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Women of Spirit: 10 who mount out for what they believe
The women mount out for what they trust in. For their work and a meaning. For their life — and from it, how they give behind to their community.
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Kym Klass, Montgomery Advertiser 8:12 a.m. CDT Mar 29, 2015
The women mount out for what they trust in. For their work and a meaning. For their life — and from it, how they give behind to their community.
They are 10 Women of Spirit, and they encapsulate dedication, a enterprise to do good. They feed a hungry, coach a destiny troops leaders, they have found their place in a church and they yield overdo to a lowest and many impecunious in a possess backyard.
And they all trust that what they do is their calling.
In respect of Women’s History Month, theMontgomery Advertiser recognizes 10 women in a River Region who denote passion, leadership, creativity, and who are confidant and assured in their proceed to life and work. They are age 45 and younger, and cover all sectors in a community: business, nonprofit, government, preparation (K-12), preparation (collegiate), volunteerism, military, entrepreneur, religion, and a “wildcard” category.
They are Holly Caraway, Khristen Carlson, Catrina Cole, Robin Davies, Ashley Davis, Porscha Echols, Julia Henig, Traci Howell, Rhea Ingram and Angela Kornegay James.
Fighting for all Alabamians
Holly Caraway, 33, government
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Holly Caraway, arch warn in a bureau of a parliament minority personality in a Alabama legislature
As a arch warn in a bureau of a Senate minority personality in a Alabama Legislature, Caraway is ardent about her pursuit for countless reasons.
“I worked during a nonprofit that worked with children,” she pronounced of work she formerly did in Birmingham. “I was an profession operative with domestic assault victims, so being means to transition into a supervision zone … we get to work on process that affects all Alabamians.”
She has worked as a arch warn given Feb 2012. Previously, she was a staff profession during a YMCA of Central Alabama in Birmingham, and a staff deputy with a Jefferson County American Federation of Teachers.
“I work with 8 state senators that unequivocally reason a same faith complement that we do,” Caraway said. “And so it’s wonderful to be means to go to work each day and work for people that quarrel for all Alabamians, either it’s entrance for peculiarity open education, or peculiarity healthcare, or entrance to mental health services. we get to work on a far-reaching accumulation of issues.”
Caraway perceived a class in psychology from a University of Alabama in 2004. She also perceived her law class from a University of Alabama School of Law in 2010. Also in 2010, she perceived her master’s in business administration/strategy from a University of Alabama Manderson Graduate School of Business.
Feeding a inspired in schools
Khristen Carlson, 45, nonprofit
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Khristen Carlson, Montgomery “Food for Kids” Backpack Program
Carlson’s goal started years ago while doing use work during a food pantry. There, she review a book called “Toxic Charity,” that discussed treating ongoing problems with puncture assistance. And when she suspicion about that concept, it worried her some-more and some-more that maybe she wasn’t doing “things a right way, and that we wasn’t assisting people a approach we unequivocally wanted to assistance people.”
She began acid for certain ways she could assistance people. Positive ways, she said, that she could make a disproportion in people’s lives. One of a things she kept going behind to was food for children. So, 18 months ago, she started a nonprofit called Montgomery “Food for Kids” Backpack Program, and currently serves 30 Montgomery propagandize children during dual schools.
Every Friday, propagandize staff discharge bags anonymously into a backpacks of children selected for a module by their principals. Packed is adequate food for dual breakfast meals, dual lunches, dual snacks and dual fruits.
Food equipment embody Nutragrain bars, boxed milk, powdered milk, canned pasta, canned meats, baked beans, chili, soup, vegetables, granola bars, raisins, craisins, goldfish, peanut butter and crackers, pretzels, and any canned fruit.
“The thing that unequivocally struck me was that this was not usually a childhood problem, though there are studies that contend that adults that are hungry as children are indeed reduction prepared for a workforce when they get out there,” Carlson said. “The stories are unequivocally tough to hear … to have not finished it in time for a giveaway breakfast, and who have missed breakfast and are inspired and who are great given they are hungry.
