GARFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio — A mentoring organization is at risk of having to close its doors. Now, it's asking for the community’s help.
“When they pull the money away, the girls still show up. They still need a safe space to be where they belong,” said Queen IAM Executive Director Dameyonna Willis.
For three days each week, from 3:30 to 6 p.m., Willis meets with her queens in Garfield Heights to teach them how to love themselves and empower girls like mentee Taryn Hereford to reach their fullest potential.
“You can be here, and you can be yourself and it's only girls. You can express yourself here,” Hereford said.
Girls like mentee Zahara Yisrael-Cunningham said that she finds enjoyment, too.
“It’s important to me because they have a lot of stuff, they introduce me to. A lot of new stuff that I never did before,” said Yisrael-Cunningham.
While there’s a lot of encouragement and energy from everyone’s excitement, Willis said her safe space is now at risk of being taken away due to cuts in COVID funding.
“The empowerment that’s happening in this space, we were also empowering girls in the schools, so we were taking those contract dollars and pouring that and keeping our space open,” said Willis.
Willis said she’s already had to make some tough changes, like changing the number of times they meet each week from five to three.
However, she remains hopeful she will be able to keep her doors open so as not to disappoint girls like mentee Kylee Johnson.
“I wouldn’t find anything else like this, so it would be sad, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything,” said Johnson.
So far, Willis said she has already raised $4,000 and hopes to reach $50,000 to sustain throughout 2025.
“For these girls, it’s needed. It’s needed for them to be in safe spaces where they know that people love on them and want to pour into them,” said Willis.
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