The heart of our mission is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our communities. In the recent weeks, we’ve had the privilege to connect with some incredible artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with the incredible group below.
Natorsha Hammonds
My name is Natorsha Hammonds everybody calls me Danellie or Dannie , I’m 31 years old I’ve been dancing 15 years +. I have 6 kids, I am a CNA, and currently in college to get my bachelors. My passion is dancing, mentoring, and helping kids grow into wonderful humans. I believe in God and what he is doing in my life. I started my organization 7 years ago, after the loss of my daughter due to abuse. Read more>>
Ta’kiya Mitchell
In the dynamic field of graphic design, I honed my skills through formal education and practical experience. I embraced opportunities to collaborate with diverse teams, infusing my unique perspective as a black woman into every project. Through innovation and a commitment to excellence, I established a reputation for delivering compelling visual narratives that left a lasting impact on audiences. Read more>>
Daria Stevenson
My educational background is in research and analysis and in international business. I have been working as an in-house Graphic Designer for Walker Filtration Inc. for over a decade. It has been great for my professional growth. I started out there as a Marketing Assistant and worked hard to become a Marketing Executive. Then, I took my work part-time at Walker Filtration Inc. as the company’s Graphic Designer. I have worked on various branding assets throughout my career at Walker Filtration, from manuals and brochures to social media posts and company email closures. In 2024, I decided to take my knowledge and experience and start my own Graphic Design business focused on providing my clients strategic marketing designs. Read more>>
Sean Madden
I was born into an artist family. My father a painter and sculptor and my mother, a professional oil painter and teacher. Most of my formidable years were spent pursuing music and I really didn’t begin taking my artistic upbringing seriously until 2019. Since then, I have put forth great efforts, creating and getting involved in the local art community. I have works displayed in galleries, businesses and homes around the state and the country. I have also, recently, gotten involved with public art and am in the design phase for a mural commemorating the railroad history of my hometown of Irmo. Read more>>
Cynthia Wong
I missed having a part of my life that was completely mine, but also being removed from restaurants and the ridiculous hours of a chef allowed me enough distance to see that I didn’t necessarily want to go back to that world. We moved back to the states after my husband’s employer shut down their UK operations. I returned to being a pastry chef in restaurants but that feeling that I didn’t want to be a part of/didn’t belong to that world had already set in. By 2018. the writing was on the wall: I was miserable working around 70 hours a week for someone else and being a pastry chef outside of high end restaurants or hotels in large cities was quickly becoming less and less viable. So I took the leap and started Life Raft Treats®, Read more>>
Maddie Foss
I first became serious about art when I found out about an art boarding school in my state. I liked art and saw it as a way to get out of the town I didn’t fit into. After graduating from that high school, I continued pursing art and psychology in college. I wasn’t sure what career path I wanted to take so I took a gap year inbetween undergraduate and graduate school where I began doing art markets. Once in graduate school to get my Master’s of Fine Arts and continuing to do art markets, I finally began to take my art seriously as a career and started hardcore networking. I contribute all of my success to my friends and loved ones that I’ve met along the way during this long journey. Read more>>
Gwendolyn McPhail
Our goal was to educate the citizens regarding where their food comes from and the benefits of healthy eating and to encourage young people to seek careers in agriculture. I also served on our county’s Planning Commission for 12 years. Covid brought a year of inactivity during which I focused wholeheartedly on preparing for publication a manuscript written by my great-grandfather about an Indigenous boy who survived the massacre at Wounded Knee only to end up in his classroom on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, marking the child’s first steps on a difficult path into the US government’s Indian Education Movement. The book, My Place Among Them, was published by Koehler Books in August of 2023. Read more>>
Jo-Anne Brewin
