Young Women of Promise, Inc. in partnership with ENC Nonprofit Partners, Inc. will sponsor its 13th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday celebration as we reconnect after the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic.  The event is scheduled for Monday, January 16, 2023 at 10:00 a.m. at Temple of Zion International Ministries, 1012 Dickinson Avenue, Greenville, NC.

According to Theresa Williams, Young Women of Promise Founder and Executive Director, “We selected the theme, “A Beloved Community for our Youth,’ as the agency stands poised to expand its youth development program initiatives in the eastern North Carolina region.” Dr. Nay Malloy Howell will deliver the keynote address.  Deeply involved in community work she has been heralded for her commitment, involvement, and drive. “Dr. Nay” has enjoyed careers as a Legal Aid staff associate attorney, Johnson C. Smith University professor, housing counselor, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ administrator, YMCA of the USA’s national diversity consultant, domestic violence advocate, private consultant and entrepreneur.  Since 2019, she and husband, Dr. John W. Howell, Jr., have pastored Jesus Christ is the Way Anointed Worship and Deliverance Center. They know that real change begins in our hearts.

Presiding and performing at the MLK Day event will be Sandra Bruton Fisher. She is a Creditor’s Rights paralegal with the law firm of Ward and Smith, P.A. and has provided her vocal artistry to numerous community service events. She is the coordinator for One Voice Productions and her personal ministry endeavor “The Fishers – More Than Music” and a candidate for Executive Director of the Miss Kinston-Lenoir County Scholarship Organization. 

Additional performances will be provided by Powerhouse Voices of Worship NC; Y’Anna Rivers; Kieanna Bruinton and Donna Whitaker Rogers.

As a Certifying Organization of the Points of Light Foundation, ENC Nonprofit Partners will present the President’s Volunteer Service Award to:

• Flora Brooks, Reaching for the Stars, Inc.
• Curtis Henderson, Jr. Hope to Destiny for Youth, Inc.
• Courtney Murphy, Farmville Senior High School student
• Willie Joyner, HYPE Leadership Institute, Inc.
• Earlean Rivers, Diversity Nurtures Achievement Community Youth Center (DNA CYC)
• Barbara Sutton, Kinston Lenoir-NAACP and Christ the Caring Ministries (CTCM)
• Arjenae Jones Williams, Something2Somebody, Inc. and
• LaToya Williams, Striving with Vision Empowerment Support Group, Inc.
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Teens and Kids Who Care awards will be presented to

• A’Niyah Grant, South Central High School
• Courtney Murphy, Farmville Central Senior High School
• Y’Anna Rivers, Warsaw Elementary School
• Jasmine and Jaleah Taylor, Kinston High School
• Dillon Ward and Franklin Ward, South Central High School
• AMEXCAN at PCC, Pitt County Schools Early College

Young Women of Promise will also recognize 2022 community partners and mini-grant awards funded by Youth Service America and the Southern Black Girls and Women Consortium, including

• Tonya Brooks, Lenoir County Learning Academy
• Brenda Griffin, Pink Hill Elementary School
• Dr. Melissa Grimes, Rochelle Middle School
• Annie Kornegay, Contentnea-Savannah School
• Elevate Mentoring & Support (Yolanda Henderson)
• NC Praise Radio, Inc. dba ENC Voices of Youth, Inc.
• Project LyfeLee, Inc. (Alicia Harper)
• Powerhouse Voices of Worship, NC (Nacasio Dixon)
• Sisters Healing Hearts, Inc (Phyllis Markland)
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Young Women of Promise will formally announce its role as a Lead Agency for Youth Service America and officially launch the YSA 50by250 Campaign to encourage youth serving agencies to get more youth involved in their communities.

Young Women of Promise has hosted MLK Day celebrations in Cabarrus County from 2000 – 2006; Kinston, NC from 2008 – 2017 and hosted the event for the first time in Greenville, N.C. on January 15, 2018.

Admission to the event is free. A community offering will be held with proceeds benefiting Young Women of Promise youth development programs in the Kinston and Greenville communities. Light refreshments will be served after the event.

For additional information call Theresa Williams at 252/367-8292
email: ywopromise@gmail.com or visit www.youngwomenofpromise.org.




