We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sharron Tendai. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sharron below.
Sharron, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
In late 2022 a good friend of my husband and I, Sam who knew about our community involvement reached out to me via Facebook about some grant funding for DC residents for community projects aimed at reducing gun violence in the city. At the time I was actively volunteering with my daughter’s dance school and other programs in the city focused on women and girls and I began very interested in the Black-wealth gap and been reading anything I could get my hands on related to the topic. During this time, I had also lost my youngest sister to gun violence in Philadelphia and as I thought back on Sam’s message, I knew it was a sign that I definitely need to apply for this funding. Over the years I’ve had a ton of community projects ideas, many focused on getting women and girls of color to more opportunities. That weekend, me and my laptop conceptualized a program that focused on financial education and wellness for women and girls in DC, called Get Her to the Bag Academy (now Get Her to the B.A.G). The basis of the program was to leverage to knowledge our community via partnerships to curate a half day experience on financial literacy and financial visioning. I remember when we hosted our first event in February 2023. I was literally too scared to speak, had no clue what I was doing, and I could not believe that something from brain was actualized and happening. Now, a year and four in person events, later I feel like an expert, and I’ve began sharing the knowledge via B.A.G. EDU via YouTube, where I provide advice on grant writing. I also provide B.A.G. Consults where I chat with aspiring B.A.G. Getters on how to launch their ideas (no cost) and most recently our B.A.G. Business Directory of our partners, vendors, etc. (no cost). The give back is real when it comes to Get Her to the B.A.G. The goal is not only to pull up but also, bring with! Looking back, that one message from Sam really changed my life and gave me purpose beyond my wildest dreams and more importantly, as I reflect back, a positive way to channel my grief.
Sharron, 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?
My name is Sharron Tendai, and I am originally from Philadelphia. I moved to Washington, DC after completing a year of service with the AmeriCorps VISTA Program. Over the course of my life, I’ve always been passionate about causes such as programs that keep inner city youth safe, and programs for single mothers. One of my first jobs was working at the Philadelphia Black Women’s Health Project where I provided administrative support and facilitated an afterschool program. It was there that I became passionate about HIV/AIDS prevention, which led to me one of my next jobs as a Training Manager at a national HIV/AIDS organization in DC. This position required me to travel all over the US coordinating learning experiences for front line staff at HIV/AIDS staff at community-based organizations and health departments. Over the last nearly 15 years, my career has focused on adult learning and in my free time I continue to volunteer in my community with programs that target women and girls.
Get Her to the B.A.G. combines my passion for projects that uplift and inspire women and girls of color, with my interest in solutions that close the Black-wealth gap, and my love and expertise around event planning and building partnerships. This interest began during my time as the Philadelphia Black Women’s Health project and grew exponentially during the COVID-19 pandemic as I personally witnessed people near and far struggling both financially and mentally. I believe that mental health impacts our financial health or wealth-building, which is why Get Her to the B.A.G. focused on only our financial health but also wellness.
Get Her to the B.A.G. curates’ free wealth-building and wellness experiences (or events). Our events are half-day or full day. Our first event was a financial literacy and visioning workshop for women and youth. Our second event, called Save Your Bag, was another financial education workshop that brought together women and youth from the Maya Angelou Public Charter School. Our third event called Care for Your Bag was a wellness-focused event with motivational speakers, womb health discussion, crank-boxing, and a sound bath meditation. Our fourth and most recent event, B.A.G. Girl Summer: A Wealth and Wellness Retreat, brought together financial education, wealth-building, and wellness. At our summer event, participants were read ceremonial greetings from the Hon. Mayor Bowser, then they experienced Tai Chi, learned about Herbalism and herbal teas, engaged in guided journaling, participated in meditation, and learned about the financial building block of wealth from a Certified Financial Planner. This event concluded with a conversation on womb health and arts and crafts focused on vulva anatomy.
Our target audience is women and girls and color. We feel strongly that they are the backbones of their families, so it’s critical that there are spaces where they can engage in a mentally and physically safe space. Furthermore, a National Women’s Law Center issue paper stated that “Black women face racism and sexism at every turn in our economy. Among full-time, year-round workers, Black women typically make only 67 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. This wage gap will typically cost Black women $1,891 per month, $22,692 per year, and $907,680 over a 40-year career.” For these reasons and more, the target participants for our project are women living in the District of Columbia in under-resourced areas. Here’s how they benefit from our program: 1) Opportunity to participate in a restorative healing experience delivered by expert professionals from DC’s wellness community. 2) Receive a first-class learning experience from bona fide financial experts. 3) Opportunity to engage in a reflection and visioning session at the end of each B.A.G. event with our mindfulness partner, Divine Spectacle. 4) Post-event, participants are invited to a virtual community for ongoing conversation, education, and curated digital resources.
