Heidi: Dawn, welcome to the Fluent in Floridian Podcast. I'm so thrilled to have you as a guest. As I shared with you in the pre-meeting for this, soon as I met you, we got off the phone and I told my staff, "We have to have her on the podcast. She is doing such good work in the state of Florida," especially when it comes to early childhood education and in a community that most people don't think about as far as the opportunities and the growth and the impact that the people you serve have on the state of Florida in a very good way. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Dawn: Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here and thank you for those kind words.

Heidi: Yeah, so you've been in Florida for almost three decades, but you started your early life in New Jersey. Tell us about your upbringing up in New Jersey and what that was like and let's weave our way to how you got to Florida.

Dawn: Well, Heidi, I don't think we have enough time to talk about that, but yes, I'm a true Jersey girl and I'm the youngest of six, and my parents were hardworking. My mom came over from Italy with a third grade education and worked in a factory. My dad was a short order cook in a diner, and he dropped out of school in eighth grade because his mother had passed away and he had to support himself. They were hardworking. They kept a roof over our head. We had a very modest upbringing, very low income, but my dad taught me to dream and to keep going, and my mom gave me my work ethic. I find that education was really important for me. Education is what got me out of New Jersey. I went to school in New Jersey, the College of New Jersey. It was Trenton State at the time, and then I went to American University for grad school, and then my husband got a job in Florida, so we moved down to Florida and it's been the best thing for us.

Heidi: What was the first thing you did? What was your career path out of college? Tell us about that. Did you get married, did you graduate, get married, and then come to Florida, or was it the opposite? Tell me.

Dawn: It was all of the above, so in college I studied communications. I was going to go into the broadcasting or film industry. My graduate degree is in film and I wanted to be an editor. Sometimes I'm embarrassed when people say, "Oh, you have a Master's in film," but it is given me so many great skill sets that I still use today.

Met my husband on the first day of college on his 19th birthday, and then got engaged as I went off to grad school, and then I finished grad school and we got married right in the middle of me finishing my thesis and my final film that I was producing. Then we moved to Delaware where he went to law school.

I worked three jobs to get through law school at the time, and I was working at a radio station doing marketing and promotions, and that introduced me to the world of events and just the marketing end of everything. That took my career into the marketing world, but growing up, I was the annoying kid who did the fundraisers in high school and had the UNICEF box and would at 10 years old, get the neighborhood together to do a fair to raise money for family. I was always that person that was planning event or doing the fundraising for in high school and stuff like that. I always volunteered for nonprofits. When we moved down here, I had the opportunity to work with a nonprofit as a founding board member, and that's how I got to know the community is through that.

Heidi: What was your first career, your first job? You mentioned you went to school for film, you worked multiple jobs to support your family, and so tell me what happened when you got to Florida.

Dawn: Yeah. Well, my first job in Florida was, so I worked in a radio station up in Delaware that, like I said, taught me all that great skill set. I moved down to Delaware. I went to work for WGUF, which was the local radio station in Naples, but I didn't want to do sales. I'm not a salesperson and it wasn't passionate for me. Then I was there three weeks and one of my clients, it was the first day I was meeting one of my clients, and he offered me a job to be his marketing director for a large automobile family here. I left and became his marketing director.

Through that, I was able to continue my nonprofit work, get to know the community, got to make incredible connections and really enjoyed marketing. It was the whole being able to put stories together, be creative, be able to influence people. I did marketing for five years with them, and then I went to a real estate firm and did three years with them, and 9/11 happened and life changed. I was working for people helping make them money. Since nonprofits were my passion, I had decided that I wanted to help organizations make money that were going to have greater impact on people. I left the real estate business and started working on my own and working freelancing some organizations. Then I was an executive director to two organizations at one time doing part-time, very small organizations and help them build up their fundraising. I found that that was really my calling, was to be able to help boards organize, do their marketing, do their fundraising, and really enjoyed it.

Heidi: Fundraising, I serve on a number of boards and fundraising is such critical to the nonprofit sector. What are the best practices or the key things that you've learned or you've been able to do for those who are listening? I think this is a really good thing for them to hear from an expert. What's key to that?

Dawn: It's about the relationships. It's about the connections. If people aren't connected to your mission or to you or to the cause, don't ask them for money. They're going to have their own passions. You have to be able to tell them about the passion. They have to know that you care, that the impact that their fundraising is going to have. It is that connection, and I think it's really important. It is personal.

My previous position, I was the director of the Naples Winter Wine Festival, the Naples Children Education Foundation. I found that the passion that the trustees had for making a difference, for engaging their friends, it was all about the relationships. If the people didn't feel connected, they were not going to raise their paddle at the event. I watched one chair who spent a whole year just flying around the country, meeting people and getting to know the top bidders that come in the past. They had a record year because she took the time to build those relationships and made them feel like she cared. I think that's a lesson that I try to make sure my team understands. It's the connection, how do they feel about giving?

Heidi: How did you transition? I just love what you just shared because that is at the core of life and is not to live alone. We're supposed to be with people, and so relationships do matter. Tell me, how did you transition into your current role at the Guadalupe Center?

Dawn: Yeah, so after seven years with the Naples Children Education Foundation, I had left to start my own consulting firm and needed a break, needed to have a little control of my time, and I had the fortunate to work with a number of great organizations and help them with their fundraising and events and marketing. Guadalupe Center has been one of my favorite organizations for years because they were a recipient of the funds from the Naples Children Education Foundation. When I was there, I also did the grant making and I was able to get to know all the children's services in our community and get to really understand it. Guadalupe was always the best. They were always the ones that we can count on. They always had the outcomes. The CEO was retiring, and she called me and asked me to go to lunch. She was a friend, and I thought we were just going to gossip and catch up, and she's like, "I want to retire, and I want you to take the position." I was kind of like, "I am not an educator," so that is the key thing. She was an educator

She's like, "You'll just hire a good educator." I'm like, "Okay, I could do that," so it took a few months 'cause I had to close my business and I had commitments. It took a few months, but the first month I couldn't make a decision and I was like, "Oh," I was a little nervous. One of my co-workers from the NCEF had passed away. At his funeral I was like, "We did so much together out in Immokalee," and I felt like, "Do I do it? What would he say?" After the funeral, I was with a friend and I told her the opportunity and she just said, "Do you think you can make a difference for those children?" I said, "Yes."

I called him the next day and said, "I would love to go through the process," and so it was just like another one after 9/11 saying, "Okay, I've got to go into nonprofit," and after losing my friend who we did so much together in Immokalee and for the children of Collier County that I was like, "I need to get back into that direct impact with the children," and that's what I love about my job. I can see that direct impact now.

Heidi: Wow, that got me right here.

Dawn: Thank you. Thank you. I can get a little passionate about it.

Heidi: I can tell, so for those who are hearing about the Guadalupe Center for the first time, can you just give them an overview about what you do there?

Dawn: Yeah, so we are celebrating our 40th anniversary this year, and we started as a soup kitchen in our Lady of Guadalupe Church. We were born in the Catholic church, and as our volunteers were serving soup, they noticed the children were not speaking English and were not ready for school or were having trouble in school. They started to do an informal tutoring, and then they realized with the language barriers, it was hard for them to connect with the children. They hired high school students to come in to the soup kitchen and start working with the children. They started to see the impact. They started to see that the children were learning English, they were getting ready for school, and one of the board members was a principal, and she said, "We need to get them earlier. We need to get them at birth."

That's when they started the early learning program in the eighties. Today, we have three programs. We have our early learning program, our early childhood education. We have five locations. We serve 545 children under the age of five. Our goal there is to make sure that they're kindergarten ready, that they're going to enter kindergarten. I love the first day of school because the first week I always get an email or a call or somebody says, "We can tell the Guadalupe students, not just because they're academics, but also they're the ones who know how to walk in line. They know how to act in the cafeteria. They also know how to soothe the poor child who's crying 'cause it's their first time in a school." They have the social emotional skills to succeed, and so we're very proud of that, and then our second program is our afterschool program.

It's from kindergarten through second grade. We are in all five of the elementary schools in Immokalee. We serve a little over 700 children. Those are children who were not in a program like Guadalupe Center's Early Learning. They're the ones who are behind and have been identified by the school as behind. 68% of them, this year, were at a level one in their reading assessment and level five is the highest. We're working with them to make sure that they learn to read. By third grade, they can read to learn, and it's hard. There's a lot of barriers in there. Our program is every day working with them on homework, reading, math, as well as emotional and social issues and giving them support.

Then our high school program, we have a high school preparatory program, TutorCorps, which we have 125 high school students in it. We have 150 in college right now and over 270 college graduates who are young professionals now. This program, thank you. I'm really proud of it. What they do is we select them in eighth grade in their high school. They work in our after school program. We still have that model where we have high school students working with the younger children. They become role models and mentors. We pay them a salary, so they get to use that money any way they want. Many of them use it to help their family with food and rent and things like that. Some of them use it just to be a kid. That's great. Their parents can't give them that money.

At the same time, they're in a scholarship program where they can earn scholarship money. We provide career and College Pathways, help them with ACT and SAT. We become their school counselor on steroids really, and helping them get into college. We have an average about 30 graduating each year. In the past three years, all of them have graduated with the opportunity to graduate college debt-free because we work with them on scholarships. They earn scholarships through us. This year, we had one girl go to Stanford. We have one at UPenn. They're going to incredible schools around the country. We have partnerships with small liberal arts colleges all around the country that have scholarships just for our kids, Arcadia, University of Philadelphia. We're really excited that we're opening up those opportunities for them.

Half of them come back to the area and work, half of them stay. We have a few on Wall Street. We have one at NBC News in New York working on the Early Today Show, and it's just really great success. Our mission has always been to break the cycle of poverty and that through education, and we are seeing that we're seeing these kids come back. A number of my staff members were our kids that came back and are giving back and doing the same thing. We serve about 1,900 children, over 1,900 children a year in the community, and we just need to serve more, I think.

Heidi: That is so remarkable, and Immokalee is a very rural community. It's a farming community. Can you tell us a little bit about the demographics of the people you serve, just to provide the context of why what you're doing is so remarkable?

Dawn: Yeah. It is a small community. There's about 34,000 people in the community. 80 to 85% are Hispanic, remainder are African-America, and Haitian, many of them come over here. Their families have come over here for that American dream. They come from different countries. Their work ethic and their family dynamics are just inspiring. I remember talking to a parent many years ago and asked what they wanted for their child in the program, and they said, "I want him to work in air conditioning." We thought, "Oh, like a HVAC type thing?" No, no, no. In a room with air conditioning. They didn't want them working in the fields. They wanted them to have a professional career where they were indoors in air conditioning. Many of our kids have worked in the fields as children with their families. They've gone up to North Carolina or Virginia and [inaudible 00:16:27] New Jersey.

They understand the hard labor and the hard work that their families have done to get them here. They now take that work ethic and put it into their studies. They put it into becoming a professional. We have doctors, lawyers that come back and work in the community teachers. We have 17 teachers in Immokalee schools that went through our program and came back to teach, and now we're partnering with the superintendent to take those students and put them on a career path to become a principal. We'll eventually have our first principal in a public school that grew up in Immokalee, went through our program, went to college and came back. It's strengthening, the poverty rate has gone down in the community in the past 20 years. It was over 48%. Now it's under 38%. We're seeing the demographics change a little bit because students are coming back and supporting their families.

Heidi: What is your goal for the next level of the Guadalupe Center?

Dawn: My staff always hates, we're right in a strategic planning session, and so they're all kind of nervous. They're like, "Are we expanding? What are we doing?" The most important, the priority is we never go backwards, that we're sustainable, that we continue to serve the children we're serving, hopefully, to expand and increase and reach more children. I'd love to expand our TutorCorps program more so we can get more kids into college and support that. It's always the sustainability. It's like the legacy I want to give the person after me is that they got a solid organization. I think that's, for me, one of my priorities is to make sure that Guadalupe Center will always continue.

Heidi: Yeah, I love that. You've won so many awards for the work that you're doing, and I mean, this is the perfect segue after everything you just explained, and I saw you here in the New Florida Trade 500 of most influential people, congratulations, leaders in the state of Florida, so congratulations on that honor.

Dawn: Thank you. Thank you. I wasn't sure what was going on with it. Many years ago, it makes me uncomfortable. It's a spotlight on me and it shouldn't be. I always had trouble when I would get something like this, and I had a board member who said, "Remember, it's about the organization. You are adding exposure about the organization." Now, I'm very proud to receive these honors because it's a platform like this to talk about Guadalupe Center. Getting something statewide, one of my goals has been is that Guadalupe is a model for early learning, and I want to share it with people across the state and across the country. One of the reasons we can do it is because 70% funded by philanthropy. We don't have a lot of red tape, we don't have a lot of government fingers in things, but we're able to do that and have very low parent fees for our parents and subsidize all our parents.

I think there's a model of this is what a well-funded or a properly-funded organization can do, and the impact they have on children. If you have teachers that aren't burnt out that are paid a fair wage, have benefits, have support, have a director and curriculum specialist and a behavioral health specialist that's there to help them, and they're not burning out, then that's the quality you're going to get. Your program is going to be successful, but it does take money. I'd love to share that with people. This recognition is another way I can share that if you have a well-funded program, the impact you're going to have on the children and the community and the workforce. I like to say it's really about, yes, parents can go to work if they have early learning care. It's workforce today, but that foundation, we're giving those children, it's the workforce for the future. It's the future workforce.

Heidi: For sure, and with this recognition, all the other accolades you've received, you've truly become one of the state's biggest champions for early childhood education and education in general. Talk about how important that is and why people should really care about and support any initiatives around early childhood education.

Dawn: I wouldn't say I'm the biggest, but I'm trying to get there.

Heidi: One of them.

Dawn: There's some incredible people that have been this past year. I really have focused on learning the advocacy, learning about how do we influence legislation and other, just the community too. I'm really excited to be being part of that, and I'm looking forward to Tallahassee this year. I am really excited about that. I think the key is that we have to look at it as education and zero to three people, I even had a board member the other day said, "Well, at one years old, you're not really teaching them." No. Their brain is developing. It is teaching them. When you live in a low income community, there are barriers and items that are already putting that child behind. There's a great video called the Zip Code Lottery, and it's narrated by Morgan Freeman, so you know it's true if Morgan Freeman's doing it.

It really shows how someone, Collier County is very diverse. Naples is one of the most affluent communities in the country, and Immokalee is one of the poorest communities in Immokalee. A child born in Naples compared to a child born in Immokalee, the child in Immokalee is already behind because there may be lack of food and healthcare and there could be developmental delays that aren't going to be noticed because or they're going to be home with a grandparent or somebody that doesn't speak English. There's a language barrier. They may not be able to get to a program like ours and may not have support in the summer and have that summer slide.

It's really important that we understand that education starts at birth and we have to be a part of it. What does that look like? It's all developmental, age appropriate stuff. Play at that age is the most important thing. Playing with intention of learning is key. That's what we try to do at their earlier age and just making sure they're walking and talking and grabbing and seeing everything the way they need to because if they have that deficit when they get into the public schools, it's not going to get better.

Heidi: I have a grandbaby, he'll be two in January, and every time I go there, it's always about the playing and the talking into speak to him the way I'm speaking to you so that he doesn't say gaga, goo goo, those kinds of things.

Dawn: Right, and you're reading to him and you're talking to him and he's exploring things, and every child needs to be able to have that support and do that.

Heidi: Yeah, so I'm sure that people are listening to this and they're going to say, "What can I do to help? This is so amazing what you're doing," so how could someone help you?

