DFSC Client and 2021 Mary Ivers Award Winner Charlene Davis is utilizing her skills and opportunities to give back to the community.
Not only has Davis become successful in her career and a contributing member of her community, she was also nominated by Dress for Success Cincinnati as the 2020 and 2021 delegate for the Dress for Success Worldwide Success Summit.
Each Dress for Success Worldwide affiliate is given the opportunity to select one client to represent their organization at this summit - and Davis’ hard work and motivation to benefit her community made her an obvious choice.
Delegates for the Dress for Success Worldwide Success Summit have the privilege to create a community action project with the goal to create an impact in their community.
With all of the change and loss that the global pandemic brought in 2020, the DFS Worldwide Community Action Project theme was fittingly deemed ‘Moving Forward.’
In the spirit of ‘Moving Forward,’ Davis’s project aims to support those in her community who own small businesses - primarily those who are minority, disadvantaged, female or veteran owners.
This project is a fantastic opportunity that Cincinnati desperately needs.
Through this project, Charlene focuses on the recurring problem that these small businesses lack the information, resource connections and funding to apply for small business relief. Additionally, those businesses that do have these resources are nonetheless suffering because they often do not meet the criteria to apply for this aid or are not given this opportunity in a timely manner that allows them to successfully apply.
Because of this profound problem, Davis is taking action.
She not only urges local organizations to review and improve their criteria to include these groups, she has organized a workshop to teach them how to do so. In this workshop, these organizations can connect with small business owners to build a report and learn their needs.
Davis is not only calling for change, she is creating it.
This workshop is just one of the workshops detailed in Davis’ community action project. She will also hold workshops for these small business groups to introduce them to available resources and funding opportunities and inform them on the criteria and requirements for gaining access to these resources.
To aid this community action project, Davis urges Cincinnati City Council and Hamilton County to partner with Dress for Success to provide additional resources and funding and invite other agencies in the community to help these businesses.
Davis embodies the Dress for Success Cincinnati mission perfectly.
Not only has she reached economic independence, but she is using that power to create a positive change for those around her.
Through her community action project, Davis aims to help female and minority owned businesses grow in the midst of a pandemic that has diminished so many small businesses already.
Davis is making a change that is positive, relative and vitally important for the city of Cincinnati. Dress for Success Cincinnati is very proud to be a part of her story.
