What Inspires Founder & CEO, Saleema Lovelace, for Women’s History Month?

To round out Women’s History Month we had a second to catch up with the always on the move, Founder & CEO of Lovelace & Associates Services LLC, Saleema Lovelace.

If you don’t already know, Saleema Lovelace is an ordinary Philly native doing extraordinary things for her community.

While most folks are content passively complaining about their neighborhoods, their businesses, their youth. Saleema is a woman of action and a connector, helping things get done that would normally be slow-moving.

Oh and did we mention…she knows everybody! Saleema is a sought after notary, youth mentor, business and political consultant. She loves seeing her community thrive and helping people from all backgrounds. From PR for celebrities to helping graduating high school seniors with scholarships. Saleema is a shining example of female leadership with a humble and warm spirit.

A proud mother as well, let’s hear how this woman…phenomenally, got her start and continues to stay inspired.

Saleema Lovelace, Founder & CEO of Lovelace & Associates Services LLC.

What does Women's History Month mean for you, personally?

It shows strength in women that have worked extremely hard to where we are today. We’re mothers, aunts, grandmothers, leaders in the community. To have a month focused on hardworking women – especially women that are entrepreneurs or trying to become entrepreneurs – it feels really good to have the month, to celebrate them.

Are there any women in your life that have been the most inspirational for you?

Yes! I would say my grandmother, mother, and aunts. My grandmother had 11 children and worked hard to maintain a nice lifestyle for her children. She worked, she raised all 11 of her children, 6 daughters (!!)

I watched my aunts get up everyday and work and take care of their children and show us children structure. Also how to be independent, nurturing, and do what you have to do to raise your family.

What drew you to being a business owner? Is that something you always knew you wanted to be?

Really just watching other women get up and handle their business!

I had a cousin who went to college and when I was young I didn’t know too much about college or anything like that, but watching my cousin go to Temple University, graduate, get her Master’s degree, and start her own business. It encouraged me to walk in her footsteps.

My uncle as well. My uncle, he owned a Subway. He was in the army, a Corporal in the army, opened up his own business and his first business was renting houses. He bought his first home when he graduated high school and then went on to own a Subway.

So again, people like that who get up and don’t have to depend on a 9 to 5, where you’re working somewhere for 20 years and they replace you…after you’ve worked so hard. This encouraged me to be a business owner, an entrepreneur. I wanted to have young women, men, my children, to look up to me and hopefully do the same thing. And show young ladies to work hard in order to be successful. It’s not easy but you just have to take baby steps. Crawl before you walk.

What about your business brings you the most joy?

I would say, I know this is so cliche, but I really mean it..helping people! Being able to have someone come to you that may have had their gas cut off or electric cut off and you’re able to make a call to your resources and save that person's house. Have that person's gas turned back on, or electricity turned back. That in itself is a blessing. To have resources to help.

What does the future hold for Lovelace & Associates Services LLC?

I see us continuing to grow! I would love to bring in more young interns and help them, shape them, and inform them. Helping them to get started in their own business.

I see the business growing more and more. More clientele, and maintaining our great services.

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Putting Girls First Is Always A Good Idea

Celebrating Women’s History Month, Locally

Celebrate Women’s History Month with Lovelace & Associates Services LLC as we lift up Raeanna Ellis, Program Coordinator for Girls First, a mentor, role model, and community activist.

A woman’s work is never done, and often gone unnoticed. Historically, women have felt more comfortable putting others – children, parents, lovers, co-workers, – before themselves and only receive their flowers after a life of endless giving.

We’re interested in celebrating women in the NOW and encourage you to do the same.

And what better time than Women’s History Month?

We could easily look back into American, African, & European History and find the blueprint of how women have brilliantly been of service since the beginning of time.

OR we could look right inside our own families and communities.

Change starts close and ripples out. Which is why we want to inform you of the history being made and the futures being activated right in Norristown, Pennsylvania by our very own Raeanna Ellis.

Raeanna Ellis

Ms. Ellis entered Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey in 2008 with a degree in Psychology as the goal. Instead, she ended up gravitating more towards Criminal Justice and Social Work.

While her interest in Psychology never left, she wanted to be able to directly affect the lives of any future children she would work with. As a result, her first passion was born; becoming a child advocate lawyer to bring justice to underrepresented children.

