2011 Imagine Award Honoree Sherrika Nowell-Green

Sherrika frequently reminds herself just how far she’s come since 2002, when she was a single teenage mother living in subsidized housing. Through personal experience, she knows how hard it can be to overcome the damage caused by divorce, neglect, abuse, and unplanned pregnancy.

But Sherrika is a survivor. With the support of her CHiP team, her grandparents, and extended family, she’s become a strong and self-sufficient woman. While raising her own children as well as a young niece who needed a stable home, she managed to graduate from high school and begin setting the groundwork for establishing a career. CHiP worked with Sherrika to find computer classes at MACAA and business classes at PVCC. This training bolstered her confidence and gave her the skills she needed to start her own small business as a certified day care provider.

Sherrika’s relationship with her CHiP team has helped her navigate all these changes. Her Family Support Worker helped her learn how to anticipate her children’s developmental needs, and how to use positive parenting strategies to build their sense of belonging and self-esteem. Working with her CHiP nurse, Sherrika has identified some difficult mental health issues that resulted from childhood trauma, and has developed the courage to seek help in addressing them. All along, Sherrika’s CHiP team has been her biggest cheerleader.

In 2009 Sherrika married her husband, Guy, and is now the mother of four healthy, smart, well-adjusted children. In addition to being a wife and mother, Sherrika is one of our community’s successful small business owners.