Team Manager Community Outreach

Dear HR Team Manager,

I am seeking a fulfilling employment opportunity with Detroit Champions for HOPE as Partnership Coordinator. I am a dedicated, outgoing, and energetic individual with an affinity for success. I have over 15 years of experience working with schools, nonprofits and community based organizations, as well as, more than 20 years of community planning experience. I currently provide a plethora of support services to the staff and students at WCCCD, Detroit Champions for HOPE and Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance in an effort to encourage and advocate for expanding and enhancing opportunities in my community.

I am an anthropology professor at Wayne County Community College District. Teaching at the college has awarded me the opportunity of reaching out to a diverse group of young people and to help enlighten their minds. I enjoy giving students an opportunity to discuss shared and culturally unique experiences that we have as Americans and as individuals. I try to help us find a Common Thread that allows us to come together to make a stronger community and world.

I also enjoy community service, of which I have been actively involved in since I was a school child through my church Fellowship Chapel. I am currently a Community Outreach Specialist for Detroit Champions for Hope where we support parents and caregivers as children's first teachers. My latest project has me planning the 6-A-Day curriculum for our partnership with Brilliant Detroit, a community stakeholder in the city. This is a free and accessible practice branded practice by DCH, then taught and demonstrated through community outreach. I am also working with the Boys and Girls Club and Cody Rouge Community Action to plan an event to the community’s youth in February. In 2022, I worked with the Children's Center, participating in the United Ways Literacy Fair to help us celebrate positive African American representation through literacy; as well as teach how to teach our children to advocate through stories that connect them to their community and capturing vital reflections on video of the impact of working with DCH.

Through politics and advocacy I am able to learn about how the world functions and how to go about making changes in systems and infrastructures. The only way that you can be impactful is to be involved. Hope Starts Here offered an opportunity to facilitate a discussion on Social Justice that was open to the city and well attended. I was able to guide a discussion that highlighted the importance and impact of equity and nuanced ways we include and exclude people from access as a means of social, political and financial control. Each year I find myself drawn into active participation, which helps to keep me passionate about the work that I do.

I have also worked on the 2016 local election for Heaster Wheeler, the 2018 National Michigan One Campaign and I was the Legislative Aid for the Wayne County Commissioner, Monique Baker McCormick. I have had the opportunity to work on numerous community events, panels discussions, conferences, assemblies, local initiatives, political meetings and more. I have great relationships with the constituents. In 2018, I and another former MSU student established DPSCD Dads Club, in an effort to engage our men. As a parent, I have served as officers in the PTA for and PAC member in the Southfield School District. I also conducted a CookSmart EatSmart cooking demonstration for the community of Regal Towers in Southfield, MI. to enlighten and encourage young people to make healthy food choices. I have also conducted workshops on Healthy Relationships and Esteem Building with the Intojane Mentor Program at Fellowship Chapel. I assembled a panel and assisted with the logistics of a conference sponsored by Wayne County Community College District’s Entrepreneur Institute and Resource Center and I was able to provide a press release, materials for distribution, the agenda, catering and various community leaders and business people to participate in the panel. These opportunities have allowed me to organize, be creative, prioritize, follow-up, engage the community and nurture professional relationships.

Finally, I am a mother of four boys or young men, should I say, that absolutely inspired me to be my absolute best self. My children range in age from 8 to 22 and it is because I want to raise excellent men for husbands, uncles, dads and Community leaders that I do everything that I do. I also enjoy cooking, poetry, the outdoors and I have a consulting company that does emotional intelligence coaching and IJS-MEDIA.COM which is my media company. Our current project is a reboot of The Vagina Monologues. I currently have a group on Facebook called Project W.O.W. The W.O.W. stands for "women of worth" and every woman is welcome because every woman has worth. As a result of producing The Vagina Monologues in August of 2021, there has brought a lot of synergy and focus on the needs of us as women needing to heal ourselves through our sexual traumas, various sensual and sexual misunderstandings, misconceptions and missing sometimes just in relationship and presence to our own femininity and power. Project W.O.W. is currently in the process of facilitating healing experiences for women virtually and in person in Michigan, Georgia, Illinois and California. Project WOW is about healing and awareness through creative expression and experiences.

I understand the subtle and disparaging challenges to marginalized groups in society. I recognize the challenges of this type of work, however, I appreciate the potential to improve our community and the lives of men, women and children. My formal education and life experiences would be outstanding attributes to the campaign’s objectives. I believe that we as individuals have so much power and ability and if we are just able to believe in ourselves and work on being our best selves, then that's what we continue to put forth in the world. That energy will take hold not only in us and our households, but also in our communities, in our cities, our art, our education, our politics and it would be great if through that energy someday Humanity returns to the world.

Contact this candidate