A Q&A Conversation with Marcia Brown – Executive Director, Trust15

Marcia Brown is the Executive Director of Trust15 Youth Community Support Organization, which she founded in 2011. 

In 2014, I received a telephone call from Marcia. We had never met, never spoken, but she told me that her mother, an Antiguan and Barbudan by birth, insisted that she reach out and invite me to speak with “her girls,” in the Trust15 programme. From that moment, I have been in awe of Marcia; she is tenacious and kind and welcoming. Fast forward 8 years and speaking with Marcia is still enlightening and inspiring. I walk away from each conversation wiser. She is authentic and is not afraid to be vulnerable. Even with her many successes and accomplishments, Marcia exudes grace and humility.

Who is Marcia Brown and what are you most passionate about?

Marcia Brown is a driven person who wants to make a difference for everybody, who wants to change the world. I recognise potential when I see it. Just like I reached out to you, when I see something in you, I am not afraid, I am going to approach you so I can know who you are, and you can know who I am. I am a person you can trust and be friends with for a lifetime, that’s who Marica Brown is. I don’t know if I would have said it in the past, but the more confident that I have become and the more grace I have gotten from God, I can say that I am also a strong person. I believe in everybody and I want everybody to believe in me so that we can work together as a family.

What are some of the accomplishments that you are most proud of? (Professional or personal)

Professionally – I was very happy when I received the Premier’s Award for Excellence in teaching – excellent support staff, and I will tell you why. I was working at the Toronto District School Board, (TDSB) and people knew that I got along well with the kids. The Vice Principal, Wayne Lee, who has since passed away, called me into his office to tell me that he wanted to nominate me for an award because I was doing such a great job with the children. Remember, this is my first award, so I asked an award for what? He then told me about the Premier of Ontario’s Award. Do you know what I did? I laughed. I was thinking, this award is for all of Ontario, who knows me?  I will never forget, one afternoon I was driving, I don’t remember where I was driving to, but I remember the lady on the other end asking, ‘is this Marcia Brown,’ and I said yes. She asked if I was driving and I said yes and she asked if I could pull into a safe area, which I did. I was concerned that something was wrong but she told me that nothing was wrong and that she was calling because I had I won the Premier of Ontario’s award.

In my mind I was wondering what award because I had forgotten about my conversation with Wayne Lee. The lady explained that they had received this amazing letter about me as well as other letters supporting my nomination and that she had been so impressed by the work I was doing that she wanted to call me herself. I sat in my car, and I said, Lord, I am sorry for laughing because I did not really believe that I was going to get the award. Receiving that award was one of my biggest achievements.

Marcia, that’s fantastic! As women we tend to do that a lot, people give us a compliment and we laugh. Sometimes other people see in us things that we do not see in ourselves, we are our biggest critics. We can tick off all the things that we are not good at, without understanding that we have an impact on other people.

That’s so true, when I was preparing for this conversation, I was reflecting on some of the things I had done that I was most proud of and I was like, wow, I forgot about how it felt to win that first award and it just brought back the memories because I had never won an award before. I mean maybe in high school; I won a ribbon for track, but never for something this big.

Personally – I would say my family. I am blessed to have a family, my husband Leroy, my two beautiful children Regina and Isaiah and the love of my life, my mother who has been in my life even before I can remember. She has never stopped praying for me; she has always been there for me. Even when I was struggling in school or anything like that she was always there. I love my husband, he is amazing, my children are great but my mother – even before Trust15, when I had my struggles, she always prayed for me, never gave up on me and she believed in me and encouraged me, so I think it is important that I single her out – without her, I would not be where I am today.

That’s wonderful! It brings to mind that song, “Somebody Prayed for me”… Somebody prayed for me, they sacrificed their time, they fell on their knees and prayed for me, I am so glad that someone prayed for me.” They say there is nothing like a mother’s prayer. I am sure she is very proud of you.

You know how our parents are. They are not always going to say, I am proud of you or I love you but when I go out into the community or in church or anywhere, people will pull me aside and tell me how proud my mother is of me and about all the newspaper clippings she has collected about me. She does not express her love in the way that I express it to my daughter, I tell my daughter every day that I love her, but I am ok with that because she tells other people what I am doing and when I hear it back from them, it makes me very, very happy.

You started Trust15 after seeing a need in your community. So, I want to know first how you came up with the name, Trust15. Then, tell us about Trust15.

