South Florida CARES
In 2011, our three affiliates in the tri-county area of Florida decided to combine our efforts and changed our name to South Florida CARES to reflect the breadth of our work throughout Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, and to a lesser extent Palm Beach County. Led by a dedicated and close-knit core group of talented volunteers, South Florida CARES is governed by an eight-member
Board of Directors, most of whom are young professionals living in Miami-Dade County. We are parents, educators, social service providers and other community-engaged volunteers who are dedicated to changing the predictable futures of under-resourced children. We are also creating culturally rich, consciousness-changing programming to support adults in identifying and resolving their own stressors and intergenerational traumas, so that they will serve and stay engaged as effective mentors to our children. Additionally, we are developing and piloting culturally rich, curriculum-based programming to fortify our children to believe in their own innate abilities, aim high and graduate from high school prepared to enter college, vocational training programs or 21st-century careers.National CARES
National CARES is the vision of Founder and ESSENCE magazine Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Susan L. Taylor, who founded the organization in 2005 as a project of Essence CARES annual fundraiser music festival. Compelled by her commitment to eradicate intergenerational poverty among African Americans and change the destinies of impoverished Black children, after learning that a staggering 80 percent of Black fourth graders read below grade level, in 2008 Susan handed the reins to the next generation of editors and left Essence to concentrate fully on building National CARES. Under Susan’s volunteer leadership, National CARES has grown to nearly 60 Affiliates that have recruited more than 115,000 mentors who are serving more than 135,000 children.