17-year-old Mary grew up in nearby Shirley with her Dad, a Palace fan and matchday steward at the club, so Palace was always going to play a part in her life.
She began working with Palace for Life Foundation back in October 2023 after struggling with anxiety and a sense of self-doubt. She left college, and whilst this was right for her to do, her choice to leave education left her feeling a different kind of pressure to find a job.
This feeling weighed heavy on Mary and left her feeling hesitant about what steps she needed to take in order to pursue her real passion: sustainability and politics.
Whilst participating in the Foundation's GAME ON programme, which aims to set young people up with the skills needed to take the next steps in their career, she met Eimear, who felt Mary could benefit from taking part in a mentoring programme. Shortly after, they were paired up as mentor and mentee.
Mary meets with Eimear every Thursday afternoon at Selhurst Park. Their weekly sessions together typically involve conversations around confidence building and the introduction of tools to help with navigation through day-to-day concerns. One standout concern for Mary was how she would go about getting work experience that aligned with her interests in sustainability and politics.
As the pairs sessions progressed, Mary expressed her desire to get experience in her chosen field, so, with the help of Tom, who leads our GAME ON programme, she was introduced to Norwood Junk Action, a local non-for-profit who organise community litter picks and transform them into art instillations, and started to volunteer for them.
The efforts between our employment and mentoring teams in collaboration with Norwood Junk Action were a success on all sides: giving Mary the chance to take ownership of tasks in her chosen field, as well as Norwood Junk Action who hired themselves a passionate volunteer.
Things were looking up, but there were still some obstacles in the way. Mary’s new irregular schedule, fresh expectations placed on her and the added responsibility of caring for a new puppy felt overwhelming at times as she still sometimes doubted her own abilities and needed the odd reminder that she was very capable of achieving her goals. With these reminders, her self-doubt was beginning to take a back-seat.
