How Giving Back Helps My Healing Journey

Hey, Hey! It’s been eight months since I’ve written a blog. Life sure does change with a baby in the house. I’ll give y’all an update on Grant in my next blog.

Six month's ago I wrote a marketing strategy to re-launch my mama's foundation for her 63rd birthday. I wanted to re-launch it to honor her life and legacy how I envisioned it.

I started with identifying legal counsel to help me on the journey and Brittany of Your Brand's Lawfirm has been the absolute best. We started with changing the name from Susie's Kitchen to The Susie Amin Foundation Inc. and then filing the 501c3 documents. Changing the name of the foundation to include her name was very important to me.

Next, I worked with Creative Designer, Kimberly Davis, of Bliss Creative to update the logo. Ironically, Kimberly has never met my mother but designed the 'S' in Susie just like my mother signed her name.

New logo

Then I began to work on the mission, vision and founder's statement. As much as I love to write I knew I was too close to the project and I collaborated with Sakeenah Johnson of Bountiful LLC to write the mission and vision statements.

For the website I used Squarespace and it's really intuitive and easy to navigate. Building this site was one of the highlights because I learned how to code thanks to YouTube lol. Kimberly came in and added the designer’s touch and ensured the brand look and feel was right. I advise you hire a designer at all times. I only designed my site because it's something I personally wanted to accomplish.

For the external marketing I collaborated with Jay Daniel Photography. We shot two :30 videos on January 9 to promote the event. I wanted the videos to be quick, direct and fun.

For the event flyer I used Canva. Again, I advise hiring a brand designer. I decided to create my own because of personal goals I’ve set to improve my design skills. Special thank you to my friend Kia Perry who edited this for me.

While all of these moving parts are taking place, I'm pitching the event to organizations and sharing our goal to feed 1,000 families in 2022 starting with 500 families on January 17, 2022.

The pandemic has changed many areas of the supply chain including food. Many of you know food is expensive and there is a shortage. After months of uncertainty, I meet Mr. Calvin of the Atlanta Black Chamber of Commerce who listened to my pitch on December 3, 2021. A few hours later Mr. Calvin called me back and introduced me to Mr. and Mrs. Lewis of People Help Exchange. December 7, 2021, I pitched the idea to the Lewis' and midway through they stopped me and said they didn't need to hear anything else; they were onboard.

Monday, January 17, 2022, The Susie Amin Foundation Inc. held a community food drive to celebrate my mama's 63rd birthday and we fed over 600 families with 22 pallets of food and approximately 50 volunteers.

Thank you to ever single volunteer who helped make this event a success. A special thank you to Coach Carl Kearney and The Spalding High School Jaguars football team, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. for donating their time.

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis of People Help Exchange, you two are heaven sent partners and I look forward to meeting our goal of feeding 1,000 families this year through our partnership.

To my friends and family, thank you so much for all your prayers and words of encouragement. Thank you for all the support. To my husband Mike, thank you for loving me through this. Grant, you are the light son.

Mama, honoring you has been a gift that I’m privileged to do daily. Your advice, love and beautiful smile forever lives in my memory.

Happy heavenly 63rd birthday to my favorite girl in the world.