Michelle Jewsbury

If it wasn't for Christ in my life, I don't know where I would be today. I feel that He is the guiding light in my life, helping to guide my steps where I need to go next and allowing certain people to come into my life so I can learn from them and heed their advice. So God comes first. Aside from that, I feel that never giving up has really helped to attribute to my success today. There are going to be many days, actually, as CEO, as a small business owner, where you just want to throw in the towel, where you think it's too difficult, you have so much overhead, you're not bringing in enough money, you don't know what to do next. But don't give up, because consistency and persistency is what will make you successful as long as you continue the course. You will become what it is that you are striving to become. I found God in 2010, and from that day, life hasn't always been easy, but He's always had my back.

One of my very first mentors during this process was Bill Walsh, a small business entrepreneur coach who I began working with in late 2018. He really helped me to structure my story, to be able to focus even more on business and etiquette, and be able to grow and expand. Because of the mentorship and association with Bill Walsh, I've been able to meet and work with extremely influential individuals. One big one is Lee Steinberg, who is Patrick Mahomes' agent from the Kansas City Chiefs. Lee helped us raise over $100,000 at one of our events for Unsilenced Voices. We've partnered with the NFL alumni in Las Vegas for Unsilenced Voices. One of my other mentors is Jeff Hoffman, who created Priceline and founded the check-in terminals at the airport. He's also been involved with the music and entertainment industry on the production side, and he's been incredibly influential. One of my other good girlfriends is Angel Tuffy. She was one of the first women that I saw speak on stage in this bright pink dress with her dark brown hair, and she just did it so eloquently, and I was like, I want to be like her. Angel and I have become the bestest of friends, and she still helps me navigate, really, what to do next and where to go. There's been an array of different individuals who have really helped me throughout my career.

I just got done speaking at a high school last week, and I was in this classroom with a lot of young people who are going to school and have this idea of what work is going to look like afterwards when they get into the corporate world. I want readers to know that once they set their mind on one path, study that direction. However, there may be other opportunities that present themselves, so as long as you prepare yourself in your chosen field and prepare yourself and work towards that goal, other opportunities will open up. Where that preparedness meets opportunity, then you will be successful in other ways. It's not about what we go through, but about how we react to those experiences. I truly believe that God allows us to go through certain things so that we can use our voices to make a difference, because it's about helping others. If I can do it, other people can do it too, because I grew up in a middle-class family. I was a bartender for 15 years. I don't have a college education.

Our purpose right now is to gather funding from large-scale donors, corporations, and larger businesses, ranging from 50K to a million, so we can build our actual school with housing. A lot of our girls are still stuck in brothels, getting reoccurring STIs from living conditions and sanitary needs. That's a lot of my focus right now - our girls in Sierra Leone. We currently have our office space that has now become a school for about 33 women, plus we have 26 girls in outlying communities going through partnered vocational training centers. We need to be able to provide opportunities and sanctuary for many young girls who need these resources. We've partnered with the U.S. Peace Corps for malnutrition programs, we do agricultural programs, and we have savings box programs, so there's a wide array of different things we do.

Trust, Hard-work, Compassion