Women to Watch Awards Finalists-Nonprofit
Meet the 2023 Finalists
Qailinn Bowen
Strategic Partnership Coordinator, Northside Food Co-op
Describe your role.
“My role at Northside Food Co-op as the Strategic Partnership Coordinator is to build and foster relationships with our community members and other local organizations and businesses to help support and share resources for our community. I also lead our Northside Community Dinners in partnership with the lowercase leaders organization.”
What are some of the impacts you’ve made locally?
“Some of the impacts I made here locally are facilitating the startup of The Urban Oasis Community Garden at Maides Park as well as facilitating the Northside Community Dinners that bring together and average of 150 community members each dinner.”
What inspires you to help others?
“Knowing that it doesn’t start or end with me. Sometimes, I’m the helper, and other times I’m receiving the help. To be in community with others in which we all help each other is incredibly inspiring.”
What’s a future goal?
“A goal of mine as a native to the Northside of Wilmington is to help ensure we get a community grocery store on the Northside. I’m really passionate about that, and we deserve it.”
Anything else you want us to know about you?
“I was born and raised in Wilmington, North Carolina, and I grew up on the Northside. I graduated from New Hanover High School. I want the youth growing up here to know better is achievable.”
Katie Tate
Director of Foundation, Lower Cape Fear LifeCare
Describe your role.
“I lead an effective team to meet fundraising goals that support Lower Cape Fear LifeCare’s mission and programs. My team and I are responsible for securing financial contributions from individuals, corporations, foundations, and other donors through major gifts, grants, campaigns, and special events. My role as a fundraiser is important as Lower Cape Fear LifeCare relies on contributions to ensure everyone in our community receives the care and support they deserve at end of life.”
What are some of the impacts you’ve made locally?
“As a nonprofit professional, my career has provided many opportunities to impact our community. I am proud to help raise millions of dollars to ensure that everyone in our community has access to high-quality end-of-life care. I am also proud to have written and received a highly competitive $1 million grant to benefit LifeCare Memory Partners. Over the last three years, the program has served over 1,000 caregivers and persons living with dementia in our community.”
What inspires you to help others?
“The desire to help others has always just been a part of who I am. It is not something I ever think about – it is something I just do. I am grateful for my ten-year career at the YWCA Lower Cape Fear that allowed me the opportunity to meet so many incredible women in our community and across the country. Those women continue to inspire me to do better for myself and help others.”
What’s a future goal?
“I recently achieved a long-term goal when I earned my master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from UNCW in 2022. Professionally, my goal is to lead a successful three-year comprehensive campaign for Lower Cape Fear LifeCare, launching later this year. As a mom, my goal is to raise two beautiful, smart, and happy girls so they become two confident, strong, and successful women (which may be a short- or long-term goal depending on the day!).”
Anything else you want us to know about you?
“Over the last four years at Lower Cape Fear LifeCare, I have helped raise over $9 million to support the organization’s mission and programs. I am passionate about the work I do because I see how it supports individuals and families during one of the most vulnerable times in life. I look forward to continuing to positively impact our region through this important work.”
Laurie Haggerty Taylor
Development Manager, Carousel Child Advocacy Center
Describe your role.
“Member of the management team of the region’s only Child Advocacy Center. Responsible for creating and managing an omnichannel program focused on increasing annual giving revenue, deepening donor engagement, and broadening the base of support.”
What are some of the impacts you’ve made locally?
“Founding member in 2011 of the Women’s Impact Network; founding member and first chair of the Association of Fundraiser Professionals in 2007. Increased revenue for Carousel Child Advocacy Center 50 percent. Raised over $38 million for Lower Cape Fear Hospice, completing four capital campaigns. Proud to have launched and mentored the careers of many successful fundraisers in our community. Member and newsletter editor for the Cape Fear Garden Club. For over eleven years, served as a board member of the New Hanover Community Foundation. Member of Rotary Club of Wilmington for over eight years.”
What inspires you to help others?
“I am passionate about how my career has been about making a positive influence on my community. It’s not always easy. It takes time, effort, and energy. And even with the best planning and strategy in place, you never know what’s going to grow or when it will bear fruit. The best part is working with like-minded individuals who share the same passion for making a difference. This sense of collective effort and the potential to make a difference is what drives my passion and keeps me motivated.”
