When Passion becomes Profession
by Anna Grider
From left: Princess Jones, Rising Star since 2019; Anaya Finley, Rising Star since 2021; Falana McDaniel, executive director; Trinity Webb, Rising Star since 2014; and Toni Little, R.E.A.L Summer Program volunteer.
It’s not often you walk into a room full of children on a Wednesday morning during summer break with hands waving in the air, all anxiously anticipating being called on to answer the next math problem, show off their latest artwork, or to identify which word in a sentence was an adjective. But it’s also not often that you walk into a room where Falana McDaniel (’02) is your teacher. While Families United Training Center (FUTC)- a nonprofit designed to provide training and resources to help build healthy families- officially launched in 2014, for founder and executive director McDaniel, this was a mission that began long before. Born and raised in poverty, McDaniel came to Co-Lin in 2000 as a single mother with two young sons Treviaunte and Milheil, ages two and three months (now 23 and 21). Ready to drop out, McDaniel will tell anyone that [instructor] “Margaret Britt was God-sent to me.” She continued, “If it weren’t for her guidance, I wouldn’t be as successful as I am now. She always kept pushing me to never stop.” Now, four degrees later and with no sign of slowing down, McDaniel has dedicated her life to giving back to others and is using her own organization to do so. Back in 2009, McDaniel was teaching a predominately female high school class in McComb when she noticed that no one was paying attention to the lesson she had planned. As she stopped to ask the students what was going on, the stories started pouring out. Students were sharing about being up all night listening to gun shots wondering if they were going to be alive the next day and about being kicked out of their room so their mom could do drugs. So, what did McDaniel do? She simply began to encourage her students. The Colinian | 4
“Life is hard and we all face challenges,” McDaniel said, “But we can’t let those challenges determine our success, we have to let them make us.” Five minutes and one pep talk later, the students were eager to learn and get back to the lesson. After McDaniel went home that evening and reflected on what had happened in her classroom, she felt gentle whispers from God prompting her to take up girls mentoring – something she continues to do to this day. Continuing to teach during the week and mentor on the afternoons and weekends, McDaniel began to see how the need for training and mentoring didn’t need to be confined to just the girls she would meet
