Meet INW People

By Barbara Comito, Director of Marketing and Communications

Stories. That’s my one-word answer for why I do what I do. 

Well, to be perfectly honest, I do what I do because I get paid. I’m neither a martyr nor a missionary. I work because I have four children who all wanted to go to college. For 16 years, I stayed home with them, and it was grand – we read history and great literature together, took cinnamon-toast-and-tea breaks, built snow forts and blanket forts, conducted science experiments, painted and struggled through algebra problems…By far and away, my favorite time was story time. Snuggled under quilts, reading aloud by the fire. Anne of Green Gables. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Little House on the Prairie. I loved being home, and I would be there still if I didn’t need to make money.

That said, what has kept me at the Union Gospel Mission for the past 8 years is the stories.

My official title, “Director of Marketing & Communications,” doesn’t generate a whole lot of enthusiasm, but “storyteller”? That’s a concept people can relate to. We (the UGM Marketing & Communications department – MarCom for short) tell the stories of the people who come to our shelters, the people who do the hard work of recovery, the people who have known tragedy and loss but are experiencing healing and new life.

We tell the stories of volunteers and financial partners – Why have they chosen to come alongside us in this work? Is there something in their own story that drew them here?

We tell the UGM story, and ultimately, we tell God’s story. Because it is God who is at work here – feeding the 5,000, setting captives free, delivering people from their demons, multiplying the five loaves and two fish, replacing hearts of stone with hearts of flesh, inviting the older brother to come in and enjoy the party. As Frederick Buechner said, “It is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us more powerfully and personally.” God reveals himself through story – in Scripture and in our lives.

UGM tells stories that are very much worth telling, stories that really matter. And often we tell the stories of people who might not have the opportunity or means to tell their own stories. I want my own children to hear these stories. I want everyone to hear these stories. I believe that when we hear each other’s stories, we recognize how much we have in common. We recognize that we are not alone. Buechner again: “My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours.”

Our stories bind us together. That’s why I do what I do.

And that’s why I’m excited to tell you about a brand new venture of the UGM MarCom team – INW People. We have so many stories (and fabulous pictures that tell a story all of their own) that we decided to gather them together on one page. It’s a little different than our regular website because it’s just pictures and short quotes. You can go there and read just one in less than a minute or you can go there and browse for minutes on end.

Plus, we’d like to invite you to participate. You know the usual steps: share, comment, like (because we could all use a little encouragement). But we also want this page to represent the great photography taking place in our region. Photographers, you encounter great stories every day. We invite you to share your photos and short quotes through the submission link on the website. (Check the website for guidelines.)

Join the party [because truly we’re all in this together] at http://www.inwpeople.com/.

To read more stories about the individuals coming to UGM, sign up to receive our bimonthly newsletter!