The Alimond Show
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The Alimond Show
Clarice Williams of WEBS Training Center - From Jehovah's Witness Upbringing to Nonprofit Visionary: Empowering Communities, Revolutionizing Family Programs, and Advocating for Self-Sufficiency
Discover the transformative journey of Clarice Williams, the visionary behind WEBS Training Center in Herndon, Virginia. Clarice joins us to share her inspiring story, rooted in her upbringing as a Jehovah's Witness and shaped by her work as a government auditor. Her passion for community service shines through as she talks about innovative family-oriented programs at her nonprofit, such as the Salsa Sprouts kitchen gardening initiative and the Sunday Solutions workshops. Clarice's dedication to helping those in need is evident in the Low-Income Tax Clinic, where she extends a hand to those seeking assistance with tax preparation. Her personal experiences growing up in a large, low-income family underscore her commitment to self-sufficiency and resourcefulness, values that permeate all aspects of Webb's Training Center.
We also delve into the center's dynamic strategies for securing funding and expanding program reach, from service sales to building strong partnerships. Learn how marketing initiatives, including social media and traditional outreach, play a crucial role in supporting the mission. We introduce the "Sub Club," a unique program empowering substitute teachers and teacher assistants on their path to full certification. Clarice invites listeners to engage with the center, attend local and national meetings, and bring forth new ideas. By fostering community connections and providing invaluable resources, WEBS's Training Center stands as a beacon of empowerment and support for all it serves. Join us and be inspired by Clarice's unwavering commitment to making a difference.
So my name is Clarice Williams and I am the founder of Webb's Training Center. It's a nonprofit organization and our headquarters is in Herndon, virginia. The programs that we offer is actually a mixture of services to the community. It's pretty family-oriented. So we have a salsa sprouts program that teaches you about kitchen gardening or indoor gardening, and then we give away kits too so they can get started. Then we have group conversations about how to keep their salsa plants sprouting, salsa sprouts yeah, salsa sprouts. And then we also have a Sunday Solutions Program and there's different workshops on the weekend. That caters toward either training you somehow or providing another service to the community.
Speaker 1:And then we have the low income tax clinic. Tax time is coming up. I mean, it's year round, but you know people generally think of January through April, and it's coming up. So that's what I'll be talking about too, because I'm always looking for volunteers and currently right now, we'll be I'm in talks to host it out of Westfield High School in Chantilly, and then I'm hoping to get to other locations, just so that I can make it a little bit more accessible to those who may not have transportation or who can go very far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely. That's a lot of like amazing things that you provide for the community. What brought about this passion of yours to want to help others, especially those in need and who need some of this, these types of skills, and this type of yours to want to help others, especially those in need and who need some of this, these types of skills and this type of information?
Speaker 1:Of course. So I don't want to go too far back, but you know, usually it starts when you're young. Yeah, so my family growing up, we were raised as Jehovah Witnesses and one of the caveats of that is serving the community. So it's more than just going door to door and showing the watchtowers. You know they did other things. Now I no longer practice that, but those characteristics still stayed in me. And then I was working for the government for a lot of years and right before I left I was an auditor. And one of the things I didn't like about being in the field is when it was time for the auditors to come in. You know, sometimes people will cry or sometimes they would scream the feds are here, and then people will run and scatter, not that it may look any good, but they were scared. I've had people, you know, that I was interviewing, shaking and crying.
Speaker 1:And I remember one time my the senior auditor, because I had actually reached out to one of them. It was like oh no, no, no, no, you know, just we're just having a conversation, and he was like you can't touch them, you know you can't comfort them. You're just here to do a job and I get it. I. You can't touch them, you know you can't comfort them. You're just here to do a job and I get it. I really do. But it was, that was the beginning of you know what I want to help because, as an auditor, you're there to really guide them through that. And I decided I really want to be on the other end, kind of guiding them to making those informative decisions, better work processes and just things of that nature. Because I'm telling you you have to have a certain, I guess, stern ability or just being stern when you are an auditor, because I just feel sorry for everybody.
Speaker 2:I was like I would be like man, I need to help everybody Like I can't do. This is hard.
