Author: WOAmemphis17

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Phyllis Betts

Women of Achievement
2008

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Dr. Phyllis Betts

No matter which of her community hats Dr. Phyllis Betts may be wearing, she is forever and always vigilant to the rights and needs of women.

A sociologist by training, Phyllis has advocated for women consistently as associate director of the Center for Research on Women and as director of the Center for Community Building and Neighborhood Action at the University of Memphis.

Phyllis was a founder of the Memphis Area Women’s Council where she co-organized the initial action team to address domestic violence with a volunteer court watch. She is the Women’s Council’s leader on its Workforce Action Collaborative which is seeking to identify primary barriers keeping unemployed and underemployed women from good-paying jobs.

Thanks in large measure to Phyllis, the Operation: Safe Community initiative included domestic violence as one of its 15 key issues and action steps to address crime in our community. She says, “Many things that aren’t defined as women’s issues really are and if you strengthen and prepare women to deal with life issues, you’ve gone a long way to prepare our whole community.”

Her multi-layered connections in local grassroots community activism, politics and academia give her constant opportunities to speak up for women’s needs — and she always does. Her commitment is to always “drill down” into the data to find out what it really means to women and to find ways to address the root causes of circumstances that limit women’s equity.

Phyllis grew up in Springfield in central Illinois where state government is the main industry. She attended Southern Illinois University where she found her way into sociology because “it’s about everything and I can’t imagine not being able to think the way I think. Lots of perspectives are important in problem solving.”

With a bachelors’ degree in sociology from Southern Illinois, she completed a Master’s in sociology and then in 1978 earned her PhD from the University of Chicago where she concentrated on social inequality, social policy and urban sociology.

She taught sociology at the University of North Carolina in Asheville. She also founded and directed the UNC Asheville University Honors Program from 1985 to 1990 while also working as associate director of the undergraduate research program.

In 1990, she moved to the University of Memphis where she founded an undergraduate research program and directed the university honors program until 1995. Today, in addition to her research activities, she is associate professor in the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy. She is a research fellow with the Urban Child Institute and chairs the Shelby County Infant Mortality Initiative Data Committee.

Her work with CROW focuses on poverty, welfare policy and workforce development for women. Unlike many traditional academics, she uses research to drive action – and it is that link that came to life with creation of the Memphis Area Women’s Council. Phyllis and others from CROW, the Women’s Foundation for a Greater Memphis, the University of Tennessee and other activists created the not-for-profit Women’s Council with a mission to change local policy and practices by taking action based on data and research that explain the root causes of problems. The Women’s Council has organized a court watch of domestic violence cases, initiated a girls’ activism project called Girls for Change to address sexual harassment in schools, targeted barriers to good jobs for women through a Workforce Action Collaborative and fought to ban corporal punishment in city schools.

“It’s the rubber meeting the road issues that have always engaged me,” Phyllis says. “Women’s issues can be defined pretty narrowly at times – yet when you look at social and economic issues women are disproportionately affected. So much of what happens in society works its way through women’s lives.”

As long as Phyllis Betts is on watch, women’s rights and women’s needs will be at the table whether the immediate issue is violence, bankruptcy, neighborhood rebirth, poverty or jobs. Her vision of positive social change and problem solving – linking research with action – makes our community better for all.

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Perre MacFarland Magness

Women of Achievement
2006

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Perre MacFarland Magness

Perre MacFarland Magness has used her passion for history and her skill as a writer to document the essential roles women have played in the life and times of Memphis and the Mid-south.

Some little-known, some legendary, all fascinating, the women’s stories were part of Perre’s 16-year collection of area history for a weekly column in The Commercial Appeal called “Past Times.”

Those columns, written from 1987 to 2003, were inspiration for several Women of Achievement Heritage nominations and awards through the years and were compiled in 1994 in one of Perre’s six books, called Past Times: Stories of Early Memphis.

