We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ericka Woods a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ericka, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the best or worst investment you’ve made?
I think the best investment I made was getting the proper paperwork for my Non-Profit. Alot of times we have these ideas and we just do it, and that’s exactly what I did without registering anything.
There would be so many grants I would want to apply for but once I started the application I would always see I needed a 501c3 which I didn’t have.
Despite having no formal training and utilizing my own savings for startup, I completed the necessary steps to register my corporation, and obtain nonprofit status with the 501C.
Ericka, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
As a mother of three ages 23, 17 and recently having a little one (9 months) I always made it a point to be fully involved in my children’s lives, in and outside of my home. Always desiring to be their primary role model, I got them involved in community volunteering at very early age. As I began to seek resources I noticed a urgent need for a platform to encourage, support and offer guidance for mothers.
I created that platform called 1Mother2Another (1M2A), not only have I mentored young and first time mothers myself but has also created a community of cross-mentorship.
1M2A has a membership of over 4700 mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, moms-to-be, and guardians, nationally and internationally of all ages.
Motivated by my own persevering life story, I always provide the mothers of 1M2A with a message of courage,empowerment, inspiration and offer a safe haven for them to express themselves.
One of the main priorities of 1M2A is service, while working a full time midnight and caring for a new baby I coordinate a volunteer outing for group member and the community on a monthly basis. I have also facilitated several donation drives to benefit children and the homeless.
Serving the homeless population of the city of Detroit is my number one passion. That passion fueled the inspiration for my biggest initiative to date, Socktober. For the past 7 years, during the month of October, I collects socks and essentials for shelters and people living on the streets of Detroit. I currently have an on going partnership with Bombas who provides sock donations every year to support my Socktober initiative.
Outside of providing socks for those in need, empowering women and volunteering my biggest wish is for everyone to work together to make a bigger impact in the world.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
COVID!!
During this time I had no clue how I would continue with getting the community involved in giving back with everything that was going on.
Alot of the places we frequent wasn’t allowing volunteers or cut the number of people who could volunteer into half.
Despite COVID people still needed help especially shelters, they needed us more then ever. I had to figure out how we would do that.
I started with my online community, I started collecting money monthly to provide food to the shelters. We got food catered from small businesses (which helped them too). Sometimes we I didn’t raise enough I would use my money to buy sandwiches, chips ECT just so we were helping out in some kind of way. It was an Awesome feeling knowing I had the support of my community.
How did you build your audience on social media?
The most important thing to always remember when building your audience is being CONSISTENT!
There were so many times I wanted to give up because people wouldn’t participate or support me but despite of I continued on and eventually they will delete you or get inspired and get involved. Never give up! No matter what it looks like.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.1mother2another.org
- Instagram: 1mother2another2014
- Facebook: 1mother2another
Image Credits
Dwight_ajphoto313