What’s a future goal?
“Planning and mentoring for continued growth of revenue to further the mission of the Carousel Center. Explore hobbies for personal growth. Traveling to new and exciting places.”
Anything else you want us to know about you?
“I’ve got two children who I adore and a wonderful husband, who is my best friend. Family is everything. And I’ve learned that the love you have for one another is what really matters. And that’s what’s most important in life.”
Meade Horton Van Pelt
Executive Director, The Harrelson Center
Describe your role.
“From leading our campus of 60,000 square feet and staff who provide marketing, event coordination, operational, and fundraising support, I work to assure our partners have access to training, grants, leadership, and opportunities for expansion, while also serving as a sounding board to sustain our nonprofit community through challenges and opportunities.”
What are some of the impacts you’ve made locally?
“To lead Wilmington’s campus of humanitarian nonprofits is to assure a place of stability where nonprofits serve, collaborate, and thrive in restoring client stability.
I make connections across the community and state to benefit local nonprofits. I serve(d) on boards and councils including the NHRMC Partnership Advisory Group, New Hanover Disaster Coalition, Community Counseling Center, Cape Fear HealthNet, and NHC DHHS Community Stakeholder and Health Improvement Plan.
To strengthen the nonprofit network, we partner with QENO, CCLCF, and others who pilot concepts for access and service. Personally, I enjoy investing time in youth programming and mental health where there is so much potential.”
What inspires you to help others?
“I appreciate people, their stories, their lives, and our relationships – with all the layers of complications. I am amazed by humanity and resilience, our ability to heal and hope. Helping others comes naturally and was nurtured by family from a young age. It is reinforced because it motivates me, provides great purpose, and deepens my faith.”
What’s a future goal?
“Short-term, we would like more nonprofit mental health providers, professional care managers, and legal services on campus. We now have a floor available. Mid-term, we will continue to research and enhance services for nonprofit infrastructure. Longer-term, we will significantly fund the new Harrelson Center Endowment with the North Carolina Community Foundation, established by the Honorary Board to provide permanent funding. Ongoing, reduce the barriers to positive change – there will always be barriers.”
Anything else you want us to know about you?
“I grew up in Wilmington. It brings me great joy and gratitude to lead an organization with impact on the well-being of my hometown and its people. I am an Enneagram 7, the never-ending enthusiastic, busy optimist. It is tough to get and keep me down. I can ‘find my way out of a paper bag’ and much more. I take the small wins with the big wins, hopefully sharing them with many others.”
Genevieve Wirth
Executive Director, Voyage
Describe your role.
“As a nonprofit executive and volunteer board member for three community organizations, I aim to develop a better quality of life for historically marginalized residents. I’m passionate about combatting systemic discrimination and removing obstacles it has caused. At work, I lead a team of seventeen to provide programs to underserved youth related to personal, professional, and educational development opportunities. In my volunteerism, I focus on providing additional resources related to food security and other enrichments.”
What are some of the impacts you’ve made locally?
- Led growth of Summer Employment Program from thirty-six in 2018 to 180+ participants in 2023;
- grew budget from about $300,000 in 2019 to $1million+ in 2023;
- founding member/incorporator of Northside Food Co-op, eliminating a food desert that’s existed in the Northside for 30+ years;
- contributed to logistics/volunteer management for operation ring and run during the pandemic, ensuring 500+ students had breakfast/lunch five days per week; and
- assisted in the formation of A Charge to Keep Food Ministry.
What inspires you to help others?
“I believe every child deserves access to the support necessary to be successful, regardless of the zip code into which they were born. I was blessed with opportunities, guidance, and a network to foster success. However, I realize that not everyone has access to the support needed to succeed. My drive to serve is rooted in creating equity and developing a support system for the kids whose life circumstances did not provide them with one.”
What’s a future goal?
“Professional goal (3 years): to empower a community member from the Northside to be able to take over the organizational leadership at Voyage, so that it can truly be a community-based organization. Personal goal (5 years): start a family!”
Anything else you want us to know about you?
“When I do something to make another human happy, that is what truly fills my cup. Kindness, empathy, and inclusion are three things I value dearly.”
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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