This devotion to history began for Perre during a childhood spent in Columbia, Tennessee, in a home built in 1854. It deepened as a student at Vassar College, where, she says, “the general emphasis was that women could do anything,” and during graduate studies at Vanderbilt University.

She wrote book reviews for the Nashville Banner’s well-respected book editor, Mary Douglas. “I graduated the year Bette Friedan’s book (The Feminine Mystique) was published. Miss Mary knew I was literary…She gave me all these books about women having nervous breakdowns, being so unhappy. It’s amazing that a) I ever married and b) that I ever read anything else.”

She did marry in 1965 and moved west with what she called her “liberal eastern education…I came to Memphis young and serious and liberal and I got involved in community things…volunteer work.”

Indeed she did. Even with two young children at home, Perre founded the Volunteer Center of Memphis – which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary – as chair of a Memphis Junior League committee. She went on to become president of the Junior League and in 1980, she earned Leadership Memphis’s Kate Gooch Award for service to the community.

She also had been writing book reviews for The Commercial Appeal after being advised to be careful “not to come on too strong” in a meeting with editors. “Come off like an intellectual housewife,” Perre was told in 1967.

So with that experience, friends in the Junior League turned to her as they attempted to get a book produced on local architecture. That project became Perre’s first book, Good Abode, Nineteenth Century Architecture in Memphis and Shelby County. And that book led Perre to her real life’s work. After Good Abode, The Commercial Appeal called and asked Perre to write a local history column every week. She agreed and “Past Times” was launched. “I am very lucky in that I found just what I love to do in my 40s,” she says.

Her second book – a how-to on cookbook publishing – appeared in 1986 followed by A History of Idlewild Presbyterian Church in 1990.

Along the way, she continued to serve community arts and civic boards, including 12 years as trustee at LeMoyne Owen College and as the first woman on the Board of Visitors of the University of Memphis in 1992! Among her accolades is the Memphis Historical Writing award in 2002 for her book, In the Shadows of the Elms: Elmwood Cemetery.

Just this year, Perre became one of four female members of the Egyptians, a venerable Memphis private club dedicated to intelligent discourse.

Perre Magness recognized the need to preserve the stories of women whose courage, talents and achievements helped shape the Mid-South region. Her work leaves a priceless legacy for future generations.

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Summer Owens

Women of Achievement
2012

HEROISM
for a woman whose heroic spirit was tested and
shown as a model to all in Shelby County and beyond:

Summer Owens

Summer Owens’ childhood ended when she got pregnant on her 15th birthday.

Rather than become a silent statistic of poverty and ignorance, though, she has become a voice of warning and encouragement to young people everywhere. She tells her story in public speeches, on television and in the book she wrote and published titled Life after Birth: A Memoir of Survival and Success as a Teenage Mother.

The story begins with an encounter with an older guy in her hometown of Bolivar. They were fooling around. She was a virgin, a sophomore in high school. No adult in her world had ever talked to her about sex or the consequences of sexual activity. She let him touch her. He went further. What happened didn’t even feel to her like completed sex.

Four weeks later she went to a health clinic to get checked for STDs and tests showed she was pregnant. “Nobody ever talked to me which is why I talk now to girls – and boys – because it seems it is difficult for parents to talk,” Summer says.

With younger siblings at home and a stepfather with whom she had conflict, Summer moved in with her grandmother in Jackson. After her baby boy Jaylan was born, Summer was out of school for six weeks. When she went back to class at Jackson Central-Merry High School she had to catch up in chemistry, French and geometry while studying the current six weeks’ material.

Her grandmother, then 75 years old, helped with the baby. Her typical routine: Up at 5 to prepare Jaylan’s bottles. Off to school and then to after-school student government, Beta Club and yearbook meetings. Home to tend the baby and do some homework. Off to Arby’s to work as a cashier. Return home to tend the baby. Drop into bed around midnight. Repeat. She soon added a weekend job as hostess at Waffle House because, as she learned, babies cost a lot.

