- Just ahead on Black Issues Forum, we're focusing on the lives of single black mothers who face many difficult challenges from societal to economical to cultural.

From systemic barriers and financial struggles, the emotional toll of raising children alone impact the stability and growth of the black family unit.

But one North Carolina nonprofit has made it their mission to help single mothers and their children foster a strong foundation for intergenerational prosperity.

Coming up next, stay with us.

[contemporary music] - [Announcer] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[contemporary music] ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm your host, Kenia Thompson.

Well, single black mothers are the backbone of many families, yet their journey often involves navigating a maze of challenges.

These challenges don't just affect individual families, but have broader implications for the black community as a whole.

Today we're addressing the important topic with help of a remarkable organization called Seasons Village.

Their mission is to partner with single mothers and their children to foster a strong foundation for intergenerational prosperity, while dedicating resources and solutions for ultimate success.

With us today, we have India Williams.

She's a board member on the Seasons Village board.

And joining her we have the Program Manager at Seasons Village, Kimberly McGhee.

Welcome to the show.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you.

- Of course.

- Glad to be here.

- Yeah.

For those that don't know that are watching us that have never heard of Seasons Village, India, tell us what is Seasons Village- - Sure.

- And the reason.

- Thank you, so let's just start with a name, Seasons Village.

The founders of Seasons Village recognize that there are seasons in our lives where we need that village, you know, you've heard the adage it takes a village.

And so the founders realized that single mothers, especially black single mothers, face some very unique challenges in getting ahead in life, and just really understanding what it takes to wrap your arms around a single mother, a single black mother, so that she can create pathways for not just herself, but her children, and her children's children.

So it's really becoming this village in the community, creating these opportunities, ideally, that pathway to, the pathway from just surviving to thriving.

- Right.

- And so this organization was set up to provide just that.

- Wow.

- And McGhee, I don't know if you want to add some programming to that.

- Yeah, I think that is a great way, because one of the things we look at is the not only surviving but thriving, and thriving through is gonna be your village, the people that you're connected with.

As a single mother myself, though my children are adults, I know what that was like to struggle as a single mother.

So having something like this, like Seasons Village, is so important to a mother.

And then what we found even through our studies is that education is critical in that process.

So one of the things that we really focus on is providing that personal development, getting that mother what she needs.

Our Pathways to Prosperity is a three-phase program, And one of the things that we really focus on is that thriving part, and that's through education.

How do we stop the poverty levels?

How do we bridge that gap?

It's gonna be through education.

And the intergenerational part of that is that what the mothers are learning through our core values.

- Our children, what we call our Seasons Village children, our SV kids, they are learning those same things, like financial literacy, community, togetherness, connectiveness, respect.

So we are really building those foundational, I like to say those foundational roots that are blossoming through our moms and through our kids.

- So what are the numbers?

What are we actually talking about here?

We know that there's probably an increasing number of single mothers, but particularly in the Black community, what does that look like?

- Well, I think, first, let's look at single parenting as a whole, nationally.

15 million children, 15 million.

Million children are raised under a single household.

15 million.

Now, this is probably going to be extremely shocking: 40 to 50% out of that 15 million children are of African American descent.

So that is, could be, really, how do we change that?

How do we make that different?

Through a program like Seasons Village, and bringing in people like our board members, like India, who's willing to dedicate her time in changing those things.

And then also within that, which I think is so stunning, within that 40% of those, most of those single moms have lack of education because of the barriers that have been set up from our institutions, who have limited those access, who are not inclusive.

So you look at, out of that 40 to 50% of those kids, their mothers, 40% of their mothers, have no resources to education.

So through our educational programs and through the Pathways of Prosperity, that's how we're going to change that percentage.

- And she talks about barriers.

What are some of those specific challenges and barriers that a lot of these single mothers are facing?

- Yes, so, Nageeve really hit on it with, I'm sorry, Kimberly.

- We lovingly call you Nageeve.

[all laughing] - Love it.

- Really hit on it with the word access.

Access to quality childcare, quality healthcare, quality education.

And those are barriers that are systemic.

And so while, you know, while we still are doing the work to remove those barriers, because that requires, that requires, you know, galvanizing lots of people to really understand that there's some systemic problems that need to be addressed.

But while we're working on that, we are wrapping our arms around these families to provide that access.

Let's get them access.

Let's make sure that they are able to complete a certification, able to complete that degree, able to get in position to bring more income into the family.