Twelve years later, the studio is standing room only, with the proper tools and supplies to create a dozen or more categories of mixed media. Fortunately my husband not only cheers me on, but as a graphic artist, advertising owner and musician, he joins in with either his own creations, or packaging. With each year, I’ve chosen a new craft to learn. I used my monthly net store sales to purchase the appropriate tools and supplies for that discipline. After some time down that rabbit hole, I then see where I can integrate this new art discipline in with the other mixed media forms, to create new and unique, but functional items. I create some items that is unique to Etsy and Pinterest. Read more>>
Harold Reid
Well growing up I didn’t really have a great home life, so I would use music as a way to escape all the chaos and bad things around me. I would always have head phones in and be listening to the radio, a cassette tape or a cd. Growing up we had an old record player I would play around with and try to listen to the few albums we had in the house but they were so old the quality was real poor and you couldn’t really understand what was on them but I thought it was neat to play around with anyway. Read more>>
Portia “That’s So Portia”
On my creator’s journey I would say challenges I have faced are consistency and fraudulent brand inquiries. I am procrastinator and will often put off creating content and as a result this creates inconsistent posting across my platforms, which I believe has stunted my platform(s) growth. I feel that once I master consistency, then I will be able to create and build the dedicated community that I desire. With fraudulent brand inquiries, I have received fake emails from those pretending to be part of major brands, so it has been a journey of weeding out what is real and what is not. Read more>>
Imani-Grace King
One of the biggest roads in my life has been my relationship with my sister, who is terminally ill. Her joy, her love, and the healing she’s given me have influenced every piece of art I’ve ever made. At the heart of my work is this deep desire to engage with life fully. And that’s not a smooth road—because it demands that you feel everything. But it’s the road that led me here, and for that, I’m endlessly grateful. I wouldn’t dream of having it any other way. Read more>>
Daria Makohonova
In 2022, when full-scale war erupted in Ukraine against Russia, I had to evacuate my younger sister to a safe place. We moved to Poland, to a small town called Zduńska Wola. We could only bring one backpack each, and, of course, my backpack contained my camera and laptop. At that time, I thought I had bid farewell to photography forever, as I needed to work to ensure a comfortable life for us. Read more>>
Shaunessy Thompson
I started my journey in a place of struggle—growing up in poverty, enduring physical, emotional, and mental abuse from my parents, and facing relentless bullying in bad schools. Eventually, I entered the foster care system, which brought its own challenges. Through it all, I developed a mindset rooted in survival, but it wasn’t until later that I realized survival wasn’t enough—I wanted to thrive. Read more>>
Christina DiArcangelo
In 2020, at my lowest point after surviving domestic violence for the second time, I launched my personal brand, “I Am Christina DiArcangelo”, to empower others and speak openly about resilience. That expanded into multiple platforms—my podcasts, “Humanitarian Horizons” and “Christina DiArcangelo Unveiled”, my e-magazine The DiArc, and most recently, my book Rescuing Mom, which exposes the realities of elder abuse and the fight for justice. Read more>>
Taytem Barth
I will be 24 next month. Although I am still just 24-pounds, I can talk by pushing air, finished school, and am a self-taught artist running a business where I sell my artwork and most of the proceeds go to charity. The charity is called the Colin James Barth Outreach, and it is named in honor of my father who fought valiantly to stay with us. The book Notes From a BlackBerry is my life story, written by my mother Julie Barth. Read more>>
Lunden De’Leon
Best known for my role on the television series Vital Signs, I have starred in a number of movies and tv shows including “We’re the Millers”, “Sweet Home Carolina” and “Blackbear” to name a few. I am very grateful for my tv and film career but I’m extremely proud of being able to take care of my family and having a love for life. Read more>>
Ryan Cook
Growing up on a family farm, I naturally gravitated toward nature photography and spent years teaching myself how to use a camera, work with proper lighting, edit photos, and refine my skills. It wasn’t until my junior year of college that I made the transition to photographing people. That shift happened when my twin brother planned to propose to his now-wife and asked me to capture the surprise engagement in the mountains. Read more>>
Paul Chelmis
Fast forward to now and I’ve dragged my gear through 30-something nations across six continents, worked with some extremely talented people, had the privilege to tell some really incredible stories and put some meaningful art out into the world. I feel like I’m making at least some amount of a difference here, and that sustained thirst for learning more, seeing more, expressing more, gives me the potential to grow exponentially. And that’s all I could ever really ask for in life. Read more>>