In addition to our in-person events, we’ve launched B.A.G. EDU via our YouTube channel on educational contents such as grant writing. We host B.A.G. Talk Consults, which are free 20-min consultations to help our supporters and partners to launch their ideas and access resources. Most recently, on Small Business Saturday we released our B.A.G. Network Directory highlighted small businesses and organizations serving the DC area.
What sets us apart are our core values, which are accessibility in cost and location, commitment to information sharing by any means necessary and our ruthless priority to engage and bring along as many people as possible. Since our inception, we have successfully partnered with nearly 20 DC based organizations, entrepreneurs, freelancers, professionals, most all Black and/or Brown owned or operated.
I am most proud of myself for putting my idea on paper and into action one once but four times. It’s very easy to have an idea, burn owning and implementing a vision is the work. I am proud that I didn’t give despite feeling lost at the beginning of this process. I am proud of the community we’ve cultivated of intergenerational women all viciously focused on helping other women get ahead. I am proud of our focus on accessibility and inclusion as a top priority. I am proud of the award I received from a community organization called, Beautiful I am, for my community contribution and acts of kindness. Of all the things, I am most proud of the recognition that the Get to the B.A.G community received at our last event. This recognition was given to our community of partners, supporters and event attendees in the form of a ceremonial greeting from the Mayor of DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser.
The main things I’d want people to know about this work is that it’s rooted in community service, accessibility, information-sharing and anti-gatekeeping. Get Her to the B.A.G. cannot sustain without the support of our community because they are the ones that continue to amplify this work by embodying the values of Get Her to the B.A.G. As I am pulling them up, I see them doing the same by pulling others up and sharing information and resources.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Get Her to the B.A.G. launched our first social media channel on Instagram (@herbigbag) in early 2023. We knew social media involves a lot of work and we operate with limited capacity in general so managing a social media channel would be no different in terms of our approach to growing our online audience. Here are some of the strategies we used. First, we worked really hard at understanding our target audience in terms of their needs, goals, aspirations, their ages, where they are located, the type of content they like (posts vs reels vs stories), etc. We learned that one of the biggest needs for our target audience is access to relevant information as they are active in their communities, many are entrepreneurs and small business owners, and creatives launching or wanting to launch their ideas into programs/projects or business ventures. To meet those needs we began sourcing Bonafide Instagram accounts that focus on this information. We found many DC government agencies and other public organizations that provide financial information and events, grant resources for small businesses and entrepreneurs and accessibility health and wellness activities, such as free or low-cost yoga, meditation, etc. and we followed them all. We leverage Instagram Stories when sharing this information who allow pings or original poster that the content was shared, which is opportunity for us to make a connection. Another way we’ve built our social media is to operate using a “what can we give them mindset.” This means we seek out low-lift tactics to engage our audience by giving them something that can we turned into evergreen content that can be re-shared. Examples of that are B.A.G. Edu via YouTube where we share grant writing tips and publications like our Finacial Empowerment Workshop and the B.A.G. Network Business Directory, which is lists B.A.G. partners and other small businesses and entrepreneur. We launched the Directory on Small Business Saturday and will continue to update and share quarterly. In short, our advice is to 1) know your audience and their needs and 2) create evergreen content for them, free of charge, that meets their needs and that allows them to engage in a meaningful way.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
The opportunity to give back drives my creative journey. As someone who knew up in poverty in a single parent home, and I’, a first-generation college graduate, etc. I have enormous guilt for all the people who I feel like I left behind especially my younger siblings. I think it’s called survivor’s guilt. I know I’ll never be able to rewind time and go back and do it differently but what I can do is use my creativity, event planning expertise and ability to cultivate communities to curate experiences that that motivate and inspire women and girls of color. I’ve been blessed with higher education and a wealth of experiences and my goal to share as much as that education and experience as possible through my B.A.G. work. Snoop Dog said, “Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told” but for me and the B.A.G Community, “the game is to be TOLD not SOLD.” That’s one of the many B.A.G. mottos and is the true embodiment of this work.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sharrontoi/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/gethertothebag
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharrontendai/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@herbigbag
- Other: Get Her to the Bag’s Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/herbigbag/ Sharron’s Tik Tok, https://www.tiktok.com/@thebagladydc
Image Credits
Jonathan Thomas