“Movin”™ On Up” was the popular theme song for the black sitcom, “The Jeffersons,” back in the 1980s. Twenty years later, this country has seen some remarkable strides in race relations, culminating with the election of its first African-American president.
With that kind of inspiration, Deborah Wilkins Flippin wants to bring the message to  women of color that they can be  proactive and, just like the fictional Jefferson family, really  start “movin”™  on up.”
By providing them with guidance and the tools to help them reach the mountaintop, “whether it is as a supermarket clerk or a CEO. I would like to help them reach a level where they can feel good about themselves and be self-supporting.”
Flippin started her professional life in the Dutchess County Office of Economic Opportunity coordinating its Beacon Center in the city where she was born and raised.
In her new position as director of the RSVP program,  she has gone full circle, returning  to the same organization she began with after college, now called Dutchess County Community Action Partnership. The name may have changed, but its mission has not: getting people more involved in their community has always been the nonprofit”™s goal.
After giving birth to her first child, she re-entered the job market but turned to corporate America, going to PepsiCo in Purchase and spending the next 14 years with the company, initially as an entry-level accounts receivable clerk and ending up as a senior analyst for Pepsi”™s marketing department.  After a stint working with U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, Flippin returned to the corporate arena, working for Key Bank at its Hudson Valley district headquarters in Newburgh, where she spent 10 years as its vice president of marketing.
“Continuing a career in banking really wasn”™t what I wanted anymore ”“I was at was a time in my life when I was ready for a career change and ironically I applied for a job in the organization where I first started out and was hired. Thanks to my years in the corporate world, those skills I honed are incorporated into the nonprofit world. I”™m happy and at peace with my change in direction.”
Flippin remembers a childhood where Pete Seeger would stroll into St. Anthony”™s Church in Beacon on a Sunday morning to sing with the children ”“ some things don”™t change ”“ and watching the anguish on her parents”™ faces when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
“There have been a lot of strides for African-Americans,” said Flippin, “but there is always room for more.”
Flippin”™s own life experiences have inspired her to help women of color realize there is a world beyond the the grinding cycle of poverty. “Unfortunately, it has become a ”˜comfort zone,”™” said Flippin. “It is  especially scary  for those who want to better themselves and are afraid they will fail. These young women also have to deal with peer pressure from others enmeshed in systematic poverty, who feel threatened by anyone trying to break away from what is considered the norm.”
Flippin is working on building a support group designed specifically to reach out to this segment of the population: Â “Right now, we are in an embryonic stage. There are four of us, all women of color, who want to help women, especially young women, realize their full potential. Our goal is to become a source of advocacy and information for them, a place where they can come and talk and express their dreams, and we can mentor them,” said Flippin. “These women, most of whom have grown up in multigenerational welfare households see there is life and self-esteem within their reach if only they are willing to take that chance on the merry-go-round and reach for the brass ring. They may not make it, but they”™ll never know if they don”™t try.”
Flippin happily volunteers for a women”™s group that is just in its beginning stages. She is putting her heart and soul into helping make the group a sturdy lifeline to for women who want to reach the mountaintop, “the one that Dr. King, who also strived to reach that lofty perch, spoke of before he died: a place where people are not judged by the color of their skin but of the content of their character,” said Flippin. Â “Anything is possible, but you have to believe in yourself. We aim to do as much as we can to make that happen for women who want to better themselves and who want to give their children a better life.”
“We never thought anything of Pete Seeger coming to join us at St. Andrews to have a few songs with the children back then,” said Flippin. “Yes, Beacon has certainly changed and grown. I was down there last weekend with my sister and Main Street was crowded with people. It”™s a city that”™s been fortunate. I hope to see the same kind of directed, caring energy come into other cities here in the Hudson Valley where there are pockets of poverty and families who know nothing but being in the welfare system so long, it has become a ”˜comfort zone”™ for them.”
