‘Second Acts’ stories are about people who followed one career or profession or path, but found it was not their passion, not their fulfillment. And then somehow, the “magic” of the Vineyard gave them the encouragement, the freedom, the confidence to go for it, to discover what they truly loved. This is Courtney Daly’s second act, and it too is one of those stories, but with a twist. Did the Vineyard magic happen? Is there a happy ending? Is it sweet — or bittersweet?
Daly graduated from Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School in 2000. Then, like so many of her classmates, she left the Island for college and to find a career. Daly went to New York, to Hunter College, and then graduate school at CUNY (City University of New York). “I began as a doctoral candidate in behavioral neuroscience –– very ambitiously –– but stopped at the point of being conferred a master’s degree. My area of study was how hormones differentially affect the way the brain responds to drugs of abuse in models of addiction.” Daly was on a lab work and data path at the Behavioral Molecular Neuroendocrine Laboratory. “I’d never worked with people, because behavioral neuroscience is a research field.”
But that changed with her first real-world job north of New York City, “managing a long-term living facility for chronically mentally ill adults.” It wasn’t research, but it was in behavioral health –– the human side rather than the statistical side. At the time, she thought, “Yes, this could be my career path.”
Then the pandemic hit, and she was laid off. So, like so many others, she headed home to the Vineyard to wait it out –– weeks or months or years, who knew? Daly moved back into her childhood home, along with one of her sisters, who had also come back. It was tight quarters, but everyone was home. Daly found a job to help pay the bills: “I worked for a landscaping company, which was very, very different. I did landscaping for eight or nine months before I was hired at ACE MV” (Adult and Community Education Martha’s Vineyard). Daly wasn’t looking for a career change, just a good job for as long as this mysterious virus was going to last.
ACE, by its own description, is “the Island’s home for lifelong learning, community networking, and peer- and mentor-based support.” In practical terms, it is the educational link between Islanders and good jobs –– the Island equivalent of community college, college, tech school, and apprenticeship –– fueled by public and private funds and grants.
Did Daly’s impressive degrees win her the job? “Honestly, no. In a general sense, I think that folks see degrees on a résumé and probably think that you’re more qualified, but did I have experience that would make me better at the job than another candidate? No.” Nonetheless, fate intervened, and she was hired at ACE as an outreach coordinator.
So what made her think she could do it? “To be quite honest, I wasn’t sure that I could. Not only did I have no experience with community outreach, but I also have social anxiety, and am terrible at public speaking, so I shook like a leaf during every phone call or event for the first six months of the job.” But she stayed at it because she knew immediately it was important and fulfilling work. “I’ve always felt drawn to helping people, to doing things that might make the lives of the people around me, people in my community, just better.”
ACE MV’s mission and Daly’s values made a perfect match. “I felt connected to the outreach role, to reach underrepresented communities –– low-income folks, immigrant folks, folks from the Brazilian community, people of color.”
And clearly, ACE felt as positive about Daly as she did about the organization. She began as a part-time outreach coordinator, moved to full-time in six months as program manager, and soon after to director of programming.
Today, Daly says of her day-to-day role, “Managing budgets and writing grant proposals, some people might find boring –– budget sheets and research and writing … but the way my brain works, it allows me to focus on the details, and planning and the execution.” And it’s the details that turn outreach into “the big picture” of expanding education and career opportunities. That could range from assisting with a nursing or healthcare program working with Cape Cod Community College to sending Vineyarders off-Island for workforce development in green energy, to language access via bilingual English courses, to early childhood education programs, to technical and building trade training, and small-business skills. There is literally no limit to the possible programs or to the needs of Islanders, and Daly thrives on it: “My brain is never bored at work. Ever.”
Not only is Daly changing Vineyarders’ lives, the job changed her life. “It has done things for my self-worth and my self-esteem that I didn’t know that a job could do.” She takes a long pause and adds, “It has moved me out of poverty,” not only financial, but psychic.
And therein lies the twist to this second act. Eighteen months ago, Daly moved off-Island. Despite a career that has rekindled her life and spirit, despite a job that moved her out of poverty, it didn’t move her far enough. When, for personal and emotional reasons, she and her sisters decided it was time to move out of the family home, she went looking for a place of her own. But like so many other Vineyarders today, she literally cannot afford to live on the Island she loves. So she moved off, and she works remotely; she sometimes commutes, with short stays at the family home, juggling schedules with her sisters, all wishing they could live here throughout the year.
The irony is not lost on Daly. Her second act is a bittersweet story. Returning to Martha’s Vineyard gave Daly the chance to help change people’s lives, and to change her own life. And yet, she can’t live here: “A lot of things have changed since I was a teenager, imagining myself buying my own home one day in the woods. It just seems so unattainable right now.”
This Island can help create a second act. It is magic. But sometimes even magic isn’t perfect.