“As a mom with 3 children, it’s a unequivocally abdominal feeling for me. It hits me in a tummy to consider there are kids out there who are hungry.”
The children in a module are selected by their principals, Carlson said, formed on their “appearance of hunger. In Montgomery County alone, about 76 percent of a kids who are in open schools, they can validate for giveaway and reduced(-priced) lunch. So this module can assistance a whole lot of people. Our module is unequivocally destined during those children displaying those signs of hunger.”
How can we help? Commit to creation a certain array of bags per month, or yield requested food that is placed in bags. Volunteers also can present cosmetic grocery bags, or squeeze present cards from internal grocers.
How else? To learn some-more about a program, and how and where to present food, revisit Montgomery “Food for Kids” Backpack Program on Facebook.
Shaping a future military
Army Maj. Catrina Cole, 38, military
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Maj. Catrina Cole, executive officer for a Montgomery Recruiting Battalion
Cole credits her relatives for her passion for a military. They both served, and as Cole watched their “honor and respect” for a military, she motionless to enroll during age 17, with skeleton to acquire her college class while serving.
Cole, who has served in a troops for 21 years, is a executive officer for a Montgomery Recruiting Battalion, covering a state of Alabama and a Florida Panhandle.
“I’ve had a array of jobs in a troops and have hold ranks from sergeant to major,” she said. “My passion is a ability to be means to strech out and hold a future. So anyone fasten a troops during any of a centers located via a footprint, to me, is a destiny military.
“So we get to see and figure a immature group and women who proffer and come and take adult a reins as those of us who are seasoned now, and over 20, will be retiring.”
Cole, whose father is due home in Jun following a year-long deployment, has dual boys ages 8 and 10, and manages a staff of 30 crew and 200 recruiters widespread via a Alabama footprint.
“I demeanour brazen to being some-more concerned in a village as we hang adult a uniform and transition into a municipal job,” she said, adding she is concerned with a Millbrook YMCA’s basketball, soccer and girl programs.
Cole has lived in a segment for about 18 months. She claims Miami as home, carrying lived there a longest. Born in Springfield, Ohio, and “what we find many engaging about a troops that we tell people is that I’ve lived life on vacation. So I’ve never lived anywhere in my whole lifespan some-more than 3 years. Ever.
“It’s been exciting. I’ve lived in Ohio, Georgia, Florida, Asia, Virginia.”
Selling homes, building community
Robin Davies, 42, entrepreneur
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Robin Davies, owner, Realty Connection
When Davies satisfied a corporate universe was not for her, a Realtor branched out, wasting no time in not usually flourishing her company, Realty Connection, though combining relations in a community.
“I like to find new ways, new innovative ways to do things,” she said. “I wish to find opposite ways for people to see your home. I’ve indeed sole homes to people in England, Germany, site unseen, and that’s a approach we like to do business — to make certain we can get a properties out there in any approach that we can.”
Davies, who lives in Millbrook, and whose bureau is in Prattville, is active in a Prattville Chamber of Commerce, carrying been an envoy with them given 2007 and welcoming new businesses to a area.
“I try to offer things like removing business cards and fliers from them so we can give them to a clients and kind of assistance foster a village given a village promotes us,” she said. “We also are unequivocally large in donating to causes. When we sell a home, we let a buyers or a sellers select a substructure or a charity that is tighten … to their heart and we make a concession on their behalf. It’s zero that costs them any money. It comes particularly out of a elect that a association keeps. It’s unequivocally critical to us to give behind to a village in any approach that we can.”
Those groups embody St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a Muscular Dystrophy Association, a American Heart Association, a American Red Cross and New Hope Academy.
