Brandon Montoya, the Past President of Prescott Frontier Rotary Club recently shared this personal story with his fellow club members.  We have his permission to share it with others.  
 
I wanted to share with you something about my journey as a Rotarian and as a person. Like many people, I grew up humble, which is a polite way of saying poor. Before the age of fourteen, my family had experienced housing insecurity on an ongoing basis for years at a time. That's a polite way of saying that we were homeless a lot before I was fourteen. I had also experienced food insecurity too. Again, that's a polite way of saying that I went to bed hungry a lot. There were a lot of complicated reasons for these experiences and I know that my story is similar to many others. The point in sharing these personal details with you is to let you know that I had a hard starting point as a young adult.
 
If I told that fourteen-year-old boy that he would one day be running a successful investment firm, have a beautiful family, and a beautiful home. He would ask one question: how?
The answer is that I got a lot of help along the way. That's not to say that I didn't work hard and struggle, I certainly did. However, along the way various people, often strangers, looked at me and said, "I'm going to take a chance on you and I am going to invest in your future." One of those people was a boss who made me a manager before I was old enough to really know what I was doing. One of those people was a family member who believed in the idea I had for starting a business. There are countless people who contributed to my success and I am grateful.
 
I can think of no better way to honor their belief in me than to further that belief into others. People who are living on the edge but working hard to improve their lot in life in much the same way that I did. What's great is that Rotary makes that not only possible but easy. The Rotary Vocational Fund of Arizona has done the leg work, they have found people that need our help and just need a little push over the line to make a difference. I got plenty of those along the way, let me tell you. That's why today my wife and I donated $200 to The Rotary Vocational Fund of Arizona, I'd ask that if you can afford to, that you join me. They need our help now more than ever. 
 
You can donate by clicking here
 
Thanks for your consideration,
 
Brandon Montoya