Her hard work and intelligence paid off! She graduated eighth in her class of about 300 and was elected Most Likely to Succeed! When she won an Emerging Leaders Scholarship to the University of Memphis, she left Jaylan with her grandmother and moved on campus for her freshman year, going home every weekend. Jaylan sometimes visited in the dorm and went to class with Summer. He learned his numbers and letters sitting in class.

In her sophomore year, Summer rented an apartment and found daycare for Jaylan. Roommate, faculty secretaries, even program directors helped with Jaylan when she wasn’t there. In 2001, Summer was named Miss University of Memphis – based on campus and community involvement and academic achievement. She graduated with a marketing major, magna cum laude.

That’s when Summer went to work in ticket sales for the Memphis Grizzlies. She pursued a master’s in business administration from Bellhaven University while rising to the position of marketing manager for the Grizzlies. She worked 70 to 80 hours a week, saved money and bought her first house in Bartlett.
In 2006, she joined ServiceMaster as a marketing manager and in 2007 joined the marketing staff at FedEx Corp where she today holds the position of senior marketing specialist.

Over the years, Summer’s friends wanted to know how she managed to accomplish so much when so many teen moms don’t. The questions led to her self-published memoir, which she began promoting on Facebook. Requests for speaking engagements soon rolled in from youth groups, school groups, even college. Now she has a website, publishes an online newsletter and volunteers as a mentor through Memphis City Schools.

Summer is the mother of a 17-year-old, now, and offers clear guidance to adults and teens: “It is our responsibility to love, nurture and educate our youth so that they can make responsible choices with regard to their sexual behavior,” she says. “We do live in a world where girls and boys are having sex, and they need to know (that) if this is the choice you make, these are the consequences.”

In her website and her presentations – from Frayser to Texas to Kentucky, from Channel 3 Live at Nine to CNN – Summer Owens urges parents to talk to children about pre-marital sex, teach them about making good choices. And she urges teens who have become parents to make their lives the best they can be, heroically using her own story of pregnancy and hard work to warn, guide and motivate today’s teens.

We thank her with the 2012 Women of Achievement award for Heroism.

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Jasmine Gray

Women of Achievement
2010

HEROISM
for a woman whose heroic spirit was tested and
shown as a model to all in Shelby County and beyond:

Jasmine Gray

Twenty-one-year-old Jasmine Gray knows what it’s like for a child to spend long weeks in the hospital. She knows that hospital gowns leave you cold and make you feel ugly. She knows that just being in the hospital makes you feel that you’re not a regular kid. As a result, she founded Jaz’s Jammies.

Jaz Gray was born with a rare birth defect called an arteriovenous malformation, an abnormal connection between arteries and veins resulting in too much blood going to the right side of her face. Since the age of 10, she has endured 26 operations. During her sophomore through senior years, she spent every summer as well as Christmas breaks in hospitals or at home recuperating. She had one surgery in which her whole right cheek was removed and replaced with skin from her abdomen and back. Unfortunately this surgery did not eliminate the problem.

Not one to dwell on her troubles, Jaz moved ahead with her life. In 2006, she was a senior at Germantown High School and a Girl Scout. She was looking for a project that would impact lives. She remembered her own long stays in the hospital as a child. Warm, fuzzy pajamas, brand-new, of course, would be just the thing to cheer up a child. A colorful pair of pajamas “gives kids a sense of normalcy,” Jasmine says. “It makes them feel like someone cares about them and is thinking about them.”

Jazmine uses email, posters and flyers and even Facebook, to publicize drives. Since 2006, Jaz’s Jammies has collected and distributed over 2500 pairs of pajamas to children in need in hospitals and shelters. Victims of burns, sexual assault, children living in poverty and in homeless shelters have all been comforted by the gift. One little boy who’d spent all day in a wheelchair in a hospital gown was hugely cheered by his Scooby-Doo flannels.

