Hello everyone! 

I am Damian DePauw and I am the founder of IMPACT!, Inc.  and the administrator of the Together We Can Time Bank.  I have worked for years in the non-profit sector as a mental health advocate and peer counselor.  I hold a NYS Certification as a mental health Peer Specialist and a NYS Certification as a Certified Recovery Peer Advocate (CRPA) for working with people with substance use disorders and addictions.  I studied psychology and organizational management and leadership in college and am currently working on becoming a certified life coach.  I started IMPACT!, Inc. because I wanted to help people in larger ways than my current job allows for and I wanted to create a platform for people to become more engaged in the Newburgh community.  I have worked alongside the members of We Are Newburgh for years to try to help bring positive change within The City of Newburgh.  I have always believed that people are beautiful, flaws and all, and that we all have something we can contribute to society.  Everyone has something that they are passionate about and everyone has skills and abilities that can be used to support something they believe in.  The problem, as I see it, is that most people are busy trying to earn a living and take care of their home life and they don't think they have time to make a difference in the world.  I started IMPACT!, Inc. to try to create outlets for people to do something for the greater good of their community and to link people to other organizations and groups who are working toward something they believe in.  I believe that if we all just gave a few hours of our time per month to do something positive for a cause we believe in that the impact we would have on the world would be tremendous in a very short span of time.  I studied asset-based-community-development and wanted to create an asset map of people and organizations within Newburgh to use to address some of the challenges we face as a city.  Years ago I started talking to people about the creation of a "Community Cafe" with a program that would create reciprocal ways of helping each other.  I called it "Hood Help" and started to go around and do asset inventories with people.  Many people were not interested in filling out my survey though as they were not quite sure about what I was trying to do.  I later concluded that to accomplish what I was trying to do, I needed a web site or software that could link people with specific needs or assets to people or organizations with a corresponding need or asset.  As I am not a web developer or computer programmer, I put the project on the shelf and focused on other things.   A little while ago someone suggested that I look into time banking and I had never heard of it.  I did some research and read up on Edgar Cahn's work and fell in love.  This is the platform that I had started to think of, only it is already created with some of my tougher questions already answered as well as some that I had not even thought of and a full system and online platform for helping people to build relationships within their community and help each other without having to have a ton of money to do it.  I am thrilled to be the administrator of The Together We Can Time Bank and I cannot wait to see the individual exchanges and overall impact this platform can have in the Newburgh community.  I hope to help the time bank flourish and to help other's start in our surrounding areas over time.  The possibilities are limited only by our imagination.  "We have what we need, if we use what we have." - Edgar Cahn