In 2007, Davis achieved her multi-million dollar writer status, and has been means to say a standing each year since. In 2009, she assisted in a opening of a new franchise, Exit Realty Preferred. And in 2011, finished a preference to go on her possess with Realty Connection in Prattville.
In 2014, she non-stop a doorway to other agents. And given August, Realty Connection has grown from one representative to 7 agents.
“I’m unequivocally vehement about this,” she said. “I never saw a association flourishing this quick and this far, and it’s unequivocally critical to me given it says that Realty Connection is out there doing accurately what we wanted it to do. we have clients who have followed me by my career … and that’s one of a things that we like, is a tie that we make with other people.”
Realty Connection can be found online during www.ahomewithrobin.com
Strong clarity of call in a church
Ashley Davis, 37, religion
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Ashley Davis, associate pastor, Woodland United Methodist Church
Davis was an undergrad tyro during Auburn who suspicion she would enter a medical field. Instead today, she is an associate priest during Woodland United Methodist Church in Pike Road.
“I had an believe one night where we usually felt like we was wrapped in a arms of God and a extraordinary adore of God,” she said. “And we started carrying these practice where disproportion would usually come to me like a book being flipped.
“And we had this clever enterprise to share those disproportion with other people. It was kind of shocking to me. we was kind of introverted during a time, and a suspicion of removing in front of people and pity those things was frightening.”
Davis, a internal of Luverne, and a connoisseur of Auburn University where she warranted a bachelor of scholarship degree, pronounced her call continued as she attended seminary during Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, that is partial of Emory University. From there, she continued her pursuit in other ways, and not usually in training and priesthood words, “but also in being means to share God’s adore in discernible ways, either that was by celebrating a sacraments of Holy communion and baptism, or being means to strech out and assistance those who are in need, to assistance those who are inspired or thirsty, or those who are in prison.
“To assistance and reanimate those who are ill as well.”
Davis has served during Woodland for a integrate of years, carrying formerly served in smaller churches in northern Elmore County and also in campus method for 8 years during a Troy University Wesley Foundation.
For a final 3 years, she served a Trinity-Wallsboro charge, and has also served on a house for a Troy-Pike Habitat for Humanity for several years, as good as on a house for a Elmore County Food Pantry. She has served via a Alabama-West Florida Conference as an elder in a United Methodist Church.
“My father is a doctor, and my mom is a nurse,” Davis said. “Everyone in my family is in medicine in one approach or another. we suspicion we would do that. we suspicion we would assistance people by medicine.”
Woodland UMC can be found online during www.woodlandontheweb.org
Changing a heart of a children
Porscha Echols, 28, volunteer
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Porscha Echols, proffer during Common Ground Montgomery ministry
At Common Ground Montgomery during Washington Park, Echols loves a suspicion of reaching a village by changing a heart of a children first. Echols, a proffer with a method for 3 years, believes that will enroll into their parents, and into their homes.
Common Ground Montgomery is an inner-city/urban girl method portion a Washington Park and Gibbs Village communities.
“I unequivocally see it as a payoff to be means to volunteer,” she said. “There’s a method here that gives their time divided daily, and for me to be means to come alongside and usually assuage for usually a moment, or usually an hour, a unchanging stresses they have is usually a privilege.
“I proffer … given we trust a Lord commands us to do, to give back, to share, to teach. we proffer given … it’s not burdensome, it’s not a tough thing to do. It’s an honor.”
And given vital here and working, and volunteering, Echols says she has grown as a Christian, as a woman, and as a servant.
Having graduated from Tuskegee University in 2008, Echols was innate in California, and after a few years, changed to Oklahoma before returning to California where she graduated from high school.
“I went to a college expo for historically black colleges, and they were doing on-the-spot admissions,” she said. “I connected it down to one (college) in Louisiana and Tuskegee. My godsister called when there was a whirly in Louisiana, and we suspicion … no.”