Now a senior majoring in journalism at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Jaz has taken her efforts to the Nashville area. Not shy, she’s involved family, friends, church members and other students. One Murfreesboro restaurant let her pass out free cups of ice cream to support the drive. Her first donations went to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, where many of her surgeries were performed. Other recipients include Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital.

“She’s a dynamo,” says Steve Saunders, assistant director of the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program at MTSU. An excellent student, she has a 3.9 GPA and is making plans for graduate school and for obtaining nonprofit status for Jaz’s Jammies.

She is working on a research project on the image of black college students in the media, which she hopes to present in China through the McNair Program. Last year she received a $1,000 Harold Love Outstanding Community Involvement Award from MTSU. She used part of that for a pajama drive. She plans to use the rest on obtaining nonprofit status and possibly establishing a website.

Her father says, ”She’s a very caring, very spirited, loving girl with a strong faith. She has accepted the fact that she is different and that God has a purpose in her life. That’s what has carried her through.” Jaz herself says, “What I love about Jaz’s Jammies is that it serves two purposes: helping children who face incredible odds, whether sick or homeless, and at the same time giving people throughout the community the chance to serve others. It’s a blessing on both ends!”

Jasmine Gray has heroically fought her own health battles. She has used what she’s learned to give children in pain and need just what might help most: Love symbolized by a soft pair of pajamas!

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Ashley Michele Sanders

Women of Achievement
2008

HEROISM
for a woman whose heroic spirit was tested and
shown as a model to all in Shelby County and beyond:

Ashley Michele Sanders

Truly selfless, compassionate acts are rare indeed, but in an incident that occurred one afternoon in March 2007, so much human compassion was on display that one life was saved and at least two lives were changed forever.

The heroic story has been told and retold across the nation. On her way to Bible study at her Midtown church, Heather Mae Fox stopped at a drug store. As she approached the door she couldn’t help notice the upset young woman holding a baby. When she came back out minutes later, the woman still seemed in need and so Heather Fox offered to help. The offer later was to brand her a “Good Samaritan” by the news media and no one would argue with that.

Desperately clutching the child, the woman said she needed a ride to the library. Fox didn’t hesitate to unlock her car and let the woman get in her back seat with the baby and a carrier.

Soon, though, the ride turned into a carjacking. Pulling out a 40-caliber gun and still cradling the child in her arm, the woman barked at Fox to go to the nearest ATM. As she was directed into an unfamiliar neighborhood and away from traffic, Fox tried to figure out what to do. She didn’t want to wreck her car because of the baby. She also didn’t want to be a victim without trying to escape. She made a quick decision, braked and started to jump from the car to run away, but the young woman fired the gun. The bullet entered from behind the collarbone and exited Fox’s chest.

As she stumbled away, crying for help, she looked down to see that her blouse was drenched in blood. The carjacker meanwhile sped away, only to crash the car later and be captured.

As Heather Fox quickly lost blood, several bystanders hesitated to help her, apparently unwilling to come in contact with her blood. She felt herself in danger of dying. That’s when another Good Samaritan — and an honest-to-goodness hero — came to her aid.

Providentially, Ashley Sanders, a tall, no-nonsense inner-city teenager who loves sports and practices the art of peacemaking among her friends and acquaintances was nearby.

Armed only with the knowledge acquired by watching TV shows, she rolled up her hooded sweatshirt for a pillow to make Fox more comfortable, and immediately began applying pressure on the exit wound. She spoke reassuringly to Fox as she lost consciousness and kept pressure applied until emergency help arrived.

Later in the hospital, Heather Fox learned she had lost half of her blood and likely would have died but for Ashley’s quick actions.

As many of you know, this isn’t the end of the story. Heather Fox started a trust fund for Ashley, got more news coverage around the country and that led to a full scholarship to pharmacy school for Ashley. The two have become fast friends and both women say their lives have changed for the better. Heather Fox now views every day as a new gift from God. Ashley has had many first-time experiences, including her first rides in a taxi and on an airplane, but mainly she has learned that she is a capable young woman with a promising future.

