MIDLAND, Texas — Brenda Harrison, is one of the two women who came up with the idea to start a group for women in Midland to come, inspire and give back to their community.
"Midland Inspires is basically a women's philanthropy group where we are granting $100,000 to a qualified nonprofit," saidHarrison.
"A learning opportunity for women to have in Midland, Texas because most of us go to the grocery stores and to the gas station in the schools and churches and we really don't see the critical nature in our community and this is really opening up women about what is going on and how we can help in Midland Midland County," Harrison said.
Jonna Smoot is now a board member who joined after learning that this women's empowerment group is also about their actions.
"I also saw who was in the room and it was a fantastic group of women that most of them already knew so I was on board," says Smoot.
Each year, Midland Inspires has a grant review process where the money members contributed is then donated to a non-profit that the grant review committee selects.
It's a process that Smoot says helps to teach and educate these women in the group.
"They now know that I can ask you that the board that I'm considering joining who's on the board, who runs this non-profit, what's your 990, what's your mission statement, what have you done to forward your mission statement lately. Those are questions they should always be asking but this really opens the door so that they really know that it's incumbent on them to make sure they ask that question.
The first grant recipient of Midland Inspires is the Family Promise of Midland.
According to Harrison, whether she's lending a hand to a non-profit or pouring into these 143 women, she is glad to help.
"You know anytime you give of yourself and you see results and you've worked hard and you've been blessed by working hard. There is nothing but just tremendous joy that you get from that and that's part of the joy of doing this," says Harrison.