On Wednesday nights, Echols teaches a Bible investigate to fourth- and fifth-grade girls. Other times find a Johnnie Carr Middle School sixth-grade clergyman spending what time she can with a children.
“I unequivocally consider it gives them an bargain of what loyal use is,” she said. “Well people are not in need of a doctor. Children who can’t do a lot for themselves are in need of as many support as possible. As volunteers, we can yield a spin of support.”
Common Ground Montgomery can be found online during http://cgmlife.org
Healthcare in central Alabama “very fulfilling”
Julia Henig, 39, business
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Julia Henig, clamp boss of business growth during Baptist Health
Henig, clamp boss of business growth during Baptist Health, pronounced her pursuit brought her to Montgomery 11 years ago. She and Baptist Health CEO Russ Tyner were brought to a city as partial of a UAB health complement government team, she said, to “provide a turnaround for a Baptist Health complement here. What was ostensible to be 6 months has incited into 11 years, and it has incited into a best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Before fasten Baptist Health, Henig served as partner formulation and devise officer and partner executive executive for vital ventures during UAB Health System in Birmingham. She also is unequivocally civic-minded, portion on countless play and committees, including being boss of a Montgomery City-County Public Library board; a member of a Healthy Minds Network Leadership Council; on a village needs comment cabinet with a River Region United Way; and given 2004, as a house member of a Montgomery Baptist Outreach Services Corporation.
“I usually adore my career,” she said. “To be afforded an event during such a immature age to indeed make a disproportion and to come into a village and unequivocally spin things around and have success. We’re all unequivocally proud of a medical delivered here in executive Alabama, and to have a run that we’ve had and a successes we’ve had, and unequivocally inspiring medical in executive Alabama is unequivocally fulfilling.”
Henig is house approved in health caring government and binds a master of scholarship in health administration, master of business administration and certificate of gerontology from UAB. She also finished a Global Leadership in Health Care Program during a University of Michigan, and graduated cum laude from a University of Mississippi with a bachelor of business administration degree.
While during Ole Miss, Henig was a captain of a women’s volleyball team, and warranted All-SEC jaunty and educational honors.
Giving back, reaching a youth
Traci Howell, 33, wildcard
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Traci Howell, module acquisitions manager during Gunter Air Force Base, a coordinator for a Teen Board during a Shoppes during EastChase
Howell works as a module acquisitions manager during Maxwell Air Force Base-Gunter Annex. What many of her bureau doesn’t know, is what she does outward of work. That includes her work as a coordinator for a Teen Board during a Shoppes during EastChase, owner of Tie and Doll, a member of a Capital City Club Inner Circle and of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., a member of a Montgomery section of Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), and of a EMERGE Montgomery Torchbearers Leadership Program, Class III.
“What we suffer doing as distant as village use work is giving behind to a community,” Howell said. “I consider it is unequivocally critical to take time out of your schedule, notwithstanding how bustling it is, and be a mentor. For me, when we was younger, we had opposite people who were mentors in my life, either it was my family, my parents, or my friends.”
Howell, who has had a conference spoil given a age of 5, pronounced carrying mentors in a early stages of her life taught her to give behind to others “because there was so many we schooled from that situation. I’m always doing something for a youth, that is always fun for me, given we like to see when they have their ‘a-ha’ moments, or when they come behind and tell me what they have accomplished.
“Because for a lot of them, they started out with no self-esteem, or no confidence, and we usually adore being means to work with them and let them know that anything is possible.”
Other important items:
Howell oversees:
Tie and Doll Inc. founder, www.tieanddoll.org
The All TIEd Up Project www.alltiedupproject.org
The All DOLLed Up Project www.alldolledupproject.org
She also is concerned in a Stuff a Bus School Supply Campaign during The Shoppes during EastChase (organizer), River Region United Way Community Council (vice chair) and a River Region United Way Budget and Allocation Committee.