Speaker 1:And then sometimes it may seem as if I wouldn't catch anybody because I was so empathetic, but I did. I mean, when you see something, you you have to say something as an auditor, but I knew I wanted to be on the other side of that to say let me help. So, coming back to the training center, with the income tax clinic, I want to help, you know, being able to provide that service free to the public or low income. Not everybody can get their taxes done for free, but you know, within the limits I want to be able to provide that to the service. But even with the other programs that I have. I mean, when I was younger, so I was in a family there were seven of us and then my family's, like my dad and my mom. They each had 16, 17 siblings. You know how that goes back then right, yes, I sure do.
Speaker 1:They had large tribes of people and then what they did was they grew their own food, mainly because prices was high to go out and buy it. But I actually me and my daughters we kind of still stick to those same strengths. So not to say that we have a balcony full of collards or anything, but growing up we did grow cabbages and green beans. When I was living in Chicago, there were certain plants that could withstand the colder weather, right. So those was the main things that we will always eat, and we were. We grew up poor and my dad would have to fish in order to get us some food, and then we would just grab our vegetables from the backyard. So I understand what it means when your finances are lean and you're trying to make things work. So that's what we're about at the training center we want to teach you some of the survivability skills and, honestly, look, one of the things me and my friends used to joke about because we were all in a low-income neighborhood we used to be like who's the poorest?
Speaker 2:It's a lot of competition.
Speaker 1:It's like have you? So do you know what sandwich bread is? Sandwich bread, sandwich spread Spread? I guess it's like Miracle Whip or yes, but it's sandwich spread. You gotta mix it with tuna or whatever. So, yeah, we can even afford the tuna. We would just have sandwich bread sandwiches or syrup sandwiches. That's how you know. Yep, yep, yep, so.
Speaker 1:But we literally had to wait to see if my dad caught any fish. He used to fish up at Lake Edna in Indiana and literally we would just be sitting here hoping and waiting. He came home with some fish. If not, it was rice and beans sandwich bread sandwiches. We would have the staples, right, that's easier. But ultimately, that's what I want to do is put people on the path, even when they start to give money. We have financial literacy courses that talk about hey, these are the things you could do to save up and get it. People want to get Starbucks sometimes or they want to, uh, still go out and do stuff, indulge in something indulge in something when I tell you we are the kings and queens of two dollar night um bowling nights.
Speaker 1:I love that, even as we get money, because, uh, when I was working with the, I did feel that I had hit my stride because I was making a certain amount of money, but we were still lean because we wanted to make sure that we were showing our kids how to still spend responsibly.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that. And what are the prerequisites for somebody to join in on this? Is there like an age gap or an age limit? Talk to me about that Sure.
Speaker 1:So for the Salsa Sprouts program I have volunteers who are 16 and older. I do have some high school students who volunteer and as far as participating it's all ages. But for the income tax clinic, in order to get certified to prepare taxes you have to be 18 or older. But if you want to do stuff like greet people, then just 16 and over you still have to take some training, but you're not legally able to get a they call it a prepare a tax identification number until you're 18. Okay, but you can still go through the training, learn a lot of it. You can even answer questions while somebody's waiting to get their taxes prepared, but ultimately you'll come to this one and you know clarice over here to get your taxes prepared love it and I know you guys have online um about people who are inquiring to get for, I guess, for sponsorship um.
Speaker 2:Talk to me about that and like what you're open to and all that.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's uh, thank you for bringing that up, of course. Look, I'm glad you started that so yes, um, yes, you know, nonprofits.
Speaker 1:That's pretty much what we do. We're trying to raise funds either by selling services or we're asking for sponsorship and donations. Sponsorship is not always in the form of money, although it's so great when you know it comes in. But ultimately any funding that comes in goes directly to benefit the programs and the salary of staff. But then also too, again, if we, if there was somebody out there who has a space for, let's say, up to 10 people that we can prepare taxes out of, then let me know. You know you can go to our Web site at wwwwebstrainingorg and then fill out the form and then somebody will reach back out to you and then we can talk about how we can partner together. And right now we're also looking for funding so we can get Uber cards or Lyft cards, you know either one. But for those who can't afford to come to us, either because they don't have transportation or they don't have funds to do a ride share, we want to be able to provide that.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is amazing. I love that. Thank you for touching on that. And then, as far as marketing goes, how are you getting the word out there about all the type of the things that you're doing for the community, so more people can get that outreach?
