Women to Watch Awards Finalists – Nonprofit
Meet the 2024 finalists
Liz Carbone
Director of Community Engagement, Good Shepherd Center
Describe your role and work that you do.
“I oversee the engagement team and the food services team at Good Shepherd Center, a local nonprofit whose mission is to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and foster transition to housing.
My responsibilities include fundraising, outreach, education, and advocacy efforts around our mission focus areas: food insecurity, homelessness, and affordable housing.”
Why do you do nonprofit work?
“I feel so fortunate to have a career where I can serve others and to work with an incredible team of dedicated professionals who are committed to helping our neighbors achieve an improved quality of life. We spend every day with community members who are struggling to keep themselves or their children housed or who have already lost their housing and don’t have the family or financial safety net that many of us may take for granted to fall back on. Their stories and experiences motivate me every day to identify and advocate for the resources that help our neighbors in crisis access the safety, dignity, and opportunity that only stable housing can provide.”
What’s a goal?
“I would love to see our community make headway on committing to more innovative policy and programmatic approaches to addressing our region’s affordable housing crisis.
There are so many gaps in our local housing ecosystem, and we need to get creative and begin to meaningfully address those gaps if we want to live in a community where everyone has a safe place to call home.”
Tara Everett
President, Pender Youth Football and Cheer Association
Describe your role and work that you do.
“I am responsible for the safe and effective operation of PYFCA (Pender Youth Football and Cheer Association). A lot of what I do starts in the off-season, and many people don’t believe it, but this is a yearlong commitment. I go from organizing board meetings, meeting with county officials, writing grants, to ordering uniforms. This year, we have decided to transition over to Coastal Pop Warner, therefore, I have had to learn an entire new organizational structure.”
Why do you do nonprofit/volunteer work?
“I love my community, and I want what is best for my community. With loving my community, I have found volunteer opportunities that speak to my beliefs and my own personal passion. It is easy for individuals to sit back and see a need/problem, but then no action is put in to address it. For me, I want to be the change that I want in my community, and I will do the work.”
What impact have you had on the community?
“I serve on various nonprofit boards that cater to those in need: Pender Youth Football and Cheer Association, RSVP Advisory Board with Pender Adults Services, Pender Country Christian Services, and the Kiwanis Club of Burgaw. I saw the lack of affordable youth programs in the western side of Pender County, so I hosted a free four-week summer camp for elementary-aged youth in Atkinson where we provided free breakfast and lunch and had an array of activities from sports-related to STEAM-related.”
Vania Raya Aguilar
Founder, Cape Fear Latinos
Describe your role and work that you do.
“My role is to learn more about our community, their needs, anxieties, concerns, and seek the help that benefits them and connecting them to the right resources.”
Why do you do nonprofit work?
“I have a love and passion to help. I also want our entire Latino community to have a place where they are heard and feel welcomed.”
What impact have you had on the community?
“Honestly, I don’t know the impact I’ve had, but I imagine it’s something good because when people see me anywhere, they greet me with so much love and call me Mrs. Cape Fear Latinos!”
What’s a goal?
“In the short term, work hard to have enough funds to help our community more, and in the long term, work even harder to be able to have a large space for the Latino community.”
What nonprofit organizations would you suggest becoming a part of?
“Cape Fear Latinos for sure, but there are so many wonderful nonprofits doing awesome work here in Wilmington.”
Emmie Stanley
Self-Advocacy Coordinator, A Home for Grace
Describe your role and work that you do.
“I serve in my nonprofit to bring awareness to the issues that individuals with developmental disabilities face on a daily basis. I advocate for affordable housing for I/DD citizens on the local, state, and federal levels, recently meeting with legislators in D.C. on Capitol Hill.
I am also a mentor to those who need housing, employment, and resources to live independently in our community.”
Why do you do nonprofit work?
“Once institutionalized, I had almost lost hope of being able to move back into my community and have a normal life. A lack of having anyone to advocate for me and affordable housing left me unable to leave institutional living.
Our nonprofit director reached out to me and gave me the assistance I needed to become independent. Once I was given the opportunity, I was able to excel and do the work to build my own life and achieve my goals of independent living!
Today, I live in my own home and have a successful career. I have surpassed many of my goals like becoming a five-time gold medalist and ambassador for Special Olympics. I serve on an advisory board for our nonprofit and I have formed a local self-advocacy group of my peers where we learn to be effective in advocating for ourselves and address our day-to-day needs and issues to continue to live and work in our local communities.”
Kellie Wade
President, Angels of Hope
Describe your role and work that you do.
“I donate my own time and finances (to) finding a city in each county of North Carolina to build a memorial for all the victims that lost their lives to domestic violence; the first one is in Atkinson, North Carolina. The victim’s names go on the memorial in the county they lost their life in. I started this to let the families of the victims know that they are never forgotten, and they are Angels of Hope. I’m also on the board of The Open Gate (a part of Domestic Violence Shelter & Services) when I’m not working as a private investigator full time.”
What impact have you had on the community?
“I have raised awareness that domestic violence is not just physical; it’s also verbal, and it does not discriminate on wealth, race, sex, or age. I also have tried to show you can get out and there are resources. I have shown that domestic violence shelters need the help of the community by volunteering, donating, and (showing) support.”
What nonprofit organizations would you suggest becoming a part of?
“Open Gate DV Shelter, Special Olympics – I feel it doesn’t have to be an organization to help in your community. You can help by going to a nursing home and visit with elderly residents that don’t have family. Go to a local school and read a book to a classroom.”
To view the Women to Watch Awards Finalists main page, click here.
To view more of photographer Madeline Gray’s work, go to madelinegrayphoto.com.
To view more of photographer Summer Lambert’s work, go to summerlambertphoto.com.
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