Blooming Beyond Boundaries

From the Desk of Our Founder Nakeia L. Drummond

My Dear Sisters,

As we conclude Women's History Month 2024, I am honored to share my reflections with you. I hope that they will fuel your journey for the next season (Happy Spring!).

I considered starting with stats about business because that is what I “should" do. But I remembered that there is no data I could share that we don’t already know in our bones, in our sighs, even in our celebrations. So, instead, I chose to center our humanity with a piece of my story, and, therefore, one of our stories. 

My grandmother was a collector of luxury—china, crystal, and velvet-lined boxes of silver flatware. She requested that her female grandchildren call her “Grandmother.” She lived in housing projects in Baltimore for much of her life, did not graduate high school, and was married with 7 children before the age of 30. Yet, she was fancy. 

She curated an inner world for herself and her loved ones that was beyond the boundaries of which her outer world said she was worthy. As a child, I thought Grandmother was rich. And, as Oprah would say, what I know for sure is that the air and energy of wealth that women and girls often tell me I exude is the legacy of Grandmother—Melvina Delores Fowlkes. 

For close to a year now, the She’s WELL Networked Board has talked about our grandmothers and, as Board Member Delshan puts it, “reclaiming our grandmother’s stuff,” their dreams, their ideas, and the works of their hands. That is the real work of She’s WELL Networked and The WELL. 

I used to think it was about supporting Black women with starting and growing businesses. While, on the surface it very much is. At a deeper level, a level that speaks to my soul, She’s WELL Networked and The WELL are about a radical shift in how we care for and invest in ourselves—intellectually, psychologically, financially, and spiritually—so that Black women entrepreneurs can experience our fullness and enough-ness as we do the legacy-building work of starting and growing businesses in ways that honor and heal us.  

As we close out this month, I challenge us to consider how to make space for our whole selves while continuing to do the work we do, or maybe even how to release work that takes too much from us. I hope that we know and actually experience the freedom we sought when we began our businesses—when we didn’t realize how challenging it would be to create what we had not seen or ever known. I hope that the vision is still alive and well within each of us and that when we feel depleted, we are refilled in community. 

To my grandmothers and yours, to all the women who have shown us the way, and to the ones for whom we are now opening doors, may we continue Blooming Beyond Boundaries. I love you real bad!

To Our Success, 

Nakeia