Speaker 1:So one of the great reasons why well, one of the reasons why I came, because I really love what you guys are doing, so this is excellent. Uh, social media of course, we do have some sponsored google ads that we're running. Thankfully, google is um. They did provide us with a grant to do some ads, so that's great. The next things that we're thinking about trying to doing is traditional um outreach, either through flyers in the mail or start posting our posters in different coffee shops or libraries I love that.
Speaker 2:I think that's a fantastic idea and then also, you get to talk to some people too. They're like oh, what is that? Yeah, word of mouth. So I think that's, that's great. Is there anything that maybe I am missing and have not touched on that you would like our listeners to know in regards to yourself or your business?
Speaker 1:so so, oh yes, let me talk about this. One of your other podcasts I was listening to. She was talking about the children's book that she was writing and I was thinking-.
Speaker 2:I think I know who you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I was thinking to myself oh, you know what? I am going to reach out to her because one of the things that we are doing we have this partner program where we use our affiliate link, whether it's Amazon or Linktree, but we will put your book, as long as it's suitable for families, yeah Right, we'll put the book on our websites and then it's almost like cross promotion. We'll put it as part of our ads so that they can be circling around the google spear and then, um, so we're not taking any money directly from them or from their sales, it's just strictly from the affiliate link where we're getting some funds from. Yeah, so if anybody got a children's book or you know a book that you think might be helpful for the center, reach out to us too, because then we can try and talk about cross promotion and kind of help each other with our audiences yes, no, I'm so glad you were able to find someone from the podcast and like I love that.
Speaker 2:This is why we do that so other people can connect with each other. Maybe somebody's stories resonates with them like I love it. So hopefully somebody hears this and is like, hey, I want to work with clarity I hope so too yeah, right, yeah, so hit her up.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, anything else that you want to share that I have not touched on, I want to make sure like we get all the good points for you here sure, so, um, one thing I'm always looking forward to outside of of volunteers is that when I do bring up these programs, people then come to me and say hey, how about you? About you offer this? For example, part of the Sunday Solutions program we started, we just recently implemented something called the Sub Club. That's for substitute teachers and if people want to get additional assistance meaning okay. For example, Loudoun County pays for a lot of the things that it takes for you to be a substitute teacher, like the background fees and things like that. But what we also offer is a year-long subscription to this account or this program called SubSchool, and what it does? It teaches you about classroom management, how to deal with different tempers of children Well, not even just the children parents too, yes, different tempers of children Well, not even just the children parents too.
Speaker 1:Yes, because the owner of that errand she created it because she's a substitute teacher and she felt like there wasn't a lot of support out there to be able to get some of those skills, right? Yeah, so we wanted to offer that for a year. It's usually a couple of hundred dollars a year, but we wanted to offer it for one year. It's usually a couple of hundred dollars a year, but we wanted to offer it for one year so somebody can get that. And then also, too, if you sign up and get through half of the courses, we're gonna send out a survey and then give you a $25 gift card for just providing us that feedback, because we wanna know what else is missing. It could be something we're missing. So we really wanna make sure something we're missing. So we really want to make sure that we're getting the word out, but it's not just for substitute teachers. That's what I meant to say.
Speaker 1:The vice principal over at Dogwood Elementary had mentioned that there are some teacher assistants or admins who wants to be a full teacher. Yeah, I'm not saying that, right, please forgive me. Teacher's aid maybe. Okay, it may be the teacher's aid, but they have to pay for their own certification. It's not something that the county's paying for.
Speaker 1:So even if you still want to be a full-fledged teacher, come on down to the sub club Perfect. So we have local meetings once a month, and then there's national meetings uh, once a month as well, where all the sub clubs get together and just talk about their experiences.
Speaker 2:so please sign up. Yes, please do hit up clarice. Yes and um last thing where can people find you?
Speaker 1:and hit you up? Yeah, sure, so our website again is wwwwebstrainingorg, and then you can also send me an email at clariceatwebstrainingorg, and then there's the toll free number on the website too, you can call. There's some forms you can fill out. I try to be as accessible as I possibly can to make sure we let the community know that we're here for you, we wanna be here for you, and if you have ideas, if you listening to this podcast and you're saying, wow, I think I can offer this or give them an idea to do this, let us know, come on down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, I love it. Thank you so much for being here and giving us your time and sharing all this knowledge and resources that the community can also find of use. Thank you for having me Absolutely.