Upon graduating in 2012 with a dual BA in both Social Work and Criminal Justice, she sought a job to support her while navigating the difficult task of preparing and applying to law school.

Her first job out of college was at an Early Childhood Education Center and thus her second passion was born; an opportunity to work closely with children in an educational and recreational setting that provided them with unique and memorable experiences. This then led to a promotion coordinating and overseeing an Out of School Time Program at Belmont Academy Charter School in West Philadelphia.

The path to success is rarely linear and often returns us to childhood experiences that made an impact and impression.

Raeanna recalls:

I'll never forget at the ripe old age of 13, when I read a book that changed my life without my realization. "A Child Called It," by David Pelzer spoke volumes to me in ways I didn't know was possible. Helping children find joy despite barriers, lit a fire in me.

This fire is what brings her to her purpose today. Raeanna is passionate about supporting the youth as they grow into unique individuals, providing them with enriching life experiences, and being intentional about meeting them where they are with compassion every step of the way.

She aspires to continually find opportunities to serve the youth in ways that uplift, support, encourage, and inspire them to dream of a future that resonates with them.

Her leadership role as Program Coordinator for Girls First, a tuition-free arts-based after-school program in Norristown serving girls in grades 1st-4th, allows her to do just that.

She is responsible for the daily programmatic elements encompassing Girls First. Some of her responsibilities include coordinating with local community partners that lead to exciting and unique student opportunities.

Additionally, Raeanna recruits and collaborates with staff, volunteers, and teaching apprentices to execute programming that encourages learning through interpersonal and individual play and engaging in SEL curriculum-based lessons in Dance, Visual Arts, Music, and Drama.

Most importantly, Raeanna collaborates with her staff to create and maintain a safe, inclusive, and engaging environment for the girls enrolled in the Girls First program.

Since 2009, the Girls First Program in Norristown has been helping girls:

1. Feel safe and secure while building positive relationships with their peers and our volunteers and staff.

2. Explore new academic and creative skills.

3. Practice social and emotional skills such as communication, problem solving, and empathy, so that they may better use those skills in their everyday lives.

4. Increase their resiliency, so that they can bounce back from adversity more quickly.

5. Celebrate their commitment to the growth that will lead to future success and becoming leaders in their community.

Girls First is committed to helping breakdown and overcome barriers to successful learning and growth.

Their website mentions a recent NPR story underscoring the value of their approach, reporting that mentoring programs like Girls First “have been shown to support children through difficulties in their lives [because] positive childhood experiences and relationships are known to buffer against the stress of trauma and strengthen resilience."

How can we honor Women’s History without intentionally setting up a better future for our young girls?

Raeanna Ellis is practicing this, doing the work, and making a bigger difference than she might humbly realize. Join us in celebrating Raeanna Ellis and the safe space being cultivated for the women of tomorrow at Girls First.

Support the empowerment and growth of young resilient women through artistry and connection at Girls First. Volunteer, Donate, and Get Involved here.

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2 Black Herstories & 1 Black Future They Didn’t Teach You in School.

Celebrate BHM With Us in Our “Did You Know?” Series.

If it’s black excellence you’re striving for, do yourself a favor and get fired up by the work of these unsung heroes:

• Harriet Gibbs Marshall

• Mary P. Burrill

• & Rashon Johnson

At Lovelace & Associates LLC we want to uplift the work of 2 black female educators who you probably haven’t seen featured on Tik Tok, but whose work has been just as impactful in the music, and social/political scene.

We also want to highlight a young, Philly-raised King who is leading by example and making big waves as a first generation college scholar and athlete.

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Did you know? Harriet Gibbs Marshall

*Harriet Gibbs Marshall Fast Facts*

• Harriet Gibbs Marshall was a pianist, writer, educator, and the founder of Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression. One of Washington D.C.’s earliest African American institutions.

• In 1889, Gibbs became the first African-American woman to graduate from Oberlin Conservatory with a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance. Oberlin was a predominantly white institution and the first to admit black scholars.

• A true self-promoter. With a faculty of 14 and 600 students enrolled, Mrs. Marshall had to travel the country representing her school in order to gain funding for scholarships. There is record of her traveling to St. Louis, Chicago, and Pittsburgh raising capital to fund her all black music conservatory.

