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August Newsletter

Leadership Already Lives Here

Dear Springboard to Opportunities Partners,

This month, I have been thinking about what it really means to build community and sustainchange. Nineteen Magnolia Mother’s Trust alumni recently joined me in traveling to Chicago for the inaugural Child Care Changemakers National Convening, hosted by Community Change Action. The moms’ presence alongside advocates, organizers and community leaders was a powerful reminder of one of our earliest beliefs when we began this work more than a decade ago: leadership already exists in communities experiencing scarcity. Sometimes, it simply needs the space and resources to emerge.

These mothers did not just attend the event. They shared their experiences, challenged ideas, asked hard questions and brought their own expertise into the room. For many, it was an opportunity to see themselves not only as parents navigating an often-impossible child care system; but as advocates with the power to help shape a better future.

That is what true sustainability can look like. It is not simply about maintaining a program. It is about investing in people who carry the work forward long after a particular intervention ends. It is about creating opportunities for mothers to connect their lived experience to a larger movement and to recognize the value of their own voices.

It is also a reflection of the power of guaranteed income. When we give people the resources and agency to make choices about their own lives, we do more than relieve immediate financial pressure. We create the conditions for leadership, participation and growth.

YOU CAN READ THE FULL AUGUST NEWSLETTER HERE

• We’re launching the Bless Your Heart podcast next month! Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or the BYH Youtube

• A new NPQ article by Gabrielle Wyatt that includes a shout out to the Magnolia Mother’s Trust!

• Our CEO, Aisha Nyandoro, went on Front Page with Mimi Brown. Listen here.

• A new video produced by creator Janai Norman discusses the narratives surrounding children going hungry and why language matters when we talk about poverty.

• This month’s resident spotlight features Candace ✨

Front & Center: Candace

Motherhood was never meant to be done alone—and a mother’s dreams shouldn’t depend on whether she can find childcare that works with her children’s schedules.

READ CANDACE’S FULL STORY HERE

I want people to understand that the only way this works is if we help each other. There is no way around it. Everybody needs a community. Everybody needs somebody. Having the mindset that you don’t need anybody is unrealistic. If I see a single mom in the store trying to get groceries while her baby is crying, I’m going to ask, “What do you need me to do?” We have to learn how to lend a helping hand.

Documentary Screening Event

On Tuesday August 4th Springboard to Opportunities hosted a special community event screening of Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom’s documentary, Power To The People Y’all, at the Capri Theater in Jackson, Mississippi.

After the documentary played, Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom led a cross-generational panel that was both insightful and inspiring! You can read more about the documentary here.

This event was presented in partnership with the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mississippi Votes, People’s Advocacy Institute, and the NAACP Mississippi State Conference.

Photos by Chuck Washington 

Front & Center: Christy

Christy’s story reveals how America’s care system relies on women to shoulder impossible responsibilities with too little support.

“If I had more financial stability, it would help a lot. It would help with food, the kids and the pressure of trying to keep everything together. Even a little more would give me some room to breathe. When I’m not so stressed, I can focus more on caring for my mom and helping my children. That is what I do every day.”

READ CHRISTY’S FULL STORY HERE

July Newsletter

Dear Springboard to Opportunities Partners,

For many families, summer is already a difficult season. Kids are home, groceries stretch thinner, and parents are doing everything they can to keep their children fed, safe, and engaged. But when school starts, the pressure does not disappear—it simply takes a different form. Backpacks, uniforms, school supplies, field trips, sports fees and the many other costs of returning to the classroom can quickly strain an already tight household budget.

That strain is especially acute for mothers, who often carry an outsized share of their families’ financial and caregiving responsibilities in an economy where the cost of everyday necessities continues to rise and an already frayed safety net is being further eroded by the federal government. Too often, women are blamed for not “doing enough” when the real problem is a system that expects them to absorb every new expense, every unexpected emergency and every gap in support on their own.

Instead of judging mothers for the choices they make under impossible circumstances, we should be asking why so many families are forced to choose between basic needs in the first place. Why should a child’s ability to participate fully in school depend on whether their family can take on one more expense? Why are the people doing the most to hold families together so often left to carry the greatest financial risk?

At Springboard to Opportunities, we are proud to help families meet the immediate needs that come with a new school year—from backpacks and uniforms to the many expenses that can make this season difficult. But our work is grounded in a larger understanding: families do not need support only when school starts. They need systems that recognize their full humanity, respond to the realities they face, and provide the resources and opportunities that allow them to thrive all year long.

Back-to-school season should be a moment of support and possibility—not another reminder of scarcity. Children need more than pencils and notebooks. They need stability, nourishment and meaningful opportunities to learn and grow. When those supports are missing, the burden falls hardest on mothers—especially in the communities Springboard serves, where many mothers are raising children and holding their households together on their own.

Supporting families during back-to-school season is not charity. It is an investment in children, in mothers and in the conditions that allow families to thrive.

Yours in Service,
Aisha Nyandoro

CEO

READ THE FULL NEWSLETTER HERE

Upcoming Event

Power to the People, Y’all: Screening + Panel

RESERVE YOUR SPOT TODAY

WHEN: TUESDAY AUGUST 4TH, 6-8PM

WHERE: CAPRI THEATER, JACKSON MS

Join us for a special community screening of Power to the People, Y’all, a short documentary by Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom.

Power to the People, Y’all is a character-driven documentary that explores aging, legacy, and resistance through interviews with five founding members of the Winston-Salem Chapter of the Black Panther Party: Hazel Mack, Dr. Larry Little, Nelson Malloy, Cynthia Norwood, and Bradford Lilley.

Following the screening, we will host a cross-generational panel discussion moderated by Tressie McMillan Cottom, bringing together local leaders whose work has long shaped—and continues to shape—the civil rights movement.

While the film is rooted in a specific place, our conversation will focus on something larger: how its lessons on community, power, and organizing travel across time and geography, and how they remain urgently relevant to the conditions we are navigating today.

We invite organizers, students, neighbors, and anyone interested in learning and dialogue to join us for an evening of film and reflection—an intergenerational exchange grounded in history, sharpened by the present, and oriented toward what’s still possible.

This event is presented in partnership by Springboard to Opportunities, Southern Poverty Law Center, Mississippi Votes, People’s Advocacy Institute, and the NAACP Mississippi State Conference.

Doors open at 5:30 PM. Screening begins promptly at 6:00 PM.