Meet Tasha Moore

We were lucky to catch up with Tasha Moore recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tasha, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

My resilience comes from the blueprint created by those that came before me. Those like my mother, stepfather, my uncle, grandparents, mentors, community leaders, and even my counterparts within the sectors of human services occupations to include educators, therapist, mental health providers, youth programming leaders, etc. The variations of displayed fortitude and persistence coupled with examples of inexperience natural to lack of education, example, or available resources, were created models for me of how to live out resilience in everyday spaces.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’ve been a working professional since the age of 15-years old when I began my first position as a Counselor in Training (CIT) with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Richmond. My work ethic wasn’t singularly built on a desire to earn my own money, it was a requirement of character building and values set by my mother in the neccessity to ensure I could independently provide my own means of success. Being raised by a single mother and village of support for the first 10 years of my life, created a level of grit and audacity needed to survive both physically and emotionally. I later grew to realize that earning wasn’t the sole definition of reaching success; it needed to be coupled with developing positive and impactful relationships, being willing to sometimes be the only one to ask a question or present an opposing thought/idea in order to create change, and recognizing what could be considered a failure, being a foundation for evolution!

Since 2006 when I graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) with a Bachelors of Science in Psychology, I’ve served as a community advocate in many capacities.
From 2006 to present, I’ve been afforded positions in community spaces that helped me to gain experience in the areas of early-childhood education, school-based behavioral counseling, in-home counseling, alternative school-based counseling; foster care and private agency placement, social work in the areas of reunification & permanency, supporting children with disabilities, and community engagement coordination.
Within the past 4 years, I’ve gained more experience in the areas of directorial leadership in positions with Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Richmond and now Peter Paul RVA, two of many, youth development and community engagement organizations pivitol in providing quality supports for youth and families.

These various community assignments have helped build increasing resilience in the ability to navigate fragmented and unequitable systems, to reconcile the emotions and anguish behind the loss of young lives due to community violence or mental health disparities, and the surmounting responsibility of doing my part to create change within each 24-hours that I’ve been blessed with!

In 2021, I started my small, minority, womened-owned business called WE Unite, LLC. Through WE Unite, I published by first children’s book entitled, “No Crying Allowed, a Boys Journey to Understanding Hidden Emotions”. I wrote this book with a desire to create positive impact in the Richmond City Community and beyond. It caters to minority youth and families, helping young readers to understand mental health, trauma, and how to identify emotions in a healthy way. It also helps educators, parents, caregivers, and other youth development professionals, learn how to recognize trauma in youth, and how to best support their needs. Through this book, I’ve also been able to offer various social-emotional relevant products, and engage youth, families, communities, and youth development professionals through speaking engagements, and facilitations that support galvanizing community impact one household, one school, one institution, one community at a time!

The mission statement behind my business, WE Unite, LLC is formed on an ideal, that we as a nation of people, need to focus more on uniting our strengths, passions, God-given talents, and desire for the change we want to see in the World. Instead of engulfing ourselves in the ridicule of others, limiting ourselves to only what we think we have the power to create, or idly sitting in silence; uniting together to take action.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Within my journey of youth development and human services provision, I’ve learned many qualities, skills, and knowledge that’s been impactful. For those aspiring to become change agents and community leaders, or community leaders finding themselves in spaces of frustration, I offer advice that I continually remind myself of daily! Recognize what’s for you, what’s for others, and what’s for God as the level of need within our communities and world is so large that you cannot do it all by yourself! An African proverb states that “If you want to quickly go alone, if you want to go far, go together!” Realize that in order to create change, you cannot solve the everyday tensions that exist, you can only do your part to “tame” them. You must galvanize with trusted sources and leaders to challenge systems, offering equitable solutions and not complaints! If you spend your time and energy complaining, you only become part of the problem. In this changing world, you can easily get stuck in familiar mindsets or routines that cause you to be still, but remember if you’re still, you’re not moving or growing! Learn to adapt so that you can be ahead and you can abound within the spaces you’ve been charged to impact. Lastly, courage is not always about how loud you roar or how hard you can beat your chest in face of opposition, it’s about recognizing the encouraging voice inside that gives you comfort and pride in knowing that you tried your best and you’ll try again tomorrow.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

In qouting the African proverb again, “If you want to go quickly go alone, if you want to go far, go together!”, my business WE Unite, LLC is purposed to UNITE together with those who have mission and vision oriented mindsets. WE Unite aims to partner and collaborate with those that don’t avoid the broken pieces that we all have, but who use them both individually and collectively to do the work to positively impact communities.

I seek partnerships and collaborations with non-profit organizations, small business owners, education systems, mental health organizations, youth development spaces, etc where we can collectively create our own Mosaic, uniting together, to create purposeful changes in perspectives, narratives, and actions that will influence generations to come.
I look for partners or collaborators who will help to support the growth of WE Unite by offering ongoing investments towards sustaining and growing products and services meant to support healthy communities. Funding sources are welcomed through grant or co-opportunities with persons, entities, or organizations that will support the purchase of “No Crying Allowed, a Boys Journey to Understanding Hidden Emotions” in mass quantity. Making the book available for youth in our school systems in particular, as well as within spaces where youth are served in our communities of promise within the Richmond City region and beyond is essential to the mission of the book! Additionally, opportunities to align the book with supplemental offerings for group facilitation, training, or workshops surrounding the topics of youth development, trauma awareness, healthy family structures, and the liberation of discounted communities.

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