Because at the end of the day, that's really what it's all about, right?

Money provides access, you know?

And so, position provides access.

So if we are able to position women, these single moms, into a place where they can have access that they normally would not have had, then the goal is to put them on that pathway to, you know, like I said, just ending that cycle of poverty.

- Yeah.

You mentioned systemic a lot, which most of our issues in our community come from systemic issues.

And I hate to continue to pull politics into every conversation that I'm having, but we well know that with this new upcoming administration, many of these issues are being brought to the forefront as huge concerns, especially for the Black community.

You talk about housing, you talk about access to healthcare.

What is the feeling around what's to come, and how is Seasons Village preparing for that?

- Well, I'm glad you asked that question because one of the things that we are looking at is getting ahead of the curve.

So we're really looking at what's coming down the pipeline, educating ourselves, and one of the ways we're doing it is just when we talk about villages, our interns, that we've been really fortunate to have people to come in and help us do the research and making sure that we are ahead of that conversation, but really it's going to be our partnerships.

So, our partnerships really do make a change and a difference.

So we're just continually looking towards strengthening our partnerships, looking for those grants, looking for that private donors that would come in, and really undergird us, support us, understand our vision, understand our purpose, and our why.

So that is one of the things we are really excited about.

We just got a grant, actually, which is really gonna help 'cause we have an Affordable Childcare Program that we've been building out, so we've got a grant for that.

And because we realize that childcare is part of that, if mom doesn't have adequate, and this is like not only just affordable, but adequate.

- Yeah.

- That has to go hand in hand.

- [Interviewer] Safe, yeah.

- It's a safe place.

- Be trusted, mm-hmm.

- Yeah, and just to add to that, Kimberly mentioned, she kind of hit on it, but I wanna put a word around it, "allies," okay.

So the Junior League of Raleigh are the ones who gave us that generous grant that we just received last night and are gonna use it.

- Oh wow, that's fresh.

- Yeah, fresh.

[chuckles] - Oh, wow.

- And so you don't need to be a single mother to be able to support.

You don't even need to be able to understand or walk in their shoes.

You need to be able to be in a position to help these women to get ahead.

And if you can use your position and your power to affect change, then why not do that?

And so we are grateful for our partners out here who are using their position and their power, and you know, making a way.

Even though it's not their lived experience, it's still understanding the plight of single Black moms and just having the desire and the will to make that be better.

So, we're grateful for that.

- Can I tap into something?

- Yeah.

- I think something, when you mentioned, which I love, is about, you don't have to be a single mother to understand.

We, all parents, if you're a parent, we all want like a safe place for our children to be.

We all want education, we all want opportunities.

So I think for people who are out there, and they're looking, and they're listening, you know, "How can I get involved?

What can I do?"

We just want what you want.

We want what you want.

Whatever you want for your family, we want that for our families.

- Yeah, but what do the specific organizational needs look like?

If we have a viewer that says, you know, "I love to go on the Hill and advocate policy change for nonprofits and organizations.

Is that something you need?

Like, what are some of the things that you might need?"

And I know I might be putting you on the spot with that, but I think this is a great opportunity for folks to potentially help.

- Absolutely.

I'll start by, what you said is one of them, absolutely, and I've kind of hit on that, that there are some systemic problems that need to be addressed.

So, certainly, we need lobbyists, we need people who will go and fight the good fight, but we also need boots on the ground, right?

We need volunteers.

The childcare program that was just mentioned will need to be, you know, we need to set up volunteers- - [Kimberly] Well, we have to build that.

We're building that out.

- We have to built that.

- We have to build that out, yeah.

Go ahead.

- Yeah, and then, you know, we have coaches who come in and mentor the moms and take them through this journey.

You know, there's experts out here in several different fields that we would love to have your expertise to be able to help these moms give them that education, give them those tips, give them that advice to you know, just help undergird their experience and you know, there's donations.

You know, if you don't have the bandwidth to volunteer and actually show up, we need the money as well.

You know, it takes money to do all the things.

And so, you know, I'm sure - - And we need board members like India.

People who really are like, our board is amazing.

So we have great board members who are willing to invest their time and their expertise and guide us.

We have a lot of committees.

We have our program committees, and we have our fundraiser committee, we have a childcare committee, which we're building out.

We have so many different opportunities for people to bring in and want to fight the good fight, which I love.

Like, come aboard and be an ally with us and be an advocate for breaking the generational curse of poverty and changing that trajectory for a family.

