‘They just want you to succeed:’ Amy’s experience with WorkBC Vernon

A disability at birth. A back injury sustained while working in the oilfield. Cancer. A wrist injury from work in agriculture. These are just some of the challenges Amy Klassen had overcome by the time she was in her early forties and found herself at a difficult crossroads. She knew she needed to make a change in her work—and her life.

“I took stock of where I was at and where I could go,” says Amy. “I realized I could start over or stay stuck.” Amy turned to WorkBC Vernon for help.

“I knew I couldn’t keep using my body…I had to use my mind, but I lacked confidence,” says Amy, who’d left high school before graduating. “I knew I needed some training and I was very motivated.”

Amy Klassen in her office space in Vernon, BC.

With support from her career advisor at WorkBC, Amy began to uncover her interests and what might be possible. With a love of math, a breadth of experience across many sectors, and a desire to help people, she landed on a career in business administration. The two-year diploma was offered at Okanagan College, but she would need to pass entrance exams and get financial support. After making her case to WorkBC for support for retraining, and passing exams with top marks, Amy was ready to start class.

That first day walking into her classroom, doubts and questions filled her mind: “Can I do this? Do I belong here?”

“I used those fears as motivators.”

Amy didn’t know what she was capable of, but she would soon find out.

“I made the Dean’s list,” says Amy, beaming, as she recalls how she took accounting courses as her electives because she enjoyed the math so much. And then she made the Dean’s list again, and again.

But there would be a curveball.

Just as Amy was studying for final exams at the end of the first year, she had a health scare. Her medical team hoped it was not the cancer again, but a complication from one of her several cancer-related surgeries. She would need another surgery, right away. Amy pleaded to have the procedure scheduled for the one week between spring and summer semester, since a stipulation of the retraining funding is that students are in continuous study.

“That care allowed me to finish school…it saved my life.”

She was back in class just days after the procedure in Vancouver, and doctors were right: It wasn’t the cancer, but a complication the surgery had resolved.

BC MLA Harwinder Sandhu (L) and Amy (R).

A few months later, in the fall of 2024, when Amy wasn’t doing school work, she was volunteering for the campaign of NDP Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) candidate Harwinder Sandhu. Amy had become incredibly passionate about the party’s mandate, and its contribution to the education and health care of people in BC. Harwinder won a second term.

Several weeks later, Amy had graduated and found herself at a job fair, where she ran into one of Harwinder’s daughters, who told her an administrative position had just opened up at the local MLA office. Amy applied, got the interview and got the job.

“I was ecstatic,” says Amy. “She (Harwinder) is my role model. She’s so amazing.”

Today, as constituency advisor, Amy spends her days helping others navigate everything from finding the food bank to information about farm taxes, and supporting Harwinder’s team as they take big cases to a ministry for answers, solutions and advocacy.

“Just being able to help people get resolutions is so rewarding. I’m really grateful.”

Looking back on how far she’s come in the last three years, and how fulfilling her days feel now, Amy says the second chance she got through WorkBC “changed my life.”

“They just want you to succeed,” she says, adding that as a Métis woman who has faced barrier after barrier in life, she encourages others to get help and take the leap with retraining.

“It’s not easy at any age, but with support, it is possible. WorkBC was such an amazing stepping stone…and it impacts the whole community.”

Are you at a crossroads in your career? Click here to learn more about all the supports WorkBC Vernon offers to help you reach your potential.