FIRM FOUNDATION OF VIRGINIA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Treasurer of the Board of Directors
Deborah is a native of North Carolina. She resided in Virginia for over thirty years. She has a Master's in Business Management from Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia and a Bachelor's in Business Administration from Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina.
She and her husband currently own and operation Williams Transportation LLC and D&G Property Rentals.
She has over 24 years experience in higher education. At Norfolk State University she held the following positions: Housing Assistant, Secretary in the School of Business, Special Assistant to the Vic President of Enrollment Management; Project Coordinator and Assistant Director of Teacher Prep Program. She also served as the Account Payable Technician and Controller in a community college in North Carolina for four years before leaving higher education.
She married and relocated to North Carolina in June 2015 to Own and Operate D&G Grill alongside her husband for one and a half year. Her hobbies are family time, attending auctions, estate sales, thrift shopping and taking care of her yard.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board
- Professor in the Social Work Department at North Carolina Central University
Gertrude is a retired college professor in the Social Work Department at North Carolina Central University, Durham, North Carolina. She has 15 years of teaching in higher education and over 25 years of social work practice and related experiences in mental health and medical fields. Her work experiences include the provision of individual, group, couple and family counseling, and crisis intervention services to veterans, children and families, women, and older adults from diverse social, economic, cultural, and ethnic/racial backgrounds. She earned a Ph.D. from Howard University, Washington, DC, and Masters in Social Work and Bachelors of Arts in Psychology degrees from Norfolk State University, Norfolk, VA. Dr. Jackson brings a wealth of knowledge and years of experience working with children and families.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Founder
- Member of the Board of Directors
Melissa has a Master's Degree in Social Work from Norfolk State University and a Bachelor's of Human Services Counseling from Old Dominion University. She serves as Deaconess in her local church. She is an online Adjunct Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).
Melissa worked with pregnant teen mothers for almost seven years as After Care Social Worker and Assistant to Program Manager. She also has provided intensive in -home services to children and their families for ten years. She was a Regional Independent Living Consultant for almost five years as she helped youth prepare to transition out of foster care.
As she served in these roles she saw the need for transitional housing as pregnant teens, youth aging out of foster care and the families she worked with struggled to make ends meet, had experienced homelessness, lived in poverty or were in crisis. Her passion for serving single mothers was ignited almost thirty years ago as she supported her own sisters as single parents. She is a resident of Portsmouth, VA and has resided in Hampton Roads since 1991 after serving in the United States Air Force. She believes this her life work and desires to see generations changed by rebuilding the lives of single mothers. .