“The media began calling me the Good Samaritan,” Fox says. “However, the Good Samaritan was an 18-year-old girl, Ashley Sanders, who heard the gunshot and came to my rescue.”

Two women of immense compassion, and one a model of true heroism — Ashley Michele Sanders.

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Mahaffey White

WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT
2005

INITIATIVE
for a woman who seized the
opportunity to use her talents and created her own future:

Mahaffey White

Throughout her 90 plus years, Mahaffey White has used her initiative to move through a variety of artistic careers. Dress designer, art teacher, jewelry maker, photographer – who knows what’s next? Her journey has taken her from Memphis to Chicago to New York City and back again.

Born in 1911 in Corinth, Mississippi, Mahaffey soon moved to Memphis with her family. She always knew that she wanted to be involved in art. Her mother made the family’s clothes. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Mahaffey was designing and making her own clothes before she was out of elementary school. “I intended to become a dress designer,” she says. Later she did just that.

After high school graduation, she was accepted by the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago and spent 1929 taking classes. The Great Depression ended her studies and she returned to Memphis where she remained four years.

But Mahaffey never intended to stay. On her 24th birthday, with $100 from her mother, she arrived in New York City to pursue her dreams. Living at the YWCA, she held a variety of temporary jobs. She finally ended up at Henri Bendel’s where she worked sewing clothes for Paris models. After several seasons she moved to Butterwick Patterns, where she became an assistant designer. After learning all she could, she went out on her own. Working from home she created one-of-a-kind garments for women. Her dream of being a dress designer had come true.

Meanwhile on the home front, Mahaffey meet another Memphis transplant, Richard White. They married in 1938 and went on to have two sons.

After 16 years in New York, Richard was offered a job in Memphis and the family returned home.

In her 50s, Mahaffey re-entered school. She completed her degree from Memphis College of Art in 1968, with a major in jewelry making and sculpture.

Mahaffey wanted to teach but needed a master’s degree. At the time, there was no local advanced art degree so she obtained a Master’s in Continuing Education from Memphis State. She was hired by Shelby State where she helped develop an arts curriculum. She retired in 1981 at the mandatory age of 70.

From the time she received her first degree from Memphis College of Art, through the first decade of “retirement,” Mahaffey made jewelry and sculptures. She had several shows, including one at the Memphis Craft Artist Association and at the Brooks Museum of Art.

In 1991, at the age of 80, she took a photography course. Taught by her friend Patricia Leachman, the class inspired Mahaffey to focus her artistic efforts on learning photography.

“Don’t ask me to take your picture,” she says. “I’m not a real photographer.” Be that as it may, her prints have been exhibited at Christian Brothers University, the Cooper-Young gallery, and the Abington Square show in New York. She is represented by the Durden gallery in Memphis and the Southside Gallery in Oxford, Mississippi.

Future plans include more work in color photography and perhaps a return to jewelry making.

 

Mahaffey died at age 104 in May 2012.

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Bettye Boone

WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT
2015

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Bettye Boone

Bettye Boone is a woman’s woman.

She believes in the power – and responsibility – of women to make a difference in politics.

She believes in education and its power to equip women and girls for full participation in our nation.

She believes that women and girls can learn crucial lessons of financial literacy and can be empowered to make good decisions and plans for themselves and their families.

Bettye Boone believes in women and tonight we honor her vision of unity, activism and change.

Bettye was born in a small town near Atlanta, Georgia, and earned a B.A. in sociology and psychology at Morris Brown College. She worked for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources and then in 1986 began a 20-year career with the Internal Revenue Service.

Her IRS duties moved her to Memphis in 1995 and she quickly found her way to Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church where she became a leader and met other leading women.

In October 2004, she joined the Memphis chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women whose mission is to advocate on behalf of African-American women in leadership development and for equity in health, education and economic development. Bettye says, “I was looking for an organization that I could do some community service work to help others succeed. The rest is history.”