Harriet Gibbs Marshall Impact

Before founding Washington Conservatory of Music in 1903, Mrs. Marshall was a gifted pianist who toured throughout Paris and New York. Always an avid learner she first started piano lessons with her sister Ida at the age of 9 and graduated high school early at the age of 15.

Becoming an educator and philanthropist was her life’s work and she is truly a pioneer in the predominately white world of Arts Conservatory.

What started off as a conservatory of music for musicians of color, run by teachers of color, later included speech and drama curricula which is when the name changed to the Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression.

Scholarship was a big part of her philosophy as well as collaborating with other brilliant black thinkers of the time.

She was on the music committee for W.E. Dubois’ play “The Star of Ethiopia” in October 1915 and produced a program on "Negro Folk Songs" at Langston Highschool in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Even when her husband, Napoleon Bonaparte Marshall, a Massachusetts lawyer, took an assignment that moved them both to Haiti. She managed in six years to found another school: the Jean Joseph Industrial School in Port-au-Prince and worked extensively with Haitian social welfare charities.

Upon returning to the states in 1937, as an expansion to the conservatory in Washington D.C., she founded the National Negro Music Center as a resource to both promote creative work and to preserve traditional African American music. Marshall’s conservatory was a landmark in the history of black education.

The Center sponsored regular concerts for the black community, trained many prominent musical professionals and attracted the nation’s most talented musicians as teachers. It remained in operation until 1960.

Did you know? Mary P. Burrill

*Mary P. Burrill Fast Facts*

• Mary P. Burrill was an early 20th-century African American playwright who taught and inspired many of the writers of the Harlem Renaissance.

• The first woman of color to graduate from Emerson College (then, Emerson College of Oratory.)

• Burrill’s plays were considered protest plays because they advocated progressive stances on issues of race and gender.

• She is considered one of the first Black feminist playwrights of the Harlem Renaissance.

• As an educator Burrill taught English, history, and drama at Dunbar High School, her alma mater, and at The Washington School of Music and Expression in Washington D.C.

Mary P. Burrill Impact

Mary P. Burill believed that art and education have the power to enact political and social change. As an African-American playwright her work dealt with the black experience of the 1920s, covering topics like lynching, cycles of poverty, and birth control.

One of her most famous plays, They That Sit in Darkness, focuses on the mental and physical effects of a young black mother having multiple children. The consequences fall sadly on the 17yr old daughter who has to give up her dream for college after her mother’s mental breakdown.

Sandra L. West, of Virginia Commonwealth University in a brief essay on Burrill described the work as controversial for its time because the play advocated birth control as a means to escape poverty long before women were given reproductive rights.

Aftermath is set in rural South Carolina and involves a soldier who discovers that his father has been lynched after he returns from fighting overseas. In Aftermath (1919), Mary Burrill presents the character John as an example of the assertive black male who selflessly and fearlessly confronts racial oppression.

While an educator on the high school and conservatory level in Washington D.C. she encouraged several of her students to write plays. One of her prized students was Willis Richardson, who would later become the first African-American dramatist to have a play produced on Broadway. Another was May Miller, who published her first play, Pandora's Box, while still a student at Dunbar.

Many of the prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance credit Burrill as a teacher/mentor inspiring them to create plays, books, and music as deliberate acts of political protest. Her teaching and plays always advocated radical stances on issues of race and gender.

Burrill knew the power of creating safe black spaces. She often hosted literary gatherings in her home, which was known as “the Half-Way House.” It served as a meeting space for creative expression and intellectual discussions among many prominent writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

Many of the invited guests where female activists of the Harlem Renaissance gathering to discuss lynchings, women's rights, and the hardships facing African-American families.

Why does their legacy matter?

Change you can see, touch, taste, happens right outside your door and these women took their education and status as educated black women in the 1900s and created opportunity for others in their community.

Rashon Johnson is well on his way, opening doors for others at Shippensburg University as a senior majoring in Sociology and a star basketball player for the Raiders.

When asked why this month is so important to him he had this to say:

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If you love this blog and want to hear more down-to-earth, informative content, (and be the first to know of upcoming community events & business promotions!) then be sure to subscribe to our email list.

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