Today we’d like to introduce you to Anita Daniels.
Hi Anita, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
After completing 30 years as an Interior/Fashion Designer and chosen as the official Interior Design Firm for the Houston Super Bowl 51’s Media Center Lounge, I watched Hurricane Harvey’s impact on the Gulf Coast turn the George R Brown Convention Center that I designed for the Super Bowl turned into a makeshift shelter for Houston most vulnerable population. I felt hopeless because I could not do anything to help. Something inside me said to take the talent and expertise and give back to rebuild the communities that had been destroyed by Hurricane Harvey!! On September 7, 2017 the Anita D Designer Foundation was born. I went from being not only an Interior/Fashion Designer but also the Founder of a Nonprofit Organization.
For the last 3 1/2 years, I have given my expertise in the design industry and turned it into redesigning people’s lives! We provide disaster/pandemic relief and Community Re-Development of Affordable Homes. I began researching funding sources that were available to rebuild families’ homes that had been destroyed by Hurricane Harvey. After tapping into disaster relief resources through HUD we found that most of the underserved communities were not aware of the available help and they did not even know how to access and apply for the funding. I mobilized a team to file applications to rebuild infrastructure in small cities and devised a plan to utilize our specialized partners to step in and lend a hand to help rebuild. As we moved forward, we identified all areas in the Gulcoast and Coastal Bend areas of Texas that need our help. We brought resources and information to them about how to rebuild their lives with our help. After helping families get the funding to rebuild, we then uncovered a Historical African American Community that need me to be a voice of read them with the local government to rebuild and to save their community from being destroyed by big developers and the local government.
We formed a partnership with a Multi-family Affordable Developer and invested in planning a competitive 9% Tax Credit $19.5 Million Multi-family Apartment Community with Community Programs. As we were poised to be the recipient of this particular Tax Credit deal, Covid 19, along with politics, shut our Community Re-development program down. After that occurred, we organized providing pandemic relief to our Black & Brown under-resourced communities. After Covid 19 was widespread, I founded a “Clean Up Covid 19” mission. This mission entailed providing the Black & Brown under-resourced communities. I called on large corporations for in-kind donations and applied for local and federal grants that would help us to obtain cleaning supplies and PPE’s. My desire was to reach as many people as possible. Since April/2020, we have served over 140,000 people with cleaning supplies and PPE’s. Our Corporate partners are Matthew 25 Ministries, Texas Children’s Hospital TCP, Houston ISD, Catholic Charities Houston Galveston & Corpus Christi, Houston Pregnancy Help Center’s, Star of Hope, J E Dunn Construction, Greater Grace Community Church, Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Co, Lakewood Church, Houston Lighthouse Teen Pregnancy Homes, and Northwest Area Ministries. We have been published in he Give Black Publication Invited to the Board Lead Program through the Greater Houston Community Foundation.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We have faced many obstacles along the way. One obstacle has been that my Nonprofit is a Black Lead Organization. There have been some face-to-face meetings that once they found out that we are a Black Lead organization we never heard from them again. For a long time, I would not even place my picture on my website because I did not want my work in the community to be judged by the content of my skin. The Black Lives Matter movement gave me the courage needed to show my face more on social media and in-person meetings. Also, another obstacle has been not only the color of my skin but also that I am a woman. Being a Black Woman in leadership has been extremely difficult. I have learned to take the lemons that have been thrown at me and make the best lemonade I can. My motto has been to dream big and if your dream begins to fizzle out start dreaming even bigger! Funding support and the inability to hire full-time staff has been a struggle and so I find myself wearing several different hats. I do what it takes to help my community and most of the times, I have to knock on the doors and get in the trenches alone.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The Anita D Designer Foundation was born from the Anita D Designer Interior/Fashion Design Company of 25 plus years. I am a Luxury Interior Fashion Designer. I started designing as a pre-teen by entering a cartoon drawing contest from magazines and sewing my first dress and modeling it at 12 years old. As I got older, my close friends and family would always call on my to create a one-of-a-kind gift or backdrop design for a special day. I finally told myself that I needed to be formally taught design. Texas A&M gave me my start to join the ranks of Interior Designers across the country. I went back to school to hone in on my deeper love for the arts at Texas Southern University. There I learned the rich culture of Black Art Design through oil/acrylic painting, printmaking, graphic design and how to interpret heritage historical artifacts. My speciality is to Conceptual Art Design. Give me space and I can see its potential from it’s beginning.
I am set apart from others because I am a Black Luxury Interior/Fashion Designer. I mix Fashion and Interior Design together and not many Designers do such. I can sew which is becoming a lost art, before I was made privy to specialized workrooms, I designed and hand-made my customer’s window treatment myself. My most pivitol moment in my career was obtaining a contract as the official Interior/Fashion Designer for the Super Bowl 51 Media Center Lounge help in Houston, 2017! I designed, built out, and fully transformed the George R Brown Convention into a home for the media, NFL Players, and celebrities to conduct private interviews and to send news to their prospective counties around the world! I am an Interior Fashion Designer and now Philanthropist. I transform space into beautiful masterpieces and now I also transform the lives of the under-served and under-resourced Black & Brown Communities through providing pandemic/disaster relief and Community Redevelopment.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
The Holy Bible, Becoming; Michelle Obama, 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, