Shirley Noel was so personally impressed with the nonprofit she came to know in high school that she started one of her own.
Noel, a sophomore at Georgia”™s Spelman College, and a friend came up with ACTS (Actively Changing Tomorrow through Service) a nonprofit inspired by Noel”™s experience in the GEMS program ”“ Girls Empowered through Meaningful Support ”“ offered by the YWCA of White Plains & Central Westchester.
“Partaking in community service in various sites in the Atlanta metropolitan area, we saw a deficit in educational resources and health awareness, more specifically with issues pertaining directly to the black community,” Noel said. “We saw an overwhelming number of poverty-ridden people and the lack of young adults getting involved in policy development.”                        Â
Noel and her friend, Nakieta Stewart, chose four issues for ACTS to focus on: access to higher education, health awareness, demolishing poverty and policy development. They developed initiatives to address these issues and presented their ideas to a total three college boards. ACTS was chartered by Clark Atlanta in August and by Spelman in September. The organization expects to be chartered by Morehouse this winter, making ACTS an official nonprofit organization on all three campuses that make up the Atlanta University Center.
So far, ACTS has organized community events including voter drives, toy donation collections for the homeless and free H.I.V. testing.  Â
The budget for the 2008-2009 school year is $1,200. However, it has not been easy receiving funds.                                                                      Â
“Being that ACTS is going through its first fiscal year, we have to prove that we can stand on our own two feet without monetary resources before corporations and foundations would like to fund us,” Noel said. “It has been a struggle because there are various aspects of our initiatives that we could not do due to lack of funding, however the members of ACTS are focused and driven to fulfill our obligation to the community.”
Noel entered GEMS her first year as a White Plains High School student. The program has a goal to inspire girls to discover their passions, develop self-confidence and leadership skills and achieve success in the form of pursuing higher education/career goals and giving back to the community.                                                                          Â
“Most of our girls start the program in kindergarten and finish in high school,” said Nicole Stansbury, director of the GEMS program. “We have girls in our program now whose grandmothers were the first GEMS.”     Â
For Noel, being a GEM didn”™t end after high school; she continues to be involved, organizing a summer book club and being a mentor to the girls.
“From the GEMS program, the main lessons that I learned were to be responsible for my actions, my sisters”™ actions and the well-being of my community,” Noel said. “I learned to aim for the moon to land amongst the stars and to strive for excellence. You never stop being a GEM because you should never stop loving yourself, your sister and your community. I have to remain in GEMS because just as I was taught, it is my turn to teach and confirm all the lessons passed onto me.”     Â
Stansbury said Noel, a member of the National Honor Society in high school, was always determined to succeed. Â
                                                                                                                                                    “She has always talked about having her own community center when she graduates from college,” Stansbury said. “You can look at Shirley and know she will be successful no matter what obstacles come in her way.”