The Drupal Community is an incredibly friendly, welcoming place. For proof, look no further than Sébastien Toullec, a man who came to DrupalCon Barcelona as a true beginner with web technology, and has come away excited and passionate about Drupal.

Sébastien was introduced to the community by his friend, Nicolas Bouteille, who has been working with Drupal since 2010. The two met when Sébastien had fallen on hard times and Nicolas, seeing a kindred spirit in Sébastien, took him under his wing. Nicolas thought Sébastien would feel welcomed and inspired by the Drupal community, and he figured there was no better way to introduce him to Drupal than at DrupalCon!

A few weeks before the convention, Nicolas reached out to the Drupal Association. He shared Sébastien’s story, and asked if we would be willing to provide a ticket for Sébastien to participate in the morning keynotes and to access some of the working areas so that he might work on increasing his Drupal knowledge. We were happy to comply, and received a glowing email from Nicolas and Sébastien after the convention. Here’s what Sébastien had to say:

"Hola Drupalistas!!!!

It's now one month since I was introduced to the Drupal community, and after attending DrupalCon 2015 in Barcelona I want to tell you about my feelings. First, I want to thank Nicolas Boutielle and the Drupal Association for introducing me to such a great community.

Not a long time ago I was homeless, totally lost on the bad habits of the street. Now that I know the community and the power of Drupal, I have a goal in my life. Of course, it's making money... but also, when I become a genius geek (if it ever happens), I look forward to taking part in the Drupal project. The way you are all sharing information and experiences, and the way you help other people makes me think about a family. I feel like I saw a big one in Barcelona!

So, keep on behaving this way. I’d like to send special greetings to Mike Bell (keep on fighting man), and I am excited to see you in Dublin next year, maybe for my first sprint!! Can't wait to be there.

Thanks again from a Drupal beginner.

-Toulix"

"Sébastien really had the experience I was wishing he would have, and I had an awesome week as well,” Nicolas told us by email. “He can now create taxonomies, content types with term reference fields, and views with exposed filters. He really struggled to work this all out, and actually got confused several times before he could get there... but I was so happy to see the light in his eyes the first time he got the term reference field to suggest all his terms at content creation."

Thank you to everyone in the community who helped make Sébastien’s introduction to Drupal so bright. If you want to help Sébastien out by mentoring him on various aspects of Drupal, you can find his drupal.org user page at https://www.drupal.org/u/toulix.