Remember I mentioned that when I worked at the TDSB people realised I had great connection with the young people. One day, the Vice Principal told me that there was a girls’ group that she wanted me to be a part of. I had never run a children’s programme before, however, there was a lovely lady, Michelle Monroe, who worked with the TDSB, who ran one of the programmes and I just loved everything about her, she was this strong black woman, who considered herself a Queen. I told her that I did not know anything about running a programme and she offered to help me. Working with her allowed me to see how to run a programme. When we started, many of the children would come but they would not say much. I think they really opened up when I started walking around in the community. Two of the young ladies in the programme saw me one evening, and they were surprised to see me because they did not realise that we lived in same community. The two girls told their friends and that changed everything. 

After that, I decided that I want to do more. To gauge the interest, I began walking around my community telling the parents that I wanted to start a new programme for young ladies. I then photocopied about 200 fliers and after work I would knock on doors and speak with the families. I did not even have a name or a location for the programme, but I was walking around the community telling them about my ideas for this new programme. After doing this for many weeks I had a lot of parents who were interested in enrolling their children, so I then started looking for the right place to have our meetings. I could not do it in a school because back then they did not have free permits like they do now. So, I went to my local church, and after writing a letter to the Board explaining my vision for the programme, they approved my request. On the night of my first meeting, I did not know how many children would show up. I worried and I was thinking maybe I should have asked for the parents’ numbers; all sorts of thoughts were running through my head. Sometime after 4:00pm about 15 girls walked in. Some were girls from the community, and they had brought their friends with them. To this day, that was one of the best days in my programme. The children were engaged, and they stayed the entire 3 hours.  A couple of weeks later we had about 20 girls.

Even though we were having meetings, I still did not have a name for the programme and the space we were using was getting a bit tight because by then, we had 45 girls who would come every week. When we started to brainstorm on a name for the programme, I told the girls about a Maya Angelou quote that had the phrase ‘we have to continue to rise,’ that I wanted incorporated into any name we chose. That’s how we came up with the name Ladies on the Rise. Once we had the name for the ladies’ programme, I needed to figure out a name for the entire programme. While I was walking in the community, one of the things I kept telling the parents, was “You can trust me, you can trust me.” I was saying that over and over and you know how you have that Aha Moment? And I was like Trust15, 15Trust. I was going back and forth, then I settled on Trust15 because it means that you trust me and the 15 is a reminder of the group of girls who attended the first meeting. That’s how I keep myself so humble, I don’t forget how it all started and how much hard work I had to put in.

The principal at my school, heard about the programme and I invited her to come to one of our meetings. She came and she stayed the entire 3 hours. Next day, she told me she was really impressed, and she wanted to help, so I told her that I needed a new location, but I did not have the funds to pay for it through the TDSB. That was when she told me that she had some funds that she could use to assist with community-based activities. We found the perfect spot and she paid for that space for 2 years. It’s important that I share that whole story so you could understand how we started and how we got to where we are now.

What are some of the obstacles that you had to overcome to make Trust15 a success?

When you are trying to do something good and you ask people for help, you do not always get the help, so it was a real struggle for me in the beginning. Thank goodness that I had my good friend Angela who was helping me, but it was still very difficult. I would ask certain people for help, and they wouldn’t. It was almost like they were watching from a distance to see if the programme would be a success, however, once Trust15 started to get attention, then it was ‘hey Marcia, how can I help?’ I couldn’t get angry because I asked myself, if I were in their position, if I would have done the same thing, you know, watch from a distance to see how things would turn out. That was one of my main obstacles, there were many.

What advice would you give to people who are feeling discouraged because they have started a new project or a new position but are not getting the support they need? How do you find mentors?

When you are starting out Its going to be hard, but you cannot allow slow progress or even detractors to frustrate you. People may not be willing to help for all kinds of reasons, but you will find the right person who will believe in what you are doing and who are willing to help you.  Progress may be slow but don’t allow that to be a source of discouragement. Don’t give up! If you believe in what you are doing, others will see your commitment.

Let’s segue and talk about how you deal with criticism and disappointment. You are a person who is very much in the public eye, how do you deal with criticism? I don’t mean constructive criticism, because we can always learn and improve but how do you deal with criticism that comes from a place of meanness and how do you deal with disappointment?

