The moment Phyllis became a single mother; she was inspired to build a resource network simply because she needed one. Her intuition was that there had to be effective support for single mothers and their babies, but the reality for her as a single mother was that services and support were scattered and often difficult to access. Looking back decades later, she realized that the missing piece to the puzzle of raising a family as a single mother was a trusted support network women can turn to and access with ease. With Saffron Trust Women's Foundation, Phyllis is simultaneously working to remove the stigma around being a single mother while providing the hope, support, and network that she broke through barriers to receive. Phyllis is able to pay it forward and prove the despair of single motherhood and broken families wrong.
Phyllis has over 25 years of experience in corporate environments and served as Executive Director of two nonprofit organizations. Phyllis holds a Master’s of Science in Management, Specialization in Organizational Structure from the College of Saint Elizabeth, NJ; and a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration, concentration in Human Resources Management from Centenary College, She holds a Certification in Supportive Employment and is a practicing life coach and author.
Feeling blessed, Phyllis has helped others along her journey. Over the years, she served on several boards of nonprofits, including The Battered Women of New York, Your Opportunity Untapped (YOU), and People Helping People in Need (PHP). She also started her own organization in 2007: Parents Taking Action Today (PTAT), which focused on women that struggled with rebellious and incarcerated teens, and counseled countless women in transition. Phyllis’s accomplishments include sharing her journey in Women Move Mountains, an anthology of women sharing tough times, authoring her autobiography, and writing for the Grit and Grace Project. She has traveled internationally doing missions work and has been a member of Women for Women International organization for 7 years. She is grateful to be part of a global family of sisters in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Sudan. The organization’s mission is to provide women survivors of civil conflict and other problems with tools and resources to become self-sufficient, so they can live in civil, safe, and sustainable societies.
To balance natural human selfishness with selflessness, Phyllis is committed to helping others and believes that everyone is morally obligated to help those in need and to serve humanity. She is well-known for believing “The way to greatness is by humbling oneself. In the practice of giving, we receive the greatest gifts in return: the gifts of meaning, of purpose, of interconnections, and of love.
For the last year Phyllis has utilized her gifts to help reduce the gap on health disparities for women in Texas with a vision and purpose to on healthcare and wellness to those under-served, striving to shape the future of healthcare in the
communities. Phyllis is currently part of the Williamson County Alliance for Maternal and Infant Outreach, part of the March of Dimes on African
American Outreach – Health Disparities on Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Infant Mortality and Adverse Birth Outcomes.
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