SEIZE the
by Michelle Saxton photo by Megan Deitz
MOMENT The Kairos Center offers up economic empowerment
W
hen GLENDA TATE moved back to Wilmington in 2004 after her mother had a stroke, she noticed it over and over again – health care workers helping her mother were struggling to make ends meet. “You get to know these people, you get to hear about their children and their families,” Tate says. “Sometimes their car would break down, and they wouldn’t have enough money to pay their rent. “I calculated in my head one night and I thought, ‘They just don’t make enough money.’” Tate, who grew up in Wilmington and later worked as a senior executive with the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C., wanted to address a systemic lack of sufficiency in communities, particularly among African Americans. She founded The Kairos Center (kairosempowermentcenter.com) philanthropic organization in 2013 to help individuals climb to higher economic levels by discovering their skills, talents, and dreams. “I believe everybody has this distinct purpose that they were created for,” says Tate, president and CEO. “My goal was to connect them with it and to have them get an aha moment.” Tate spent twelve years caring for her mother before she died, and Tate considers that time
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together a gift. “Now, I get the opportunity to give back to a place where I was born,” Tate says. “I did get that wonderful time with her, and out of it was born Kairos.” The Kairos Center is among eighteen nonprofit partners at The Jo Ann Carter Harrelson Center, a downtown campus of nonprofits. The Harrelson Center recognized Tate and Kairos as Partner of the Year in 2019. “A lot of her clients, they do feel like she is family,” says MEADE VAN PELT, The Harrelson Center’s executive director. “She has their best intentions at heart, she treats everyone with dignity and respect. And, no matter where life may have taken them or what obstacles they have faced, she recognizes they can grow. “There’s a real opportunity here for The Kairos Center while the light is shining on the need to encourage and develop minority entrepreneurship,” Van Pelt adds. The Kairos Center is Biblically based and named after the Greek word “kairos”, meaning an opportune moment in time. The center offers a free basic course called “Living Your Best Life Now,” which encourages clients to dream about what they want to do and helps them along that path. “We don’t give people fish; we teach people how to fish,” Tate says. Clients also may get help furthering their education, finding a good job, or starting a new business. Kairos has helped entrepreneurs start up a mobile barbecue business, a shuttle transportation service, an auto detailing service, a handcrafted wooden pen store, and other endeavors.