Dawn: Oh, there's tons of different ways. We always invite people to come out and tour one of our campuses. In 2022, we opened up our fifth campus, which the Van Aru campus for learning, and it's just a happy place. It's just absolutely beautiful. We always are looking for mentors for our high school program. Our high school students get an adult mentor, and that is a person that has gone through the journey and can talk to them about the journey. I'm a first generation college graduate and my parents knew nothing or could not give me the advice. If you come from a very close-knit family, and especially the Latin family, if you go to college and you call your mom and say, "I'm homesick. I want to come home," and she says, "Come home," you don't want ... So mentors can help you get through that and help you on that journey.

We're always looking for adult mentors that want to give back and build that relationship and build that strength through that student can reach their dreams. We always are looking for holiday gift shop and school supplies and donations and things like that. We are looking for volunteers on boards and committees. Come read to the kids. We love that too. There's always different volunteer opportunities. Of course, we love to build that relationship and have you invest in our students. I like to share my business philosophy, if you wouldn't mind. We really made the focus as we're a business and our customer is the child, is our student, and the product is high quality education and everybody else is a stakeholder. Our teachers, our parents, our donors, our staff, our community partners, you, everybody, your stakeholders, and we treat you as a stakeholder.

That builds that relationship where you want to invest and you are focusing on the customer. It's like the customer may always be right, but you have to have that. You walk into a restaurant, but the chef has to be really good. That's where our teachers have to be strong. Our people have to be strong. We're building those relationships that way, and that was, I going to say, you might have to edit that part, but with that philosophy, it allows us to make that decision of what's right for the student. The donor doesn't become the customer, the teacher doesn't have the customer. We can make that decision together on what's best for the student. It's worked very well for us. We invite people to become a stakeholder in any way that you feel you want to, and once again, your relationship. How do you want to have that?

Heidi: I love that. You mentioned earlier, you could be this model for other organizations across the state. For those who are listening to this and they're like, "I want to learn more," what's the best way for them to engage so that they could learn from you on how to implement what you're doing?

Dawn: Call us and set up a tour, come out and see the community, come out and see our program in action. We'll talk to our teachers and our directors. We love to show people what we're doing and why we're doing it. Come out to Immokalee and just see it in action and meet the kids. That's a big thing.

Heidi: Well, I'm going to take you up on that offer. I need to see this. I've heard your program, and then I know we talked to Greg Asbitt about his program, and I'm just like, I need to get down there for a weekend.

‍Dawn: I promise you some good Mexican food. The only thing if you come down, if anyone comes for a tour, we check your pockets on the way out. You can't take the children with you. They're so adorable, everybody wants to take them, so we do check your pockets. Yeah.

‍Heidi: Dawn, when you're not being a champion and an advocate and a leader at the Guadalupe Center and for children in Immokalee, what do you do for fun?

‍Dawn: Oh, that's a good question. Well, lately it's really, my husband has started traveling a lot, and so we've been having some really amazing vacations and long weekends. You go so long in your career not using up your vacation time.

Now, when you're getting to this age and you're like, "I'm going to be retiring soon. I need to use up my vacation time," so we are planning things. Work comes with me a lot of times, but we're just really exploring and spending a lot of time with our grown children now and just having family trips or doing different things. This year, since I traveled a lot this year, I feel a little spoiled. As a Jersey girl, some of the trips may have been to see Bruce Springsteen in different areas, and I am leaving next week to go to Montreal to see him for the fourth time in a year. We are Spring nuts, and we do follow Bruce Springsteen a little bit.

Heidi: Love that. Yeah. I was in Montreal for the first time earlier this year, and I was just in awe of the city. It is so beautiful. Oh my goodness.

‍Dawn: We got engaged in Montreal, so we're excited to go back.

Heidi: Wonderful, wonderful. Well, Dawn, thank you so much for being a guest on the Fluent in Floridian Podcast. I cannot stop smiling. I'll probably be smiling for the rest of the day after our conversation. You're truly a remarkable leader, and I thank you for all that you do.

Dawn: Oh, thank you. I appreciate this opportunity and I look forward to doing more with you, so thank you.

Heidi: All right, thanks.