shoes, for others it might be budgeting or shopping, or still for others it might be learning to navigate the bus system or finding a job. When I was working with the person that was designing our company logo, I told them what I wanted for the logo and it was a mountain. They wondered why I wanted a mountain.
I wasn’t really sure. They had other ideas of helping hands or people or linking arms, but I just kept seeing a mountain. When I began to really think about the reason that I came up with the idea of a mountain for our logo for our company, it finally came to me. A few years ago, I was on a journey with my pastor. We were hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from Timberline Lodge to Cascade Locks.
Along the journey, there were times that I felt like giving up. There are also times that he felt like giving up. So I remember him saying, come on, you can do this. And he encouraged me along the journey. As I began to think about the logo, I realized that we are all on a journey. And there’s ups and there’s downs and there’s mountain peaks and there’s valleys.
There’s mountain peaks and valleys that we go through, but it’s a lot easier to navigate when we have somebody to walk beside us. That is how I came up with the mountain logo. It symbolizes that we are all on a journey. It’s not always easy. We have the hills, we have the valleys, but along the way, it helps to have somebody to walk alongside us and to help us.
It’s a lot easier to navigate when we have somebody to walk beside us. That is how I came up with the mountain logo. It symbolizes that we are all on a journey.
John D. Marvin · Founder