Bettye retired from the IRS in 2006. She became part-time stewardship director for her church but shifted tremendous energy to the Coalition and projects to empower women. In 2008, she was elected president of the Memphis chapter and held that role through 2012. Among initiatives she led are:
• Young Women of Excellence conferences that brought an average of 200 girls and their parents to workshops on self-esteem building, career planning, decision-making, leadership, finance and communication skills.
• HIV/AIDS awareness and testing events that drew more than 1,000 persons, mostly women, for testing and education
• The 2012 Sisters’ Keeper Financial Literacy Program – a six-week session that equipped 12 women to better manage their households
• Women Vote Early campaign of signs, rallies and publicity to spur women to vote in the most recent national election. Bettye personally solicited organizations across racial, cultural and partisan lines to collaborate in the campaign – from various sorority chapters, the Memphis Area Women’s Council, the Shelby County Democratic Women and others.
• Pancakes and Politics political forum in fall 2014 for candidates in the crowded local election.

The chapter earned the 2009 Chapter of the Year award for its educational programming. Bettye was honored in 2011 with the Tri-State Defender’s 50 Women of Excellence award and in 2013 by Mayor AC Wharton and Mrs. Ruby Wharton with the woman’s rights award.

Bettye is using her voice – speaking out in pursuit of her vision of equity and security for women.

Last fall, she joined her voice with Healthy and Free Tennessee and produced a YouTube video encouraging women to Vote No on Amendment One. And very recently, she stepped up to join our community’s effort to unite women leaders in support of a violence prevention campaign – Memphis Says NO MORE – combatting rape and domestic violence. She spoke openly about her own experience with violence, urging action and energy to change attitudes and to stop rape and battering.

Bettye was elected this year to another term as president of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc., Memphis Chapter.

She believes in helping people succeed. She has launched Boone Consulting and Support Services to deliver financial literacy and coaching to individuals and groups, grant writing, leadership development and presentation skills.

Living a life grounded in her Christian faith and secured by a family she loves dearly and who love her – Bettye Boone strives to unite and empower women toward a shared vision of strength, success and justice.

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Owen Phillips

WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT
2015

HEROISM
for a woman whose heroic spirit was tested and
shown as a model to all in Shelby County and beyond:

Dr. Owen Phillips

Since the 1980s, those who strive to assure American women access to complete reproductive health care, including termination of pregnancy, have been threatened with bombings, kidnappings, shootings and arson.

Doctors have been shot to death, even in their churches; nurses and other clinic staff have been killed or have lost eyes and limbs. Clinics have closed due to terrorism and those few that remain open strive constantly to protect personnel from danger.

In Tennessee last year, a proposal called Amendment One set out to change the state constitution’s protection of privacy rights that would grant state legislators the ability to pass unlimited restrictions on abortion, with no exceptions for rape, incest or saving the life of the mother.

Women concerned about the potential loss of healthcare and the likelihood that politicians could acquire control over women’s health care decisions organized across Tennessee to fight Amendment One. The Vote No on One campaign needed the voices of strong women – physicians, lawyers and healthcare consumers – to speak in commercials to educate voters about the potential impact of the amendment.

When the question was asked in Memphis – what doctor will appear in commercials to oppose Amendment One – Owen Phillips did not hesitate. This obstetrician-gynecologist, a specialist in high risk pregnancy and genetics, researcher and educator of student doctors raised her hand and signed on to be a face and a voice in support of women’s rights to control their own destiny.

In Owen’s commercial, which aired across the state, she told the compelling story of a patient diagnosed with cancer who chose to continue a pregnancy rather than treat her disease. She died – but she had charge of her decision. Owen said, “It was her decision and no one else’s.”

