Rashida Dillard

I started community development at a very young age. I was block captain of 58th and Alter Street and organized a youth drill team in Philadelphia. I put together food drives for senior citizens and did free Thanksgiving dinners for seniors and the homeless. I have always been engaged in the community. When I moved to South Carolina, I moved to a rural community and was surprised by how rural it was - there was no internet. I really identified the gap between the rural community and the suburban community of South Carolina and the lack of resources, and that's what drove me to start Pathways Beyond Borders. My most notable professional achievement would be leading through authenticity - achieving becoming a leader both in the nonprofit space of building my own nonprofit organization, but also growing throughout other nonprofit sectors as an operational manager or operations director. I lead through authenticity, being my authentic self, and identifying problems and being able to relate to individuals and help them cope with their problems, whether it's professional growth or through our programs where we're helping the community. I come from a background of a child that grew up in a low-income household where we had to overcome so many different barriers. There were things that I learned in college or after adulthood that I wish I had someone to pour that information into me early on - it would have possibly changed the decisions that I made during high school. Those experiences help me develop programs to help the youth, understanding where those gaps are and coming from those low-income communities.