Dena Walker: Community Liberation Leadership in Washington, DC
By Dena Walker, Community Leader, Non-Profit Director, and Co-Author on PHL Manuscript - Read Manuscript here
I am a proud native Washingtonian and have been a resident of Southwest for about 20 years. I was educated in private schools from elementary to high school. After high school, I graduated university with two degrees one in business administration and federal acquisitions and contract management, respectively. My professional work experience was in the financial industry where I spent over 15 years processing financial and investment instruments for clients. After several years of finance work in the corporate world, I decided to share my knowledge, skills, and abilities within underserved communities. This decision led me back to the community I knew so well as a child. For some higher reason, I was led back to the Greenleaf Gardens community. I realize the higher reason was the fulfilling of a mission my mother subliminally transferred to me. My beloved mother displayed so many random acts of kindness to strangers when I was a child that the first time that she did it, I become confused and subtly jealous of the child she purchased a meal for in the Hot Shoppe’s restaurant. My mother worked as an administrator in the District of Columbia Public School system and retired from there after more than three decades. More important than her paid work, was her non-paid work; my mother was a church missionary. Every Saturday, my sister and I were required to accompany our mother wherever she was visiting and taking care of the sick and shut-in members of our church, or anyone who needed a loving caretaker. We did this with our mother for so many of our young years, that my sister and I became missionaries without even knowing it. This story leads me to share with you who I have become.
In addition to being a resident of the SW community, I am also the president of the Greenleaf Gardens Extension and Additions Resident Council Executive Board. I have served as president on this board for 10 years, and under my leadership I have implemented various resident empowerment programs. The resident council executive board is the official representative for the residents of Greenleaf Gardens Extension and Additions, and our mission is to enhance the lives of the residents we serve. These enhancements come in many forms, some tangible and some not. Providing food or clothes is tangible but being the person, a resident can trust to share their heartaches with, is not something tangible, but it is an enhancement to their spirit and emotional well-being. I pride myself on being approachable enough that my residents know they can come to me for assistance in helping them achieve feasible goals. The community that I serve is a low-income community. With that socio-economic distinction, it is considered underserved, and, in several aspects, it is. My mission as president is to continue to plan and implement programs and activities that can significantly enhance their lives. The role I serve as president is one of volunteerism.
The work I do now is meaningful in a unique way than when I worked in an office behind a desk in the corporate world. Working in a community, for people whose low- income status has traditionally defined their limits of aspirations, is no longer a barrier to those aspirations because I am very hopeful that through my health, education, economic and cultural arts enrichment programs, I can help them exceed their own expectations. I serve my community because, I must.