Bringing existence to a (business) classroom
Rhea Ingram, 45, education, collegiate
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Rhea Ingram, dean, college of business, Auburn University Montgomery
Ingram, vanguard of a College of Business during Auburn Montgomery, doesn’t demur when asked what her passion is in a preparation field.
“My passion is unequivocally a students,” she said. “So with aloft education, in-particular government preparation changing, given a business universe is changing, I’m ardent about bringing existence to a classroom.
“What we meant by that is, ‘Are we training students what they need to learn both in believe and in skills to be means to go out into a workforce and turn a loyal business personality from a day they get hired?’ (It’s wonderful) being means to watch students come in as beginner and renovate into these business leaders when they travel opposite a stage.
“And we get to be a absolved one to shake their hands … it’s overwhelming that we — we, being a expertise members and a administration — support in this transition. So not usually do we impact a students’ lives, though we impact a business village by providing them with business leaders as we do.”
In a community, Ingram’s many new contributions include:
Judge, Alabama Retail Association 2011 Retailer of a Year Awards (2015)
Diversity Summit, Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce, row coordinator
Women’s First Conference, panelist
AAF Montgomery, Executive Committee,educational chair (2012-2013)
Governmental Affairs Committee, Montgomery Chamber of Commerce (2013)
Small Business Advisory Council, Montgomery Chamber of Commerce (2012 – 2013)
And, professionally:
Society for Marketing Advances (1998–Present): President (2009 – 2010)
Program Chair/President-Elect (2008–2009), clamp boss of member services (2007–2008), secretary (2005–2007), executive executive (2010–2013)
Southern Business Administrators Association (2011-Present)
Alabama Hospitality Association (2009–2011)
Hospitality Sales Marketing Association International (2009-2011)
EMERGE Montgomery (AL) (2009 – 2010)
“I like to consider we’re unequivocally changing a world”
Angela Kornegay James, 44, education, K-12
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Angela Kornegay James, principal, MacMillan International Baccalaureate Academy
James believes what she does is a calling. That we can’t usually travel into education, though that we are called to do a job.
As principal during MacMillan International Baccalaureate Academy, she pronounced each day she walks by a front doors of a school, “it means so many to me.
“No matter what is going on during home, we can usually come in and see a children, and all is OK. we consider we’re creation a disproportion here during MacMillan given we have children who come here each year from all over a world. Not usually are we creation an impact on a children that are here in this community, though a children who come from other countries and go behind to their schools.”
James is a product of a Montgomery open propagandize system, and perceived a class in facile preparation from Alabama State University, and a master’s in preparation from Troy University Montgomery.
Of a MacMillan students, she says, “We share so many with them, and they take all of that behind to their countries. we like to consider that we’re unequivocally changing a world. My passion comes from usually always carrying a enterprise to assistance and make a difference. we consider no matter what we can do to assistance someone or assistance a child, we do.”
After graduating high propagandize during age 17, James assimilated a Alabama Army National Guard, where she served on active avocation during Desert Storm/Shield from 1990-1991. She after warranted a class in facile preparation during Alabama State University and graduated cum laude in 1995.
She taught during Southlawn Elementary School, where she attended as a student, and after taught fifth class during Carver Arts Magnet Elementary School. In a tumble of 2002, she became a assistant principal during Highland Gardens Elementary, where she and her staff perceived rewards from a State of Alabama for educational acheivement as a “Gap Closer School.”
In Jul 2011, James was named principal of MacMillan, and after 3 years, received word a propagandize was strictly certified by a International Baccalaureate Organization (IB) to turn an IB World School charity a Primary Years Program (PYP); creation it a initial facile propagandize in Montgomery County to grasp that distinction.
James lives and works by a favorite quote:
“I wish that my achievements in life shall be these — that we will have fought for what was right and fair, that we will have risked for that that mattered, and that we will have given assistance to those who were in need that we will have left a earth a improved place for what I’ve finished and who I’ve been.” — C. Hoppe
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