If you had visited the WE CAN office before COVID, you were likely greeted with a warm, welcoming smile. That smile belongs to Andreia Gurski.
Andreia joined WE CAN in March of 2019 as our Bilingual Reception Coordinator, where she supervised our reception volunteers and coordinated the heroic effort of managing the 15,000 calls that WE CAN receives each year from women seeking help, direction and connection. Andreia also played a key role in scheduling appointments and serves as our primary staff person to engage with our participants whose primary language is Portuguese.
There is no detail too small for Andreia’s eagle eyes – and she turns organization into an art form, making sure everything at WE CAN runs smoothly. So it is no wonder that she was promoted this summer to a new role at WE CAN – Program Support Coordinator. With a shift to remote services, keeping track of the myriad details necessary to coordinate daily operations related to WE CAN appointments and workshops became more complicated than ever, and we quickly realized we needed a single person to oversee it all. Once we identified that need, we were all in agreement: that person should be Andreia.
“Andreia plays an important role on our team – one that both engages with our participants in meaningful ways and ensures that the services they seek are carried out efficiently and effectively. Andreia is a team player who operates from the heart,” said Lisa Guyon, WE CAN’s Executive Director.
Andreia is a team player who operates from the heart.
In this new role, Andreia is a key member of the program team and coordinates program appointments for WE CAN’s legal, work support, business support, and financial empowerment services and workshops. She also continues to serve as the go-to staff member for Portuguese speaking participants and supports outreach efforts to the Brazilian and Portuguese speaking communities on Cape Cod.
Andreia says, ”The best part about working at WE CAN is seeing a transformation happen after people talk to us. They are sometimes very upset when they first call, and don’t know what they are going to do. After they have an appointment, they can see a light. Even when it will take a long time, there are many steps to solve the problem, they realize they can fix it. They start out crying, and later call us to say, ‘Thank you.’” Originally from Brazil where she studied accounting, Andreia moved to Cape Cod in 2000 and lives in Hyannis with her husband and son. Andreia enjoys boxing, cooking, and spending time with family and friends and taking her son to soccer and basketball games. Andreia is bilingual in English and Portuguese and certified in massage therapy and as a hairstylist.