 
About Young Women of Promise, Inc.

Young Women of Promise, Inc. (YWOP) is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. The mission of Young Women of Promise is to inspire and empower youth in grades K-12 with a passion for learning.  Our programs allow youth to pursue their dreams confidently and creatively while developing academic, leadership and service learning skills that will allow them to be successful in life.

Young Women of Promise believes that the strength of a community lies in its youth.  Our programs include the Project Promise Mentoring Alliance for youth in grades 6-12; A Promise to Read literacy initiative, which provides free book distributions; Camp Promise summer enrichment programs; and Teens and Kids Who Care recognition program.

Young Women of Promise was founded by Kinston, NC native and children’s advocate Theresa Williams Bethea in 2001.  The agency has supported youth from Lenoir, Duplin, Mecklenburg, Pitt, Beaufort, Greene, Cabarrus and Rowan counties.
 
About ENC Nonprofit Partners, Inc.
ENC Nonprofit Partners, Inc. is a 501c3 nonprofit and regional collaborative in rural North Carolina.  Our programs are designed to build the capacity for community change through training and resource development; community organizing; education and positive youth programs.
Strengthening the Foundation is a leadership development initiative of ENC Nonprofits. The program will launch in February 2023 and will be led by Dr. Nay Malloy Howell.

Website:  www.encnonprofits.org                             
​Email:  encnonprofits@gmail.com
 

 
Dr. Nay Malloy Howell
 
804 Thornberry Court  
Spring Hope, NC  27882 
Email:  naycr8ve1@yahoo.com
 
 
“Be the Change…”
​

Our speaker, a native of Durham, North Carolina, has been a civil rights and social change trailblazer since junior high school.  At age 13, she and her three younger sisters integrated Lowe’s Grove Elementary School in Durham, a previously all White school.

After breaking many barriers of discrimination during her formative school years, their family learned to build bridges between disparate groups of people, based on race, age, and class particularly. These experiences set the stage for a life of advocacy for disenfranchised people. During college and law school careers, she served people and began community organizing for social change.

Struck by the enormity of institutional barriers to freedom, Nay viewed the law as a means to right some wrongs and to educate people so that they would not need her skills as an attorney. Graduating from the UNC School of Law in 1979, she set about doing that through the Legal Aid Society of North Carolina as a Staff Associate Attorney, a Family Housing Counselor, and a university professor at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte. Nay viewed her role as a professor as one that would teach life skills and equip college students and community residents to find their path to aiding people in communities.

​During her years as a administrator in the largest school district in NC from 1988-1998, Nay began to facilitate workshops, seminars, and provide keynote addresses about cultural diversity, multicultural education, effective ways to identify and address institutional barriers in companies, hospitals and city agencies.
 
Her goals are to: Equip, lead, guide, and prepare, using strategic planning skill sets.
 
Deeply involved in community work Nay has been heralded for her commitment, involvement, and drive. She was awarded a “Keeper of the Dream” award by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg MLK Community Observance Committee; Zeta Phi Beta Sorority’s “Heroes for Youth” Award, facilitator for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg  Community Relations Committee, Eckerd College’s Community Servant Award (St. Petersburg, Florida), one of the facilitators for the 26th Judicial District series of diversity workshops and planning sessions, Davidson College’s “Lifetime Achievement in Education Award, and NCAEP Support Administrator of the Year (North Carolina Association of Educators).
 
“Dr. Nay” has enjoyed careers as a Legal Aid staff associate attorney, Johnson C. Smith University professor, housing counselor, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ administrator, YMCA of the USA’s national diversity consultant, domestic violence advocate, private consultant and entrepreneur. 
 
Since 2019, she and husband, Dr. John W. Howell, Jr., have pastored Jesus Christ is the Way Anointed Worship and Deliverance Center. They know that real change begins in our hearts.
 
“My earthly degrees are important in that they have placed me before people I would not have met to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. However, my spiritual degrees are far more important than those.  They are:
 
I received my BA =   Born Again child of God at the age of 6
I received my BHS =  Baptism with the Holy Spirit at age 23 while in law school, and
I’m working on my PHD = Praising Him Daily!”