Today we’d like to introduce you to Sierra Walker.
Hi Sierra, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started my organization in March 2018 as a measure of faith. I always knew I wanted to help women be the best version of themselves. I just didn’t know how I would be able to successfully do that while trying to pursue my healing journey. Let me explain. I struggled with abandonment issues for the majority of my life. I was raised by my grandmother, Sonia Washington when my mother and father found themselves incapable of doing so.
My mother had me when she was 16 years old. She already had one child at 14 who was conceived through rape. Her family wanted her to abort me. Instead, she chose to give me up for adoption. After being separated for about 2 months, she decided she wanted to reverse the adoption and get me back. Being a teenage, single mom of 2 young children certainly was not easy. By the time she turned 19, she had my 3rd sister. I would spend time back and forth between my mother’s house and my grandmother’s house. By the time I was 9, my mother felt the back and forth was too much and that my grandmother had more of an upper hand in my rearing so she walked away.
When she stopped coming to get me my life changed. My father got married, divorced two years later, and became strung out on drugs. During his marriage, he didn’t take me to live with his new family. I felt alone, unloved, unwanted, and unnecessary. As time went on, my mother resurfaced and made attempts to rekindle our dismantled relationship. But there was so much damage that had been done. I didn’t know how we would repair it. Eventually, I became a teenage mother at 15, seemingly repeating the cycle. As I moved into adulthood, I knew I wanted a change. I knew I didn’t want to be angry anymore. I wanted nothing more in this world than to be healed and whole.
I surrendered my life to God and started changing. Little by little, my faith helped my mother and I repair our relationship and helped me become a version of myself who wanted to give to others. This is how Dana’s Daughters Incorporated was birthed. It’s an opportunity to provide women with the tools they need to heal holistically from trauma. Many of these tools weren’t available to me growing up. We provide services for women and adolescent girls ages 12 and up that are both preventative and post-traumatic recovery. I believe my jaded, painful past pushed me into my purpose to help others with their pain.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Not at all! It has been one journey full of failures, disappointments, betrayal, dysfunction, and tremendous loss. We have had times where our events have been packed and then events where there were less than five people. We have struggled to find financial resources.
Marketing has also been one of our biggest barriers. As a business owner, sometimes you believe your friends and family will support you. I’ve discovered that most of our support has been from strangers. We’ve been trying to find a brick-and-mortar location for a few years. This year, we found a location, signed the lease, and were ready to get the keys only for our funding not to come through. One of the greatest hits we took as the organization was the loss of my mother in July 2021. Dealing with the pandemic and death was very detrimental.
It pushed me into a season of doing more healing, fully embracing my therapy journey. The thing that keeps me going is two statements that my mother said to me when I embarked upon this journey and they are ” Keep Going” and “Never Give Up”. Whenever I feel I’m at my lowest, I remember her words.
It’s like God’s way of keeping me on track.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Dana’s Daughters Incorporated?
Dana’s Daughters Incorporated was established on March 1, 2018, as a community organization, restructured, and officially became a 501(c)3 on September 9, 2021. Our mission is to promote holistic healing and wholeness from trauma for women and adolescent girls ages 12 and up. We are known for creating platforms for women that we refer to as safe spaces and experiences that allow them the freedom to acknowledge, discuss, and release their trauma.
Annual we host events for the community at large like domestic violence awareness, fatherless daughters, home for the Holidays motherless daughters’ experience for grief recovery and so much more. As a Christian-based organization, we are unique because we provide the perfect marriage of faith-based practices with trauma-informed care. We are not your typical women’s empowerment group. We provide the tools for you to not only survive but learn how to thrive.
We believe that you can heal from ANYTHING. You don’t just have to live with the pain and memory of your trauma. You will still have scars but they are only there to serve as a reminder of what you made it through. We have an online healing accountability community called Hey Girl, H.E.A.L. (Holistically Evolve and Live). We created a brand movement called “The Greatest Story Never Told” that allows women to tell their stories in a collective. Our first anthology was released on October 1, 2023, in which we became Best Selling Authors!! Books are available on Amazon. We also provide mentorship to teens and annual scholarships to those from single-family homes.
We are now expanding our services to have a brick-and-mortar community resource hub, event center, mobile mental health services, and transitional housing for those impacted by domestic violence, returning citizens, teen pregnancy, and youth displacement. We host healing circles and lead women’s events by request for shelters, local organizations, and ministries. I am most proud of the level of impact we have been able to make over 5 years. Dana’s Daughters is more than just a brand. It’s a sisterhood that follows this simple method Empower. We Educate. We Elevate. Any woman who’s pursuing her healing and wholeness is Dana’s Daughter, too,
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
I don’t believe in luck. Luck signifies that things happen by chance. I believe that we are pre-ordained to be whatever God calls us to be and experience what he’s called us to. We are born with a purpose and spend our lives being shaped to walk in that purpose. Some of our circumstances can seem unfavorable but they always work out for our good in the end.
If I believed in luck, I would have initially thought I was one of the most unlucky people in the world because of my childhood. But it’s those same childhood experiences that led to my success in helping others. I believe I am called, chosen, and favored. It is those things combined with my faith that have produced a fruitful and thriving organization.
Women’s lives are changing as a result of what I do. That’s all of the evidence I need.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.danasdaughters.com
- Instagram: @danas_daughters_
- Facebook: danasdaughters
- Other: https://a.co/d/aVXFqFJ
Image Credits
Keston de Coteau, Keystone Productions, Mykia James, and Beuniquely Framed