This heroic gesture was only the latest in Owen’s consistent support of women’s right to full reproductive care. She wrote an op-ed for the newspapers about the “dangerous and troubling” amendment. She wrote:
“I have had patients whose doctors advised them that because of their medical conditions, continuing a pregnancy would jeopardize their lives and leave their children motherless.
“I have had patients whose pregnancies resulted from failed contraception, even methods that were supposed to have been permanent.
“I have cared for 12-year-olds who have been raped by family members.”

Owen continued: “I am not in a position to make decisions for any of these women and their families, but neither is a politician or community member who has never faced such a terrible situation.”

Owen grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, where she earned her undergraduate and medical degrees. Even in high school she worked at a free clinic in Jackson, driving a home health nurse into the poorer neighborhoods to check on elderly residents.

Many years later, Owen joined Big Brothers Big Sisters where her relationship with one little girl has become support and mentoring for multiple children in two related families. In 2008, she received the Big Sister of the Year award for the Greater Memphis Area as well as volunteer of the year for the state of Tennessee for the organization.

Owen is a board member and past board president for the Memphis Area Women’s Council, a non-profit advocacy organization which seeks to eliminate barriers to women’s access to safety, equity and justice.

Being a visible face in support of reproductive rights has been deadly for physicians in our country but Owen Phillips does not hesitate. She has spoken out consistently in support of women and their sole right to make their own health care decisions with access to a full range of care.

Her heroic stance brings a reasoned, experienced voice to a difficult and urgent topic.

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Nadia Matthews

WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT
2015

INITIATIVE
for a woman who seized the
opportunity to use her talents and created her own future:

Nadia Matthews

As a high school student Nadia Matthews saw many of her peers headed the wrong direction, hanging out in gangs, becoming involved with drugs, getting into fights. She was determined not to be one of those girls and took the initiative to make sure her life went in the right direction.

Nadia and some of the friends she’d had since middle school began discussing the many problems they were all facing. In 2007, Nadia was inspired to set up Lily Roze Foundation. Named after her two grandmothers, the foundation started as a means of bringing teens together to discuss and artistically explore the epidemics that surround them. But it has grown into so much more. The foundation’s motto is “We plant seeds so that the world can watch you bloom.” Nadia says, “I want to watch these children and teenagers bloom not just into successful parents, but into college-educated young adults. Blooming means branching out.”

Even as a child, Nadia was never one to shy away from a microphone, a stage, or a writing opportunity. Her youthful presentations included church holiday speaker, spelling bee commentator, high school news anchor, and school playwright.

As a teen, Nadia saw her first Tyler Perry production. It was the first time she’d seen an urban play catering to a black audience. It addressed issues that were real in her life. She was so inspired that she started writing her own play. The result, “A Ghetto Fairytale,” covered every situation a teen can possibly face, from drugs and alcohol to teen pregnancy.

She says, “We wanted to do a show-and-tell method. We were going into classrooms and talking. We really wanted to show them their life on stage and make it as realistic as possible. I wanted to help people and teach them because I knew they weren’t listening when we were talking to them.”

Due to a last-minute need for a change in venue, the show had a four night run of sold-out performances at LeMoyne-Owen College. She’d arranged to use the theatre for free by promising LeMoyne-Owen the proceeds.

Turned out to be a great deal for the college as it received $10,000, a large contribution from one of its youngest donors ever; a fact later recognized with an award from the college. Unfortunately, Tyler Perry forgot to tell her not to use real names so she ended up losing a few friends. She hasn’t made that mistake again!

Her success brought national attention to her work. Nominated by her sister to be a guest on the Tyra Banks Show, Nadia got the call while at Graceland, sitting in a Cadillac that once belonged to Elvis. Her appearance in March of 2009 helped her to promote the work of the foundation and gained her some international followers.

Never wanting to be the playwright who dropped out for art, after high school Nadia attended the University of Tennessee Chattanooga and completed her degree in journalism at the University of Memphis.

Nadia has continued to write and in 2013 wrote and produced “Bitter/Sweet 16”, which was presented at the Michael Rose Theatre on the University of Memphis campus.