Because what we've seen in studies that if a mother gets an education and she is stable in her financial means and care for her children, she can then focus on the care of her children.

And that means, you know, having stable conversations at home, being able to, when people say, oh, I never see the parent at the school through coming in and being part of the PTA is because she's working two jobs.

- It's not that she doesn't care.

- It's not that she doesn't care.

So that stigma, we need to change how people see black mothers as mothers, because that does affect how they operate as mothers.

- I like that.

I wanted to touch on one thing since you said stigma.

- Yeah.

- The stigma of how a person becomes a single mother is another thing that we really have to kind of reeducate people on what that looks like.

Because a woman could become a single mother through divorce.

Through the death of her partner, through incarceration.

So people sometimes think it's just this reckless behavior that causes people to come single or it's a choice.

And so, because there's so many different scenarios or reasons why mom becomes a single mother, we need to erase that stigma.

And just really understand that it just takes all of our support to help change that.

- I wanna talk about the children.

How does a single mother struggling impact the children?

What does that look like?

What does that manifest itself into?

- Wow.

There's so many layers to that.

So what we are finding just in our experiences is it affects the children because, let's talk about stigma.

Some children are embarrassed that they don't have the resources that other children have because their mother has limited income, and that limited income is because she doesn't have the opportunities, she doesn't have the education to provide those opportunities.

So one of the things that we are working hard through the volunteers, through our facilitators is building that pathway to giving them some opportunities, job resumes, those types of things.

So that does affect the children.

It affects them from not being able to have basic needs, like three meals a day.

And then also having the comfort of a stable home where they're letting themselves in and having to kind of parent themselves for a short period of time during the day because mom has to work two jobs, or she's in school and she's working and she's doing her best.

And I love that you mention about the idea of this woman wants to be single with a child or two child.

No, I don't know one woman, unless they're a hardcore feminist, that this is what they wanted, which is nothing wrong with it, but most of the women that we engage with, their situations changed, it shifted.

It could have been a religious situation, it could have been a death, it could be a multitude of things, but to put it on it that this is something that they rally around or that they want for themselves or their children is absolutely, like, it's just senseless in terms of how you think.

And then the children are affected in terms of being isolated many times, because Mom cannot get them to different things, they can't participate in sports activities, and it kind of limits their world, it can limit their world.

And that's why Seasons Village is so amazing.

Like, we're getting ready to launch our Teen Escape this Sunday, which are tweens and teens.

So it's giving them a chance to come together, our teenagers and our tweens who come from single moms, and we are gonna have those conversations and make pizza and do great things.

We just hosted our Sip and Share Family Affair, where we had all the single moms come over and we had a fall festival right at our Seasons Village home.

And it was fun, we had cotton candy and popcorn and made cookies and we had a facilitator to work with the moms while we work with the kids.

So it really is a village.

- And are you Raleigh-based or is this- - Wake County.

- Wake County.

- Okay, okay.

- Well, I think it's also important to note how trauma can just be passed down from one generation to the next, right?

And so the way I see this impacting children is I read somewhere that children thrive when they've seen their mother be happy.

It's a study that was conducted somewhere, I don't know the details about it, but I read it and that resonated with me because I too am a single mother.

And it was important for me to make sure that my children saw me thriving.

And I knew that behind closed doors, sometimes it didn't look like that, but it was important for me to show them that I was trying to make a better way for us.

And so by these children coming along with their moms, they come with their moms to the programs, and they can see the work and the dedication that the mothers are putting forth to make a better life for them.

And I know that that's gonna impact them down the road.

We might not see it right now, but we will see it much later on.

And so I think it's a positive impact that they will gain from just being a part of this program.

So, you know, I just really think it's something that everyone should understand, that that trauma can be so impactful and can be passed down from generation to generation.

- And with that trauma, one of the things is our component is our mental wellness program.

So we really focus on mental health and we are working with other advocates and other community partners to provide mental health, not just for the mom, but for the family overall.

Because that trauma does exist and we see it and we don't know what that dynamic was before they became a single parent and why they had to leave for whatever reason.

But we try to really support that with our mental health components and, yeah, we're looking to expand that and grow that so that our children can be mentally healthy and well.

- Just a few minutes before we go to our holiday feature for the week.

So I want make sure that everyone gets an opportunity to know how to contact Seasons Village and if they want to reach out and give support in any kind of way, what does that look like, how do they contact you guys?

- Yeah, so they should go directly to www.seasonsvillage.org.

