CEO of Oasis Health and Wellness Centers International, ohwci.com, bettie@ohwic.com, 919-714-3854. I am also the co-founder of The Village of C.A.R.E. (ohwci.com/villageofcare), and chair of the Project REFOCUS Community Advisory Board. The Village of C.A.R.E. can be found on Facebook.
Bettie has been called a “serial entrepreneur” because of her initiative in starting various nonprofit and for-profit corporations. She served as Founder\Executive Director of The DuBois Center and Founder\CEO of the W.E.B. DuBois Community Development Corporation, both nonprofits serving Wake and surrounding counties. Her hard work and ability to build collaborative partnerships helped her take both agencies to multi-million dollar organizations. As a seasoned consultant, Bettie now offers her expertise to emerging nonprofits leaders through her agency Oasis Training and Consulting. Her clients include multi million dollar corporations and nonprofits across North Carolina.
The parent company, Oasis Health and Wellness Centers International, is an agency dedicated to healthy living through the use of culturally appropriate holistic healing. This includes meditation, therapeutic support groups and expressive arts.The class offerings provide support for families recovering from traumatic life experiences.
She enjoys her travels as a National Trainer and Consultant with The Nurturing Parenting Programs, an evidence-based parent education curriculum. Including one she developed for African American families. Bettie received a 2022 grant from the Abolitionist Teaching Network to develop a curriculum for parents to teach African American children how to handle microaggressions and racial threats (www.nurturingparenting.com). In the racial equity field, she is a proven leader in helping groups dig deeper into the root causes of racism. She has co-authored a curriculum for The Encouraging Place that assist community participants to look at personal responsibility in developing an anti-racist society.Bettie also leads workshops across the country in JEDI Leadership (Social Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion).
Bettie has a degree in Political Science\Criminal Justice from NC State University. She has done graduate work at Duke University and Harvard University. She received a certificate from UNC-CH Emerging Leaders in Public Health Fellow and earned a Certificate in Non-profit Management from Duke University. She taught early childhood classes at Wake Technical Community College for several years.
Bettie’s experience on nonprofit boards, include Habit for Humanity, the Salvation Army, NC Freedom Monument Park, Preservation NC, NC Center for Nonprofits, and The People. Coupled with her training and work reviewing grants for Wake County Public School System, Triangle United Way, and the federal government, she is uniquely prepared to share knowledge with others.She has hosted workshops on all aspects of nonprofit management through the Nonprofit Huddle and with the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center.
Her health equity work has been focused on fulfilling the needs of marginalized communities. In 2021-22 she served as a Community Engagement Strategist for Community Campus Partnerships for Health on a project that distributed over 40,000 COVID At Home Test Kits in Pitt County, NC. This project was a collaboration with UNC, Duke, the CDC, and the NIH. Pitt County was the first community in the nation to receive these life saving test kits. Bettie organized collaborative partnerships with the faith community, nonprofits, the health department, local corporations, and the media, in order to distribute the kits to homes and businesses across this rural county.
Recently, Bettie embarked on a mission to combat teen depression and youth suicides. After forming a Community Task Force on Child Mental Health in 2022, Bettie pulled together a team representative of the community, to research and create workable solutions. With small grant funding, her team has been training community members in Youth Mental Health First Aid as a means to inform parents, grandparents, faith leaders, and others, of the crisis children are facing. The Village of C.A.R.E is a pilot program addressing the mental health needs of the community through training, workshops, and supportive services for families impacted by trauma.