The LilyRoze Foundation continues to thrive. Offering weekly Saturday workshops for summer, fall and spring, the program results in three performances per semester, allowing the young participants, ages 3-17, a chance to work through their stage fright and develop both their self-esteem and natural talents.

And Nadia Matthews thrives as well, having established a conglomerate enterprise, LilyRoze Inc. She is, of course, the CEO. She directs the Miss Prestige Pageant, is co-owner of BeDazzled Birthdays, and is the driving force behind her numerous efforts.

Entrepreneur, activist, motivational speaker, actor, writer, producer/director of films and stage plays, and founder and CEO of The LilyRoze Foundation, Nadia Matthews is indeed the epitome of Initiative.

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Barbara King

WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT
2015

STEADFASTNESS
for a woman with a lifetime of achievement:

Barbara C. King

Barbara King turned a volunteer slot with a local children’s charity into a career dedicated to helping abused children reclaim their lives.

Under her steady hand, the Exchange Club Family Center has grown sevenfold into one of the premiere social service agencies in Memphis.

Barbara grew up in East Memphis and graduated from East High. After a year in a Texas university she came home to Rhodes College to graduate with a B.A. in psychology in 1970. Married to Bob King right after graduation, the couple settled in Atlanta, Georgia, where for five years she was the program director for a preschool program for children with mental and physical disabilities. She was drawn to special education early – her best friend’s brother needed it – so when the couple returned to Memphis, she earned a Master’s degree in Education, specializing in early childhood special education.

While her three children were small, she began volunteering and one volunteer placement turned into a job – doing fundraising and public relations at the Les Passees Rehabilitation Center for children with neuro-motor disabilities. She stayed there for five years and along the way, learned about an agency that was about to go under. Barbara had gained strong experience as a fundraiser so the challenge of rescuing the Exchange Club Center appealed to her.
Lucky for them – and for the abused children of our community.

In 1993, when Barbara got to the center, in dilapidated quarters on Elvis Presley Boulevard, the three staffers and three programs were aimed primarily at child abuse prevention. The local center, opened in 1984, was one of dozens founded and funded across the nation by members of the Exchange Clubs.

Barbara moved the center to better quarters, first on Walnut Grove and then to a building the agency purchased on Union Avenue in 1997 and expanded in 2007.

She says that it became apparent that children dealing with child abuse also were being damaged by domestic violence in their homes. “It was just real obvious that was a form of child abuse whether they had scars or not,” Barbara says. “Yet at the time, they weren’t even considered a victim – so I wrote a mission to provide those services.”

Now open seven days a week, the center offers comprehensive services for children traumatized by violence and abuse as well as their families. The staff offers individual and group counseling for adults and children; educational services such as parenting training for first-time teen mothers and others at risk for child abuse and neglect; anger management for adults, teens and children; play therapy for children as young as two years and Parent Child Interactive Therapy for children under age 7.

The center operates a carefully structured and monitored program for court-ordered supervised visitation to help families shattered by battering.
The Exchange Club center is one of the leading training facilities for students in the fields of social work, psychology, and counseling with over 80 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral level students from 8 local schools completing internship or practicums each year.

Today the Exchange Club Family Center- a private, non-profit agency – has a staff of 45, including a clinical psychologist and 19 licensed clinical social workers and counselors. The number of programs has grown from 3 to 23 providing services annually for over 5,500 children and adults who are involved in child abuse and family violence situations. About 10 percent of the center’s clients are from the Spanish-speaking community and are served by bi-lingual therapists.

Most astonishing, perhaps – the budget has grown from $225,000 to $2.5 million!

Barbara saw the potential for broader services to bring healing and renewal to children who had no voice and were deeply injured by physical and sexual abuse and domestic violence. She has worked tirelessly to build relationships with corporate leaders, government officials and non-profit colleagues to find resources necessary to make innovative and important programs happen.
Her steadfast devotion to the needs of children traumatized by abuse has brought hope to thousands.