I am going to be real with you. Starting this organization was all new to me and I have never been criticized the way I have been since starting this organization. It was very hard for me to handle. For example, when I won the Premier’s Award, I thought people would be happy that I won because I was part of the TDSB family. The TDSB even posted it on their website. I literally had people come up to me and say, I have been doing this or that for so many years, so how did you get it? Or, you don’t deserve it. It was comment after comment that I could not handle, I just could not handle it because I did not know how to handle it, I had never been through something like that. When I started getting more awards, I did not share it, I just couldn’t handle the comments.  Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful that the hard work we were putting into the organization was being recognised, but I would think back to how I was treated when I won the Premier’s Award, and they broke me, they really broke me. So, I chose never to show any of my awards. You may see me in a newspaper clipping and that’s my 15 minutes of fame and you will never hear anything from me about it. It took me a long, long time to work through it. One day a friend stopped by, and I guess they expected to see the awards on my walls. When they asked about the awards, my husband told them they were all in the basement. My friend told me that I was doing something with passion and love. They reminded me that the awards were a recognition of my character and the work that I was doing and that I was not the one nominating myself for these awards, but rather I was getting them because people appreciated the work that I was doing. They encouraged me to take the awards out of the basement and hang them in my office. It took me a long time to do it, but fortunately I had the love and support of my husband who told me that by not displaying the awards it was as if I was ashamed of them. Of course, that was not the case, but I understood what he was saying.

When something comes into your life that is new and unexpected, it takes a while to become comfortable with it. It does not matter what it is. So, I can’t say I knew how to handle the criticism because I did not.

What about now, are you better able to handle the criticism?

I handle it a lot better now. Sometimes I would get an email, or someone says something negative or critical, I don’t respond. I don’t want the negativity in my life. If someone mentions that they want to nominate me for an award, I say, ‘thank you,’ whereas before, I would probably have thought ‘oh really!’ because I did not want to go through that.

How do you handle disappointment? I am sure with all the good work; disappointment comes from time to time. How do you deal with disappointment when you put a lot of effort into something, and things don’t work out the way you hope?

I get mad. Let’s be real, I get very upset because I put all my time into something, and someone is not happy, or they don’t approve. I get disappointed. I am not going to say ‘oh, well I tried,’ no, I get upset. I won’t publicly share my disappointment, but I will go home and vent to my family. I don’t know that there is an easy way to deal with disappointment, everyone has their own way.

That’s what I admire about you, the authenticity. Some people would probably say, ‘oh you know, I just brush it off and move on,’ but disappointment is hard, it’s very hard, especially if you worked hard on something and believed in it.

Yes, you do feel the emotion. For instance, we wrote a grant, I believe it was for $350,000 and we put a lot into it and we just found out that it was not approved. I was not happy. Now, I am not going to be throwing things around, I don’t do that, but I said to myself, I spent 4 days working on this. I told my staff we did a great job and there will be times that we have to deal with outcomes like this, but deep down, I am angry. You know, people encourage you to apply for these grants because it will help the programme and they convince you that you will get it and when you don’t get it, it’s disappointing.

How do you inspire the young people in your programme to dream? You are offering them all these opportunities to see and experience things, but I would imagine, that sometimes they might wonder if it is really within their reach. How do you convince them that anything is possible for them with hard work?

I tell them my story. I tell them what I went through growing up. I had a single mother who worked 12 hour shifts so that we could have what we needed but there were some things that she could not provide. I did not have a mentor; I did not know what that was growing up. I tell them about my struggle. Remember, I know these children and I know what they are going through. So, when I hear for instance that they are struggling in school, I tell them my story. Growing up, I did not learn as quickly as other children and it was embarrassing. However, I made it, because I had my mother who got me tutors, I had people who were helping me, I had my best friend who explained math to me when I did not understand it, so when you hear the kids saying the same thing you have to tell them that you went through the same thing and that’s when they really start opening up.

I remember one day we were driving past the Legislative Assembly, Queen’s Park, and they said they had never been, and I told them that I had not been there either, but I saw their interest and wanted to find a way for them to visit. Sometime after, I was at an event and I met Her Honour Elizabeth Dowdeswell, the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. I introduced myself to her and told her about my programme. I cannot tell you what I said that made her look up at me, but I remember her saying, ‘we need to talk.’ Back then, I did not even have a business card. I took her office information and reached out and she invited us to visit. I remember it was a beautiful room, with photographs of all the past Lieutenant Governors and one of the girls asked if we were at the Queen’s Palace. Her Honour read to the girls and answered their questions. Sometimes what they are experiencing for the first time, I am experiencing for the first time as well.

I also want to say that as much as I have had success in the programme, I have also had challenges that will always stay with me.  For example, there was one young man who I had been trying to get to join the programme for several weeks because he was involved in activities that were of concern to me. I thought that if he joined the programme, we would be able to help him make better choices. After speaking with him many times he agreed that he would come to our next meeting but was killed before he could have attended. That death took a toll on me, and it was my husband who reminded me that I could not save everyone and that I just had to continue to do the best that I could.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of my exclusive interview with Marcia Brown.