One of my most challenging tasks as an Executive Director is answering the question, “What does Embrace Richmond do?”  When people focus on the “what”, I find they miss the more important question of “who.”  The “what” sounds like this: “We helped the residents of Hillside Court start a community center that includes a computer [...]

For more than two years, Embrace Richmond has been partnering with Shalom Farms to help address the lack of fresh vegetables in the Hillside Court community.  For more than two years, Dominic Barrett, the Director of Shalom Farms, and I have dreamed of having a gardening team made up of Hillside residents with the goal [...]

When Ryan Greene, Youth and Young Adult Minister from Shalom Baptist Church, first contacted me, his goal was to “plug” his young adult group called Agape into some kind of Christmas season service opportunity.  Ryan got way more than he bargained for. I shared with Ryan that Embrace Richmond strives to build community and that [...]

Wayne Cordeiro’s book, Doing Church as a Team, is one of my all time favorite books on church leadership. Wayne shares this story; Wayne grew up on an army base in Japan.  One day his family went for a ride outside the base.  When they stopped for lunch an old man at a booth caught [...]

The only way to permanently end poverty in our city is for all of our residents to have an opportunity to work.  This reality is painfully clear in Hillside Court where only 25% of the residents receive a significant portion of their income from employment.  There are many factors contributing to this exceptional high unemployment [...]