There's a donate button!

That is the very first and easiest way to support, but certainly the other ways, they can call our office.

All of that information is on the website.

They can set up time to learn more about coaching, learn more about volunteering, learn more about the childcare.

- [Kemberly] Mm-hmm.

- We have Kemberly, who'd certainly be willing to answer all of those questions if you call, and you can kind of... - Are there any plans for 2025 that are new?

I mean, I know this children's initiative is gonna be new.

- Yes, yes, so we are building out another program for mothers who may need a different type of support in terms of education.

So we're building that out, where we're looking at more, because our program, Pathways to Prosperity, is looking from bachelor's to, I mean, I'm sorry, associate's to bachelor's.

- Okay.

- And so we are looking at even a program that even focuses on a trade and giving them that, personal development, we are building that out, expanding that program.

- And even a partnership with the local community college.

- Yes.

- I could see that.

- So we're working with our local community colleges and organizations that are gonna come in and facilitate that.

We've got some great facilitators, just amazing.

So going back to how people can get, we really would love coaches, and we'd love facilitators to come in and really help.

We need banking information.

You know, we're looking at credit scores, how to be homeowners.

So there's just a vast range of wealth that we wanna provide for our moms and their children.

And even we've been getting our kids involved in like having to save money and like what an allowance looks like.

Most of our children don't know what an allowance looks like, so we're even having those conversations.

- Sounds like you're taking care of the whole person- - Absolutely.

- The whole family.

- Holistic approach.

- Holistic approach.

- Holistic approach, I love that, yeah.

- We'll take a pause there because it's time for our holiday feature this week.

Whether it's a solo self-care moment, a workshop with a friend, or a full-on lip print party, say that three times fast, this business is the perfect place to let your inner artist shine.

Let's take a look at how they're redefining self-expression one lip print at a time.

[bright music] Okay, and then I'll come back and thank y'all.

- [Kemberly] Okay.

- My name's Evelyn McGregor, and with Lip Print Beauty Bar, and we're located here in Crabtree Valley Mall.

The concept of our business is to provide an opportunity for people to make custom lip products.

So you can come in and make your own lipstick, your own lip gloss, a lip oil, and we also added body butter to our services.

So you can make a custom body butter, you can add a scent to it, you can add shimmer to it, and you can add color to it.

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We wanted to do something for women.

We wanted it to be a fun activity, and we wanted it to be something that would inspire others.

So we have a lot of young people who work for us who are also aspiring entrepreneurs.

[upbeat music] We recently opened another location in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we'd love to expand to some more opportunities in different locations in different cities.

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Our lips can be different colors.

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So that's what we specialize in, is giving you something unique to you.

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And for us, it's rewarding to see when somebody finds a color they literally love and their face lights up, their smile gets brighter, they can't stop looking at themselves in the mirror.

[upbeat music] We're gonna have some Black Friday specials coming up, that's still in the works.

So we will be announcing that on our social media platforms.

We are Lip Print Beauty Bar on Facebook, on Instagram and TikTok.

And then our website is www.LipPrintBeautyBar.com.

- And today's lipstick color is courtesy of Lip Print Beauty Bar.

So make sure you visit them or it's a great gift, it was a gift for my daughter for her 12th birthday.

So it's an awesome experience.

Before we end today's conversation, I know that the holidays are coming up.

Giving Tuesday is a huge opportunity for folks to donate.

Do you have Giving Tuesday plans for Seasons Village?

I'm sure you do.

- Absolutely we do.

So certainly give us a follow on Facebook or Instagram @SeasonsVillage.

Also go to our website, seasonsvillage.org and certainly see how you can be a part of the Village and contribute.

- And we have a great video on our YouTube page at Seasons Village, which really gives you a really great view of our program from that perspective.

And there's a link there too for Giving Tuesday, so definitely.

- And I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge our friend that kind of helped coordinate this together.

- [Speaker] Absolutely.

- Kimberly Winborne.

- Yes.

- So that's why we call McGee McGee because we've got two Kimberlys.

- Got several.

- And so she is the executive director and has done a great work in the short time that she's been there so far.

- Absolutely.

- So Kimberly McGee, India Williams, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you for having us.

Thank you for doing what you do.

- The work you're doing here.

- Of course, thank you.

And we thank you.

That's all we have for today's show.

We thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum.

And on the PBS video app, I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

[upbeat music] ♪ - [Narrator] Quality Public Television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.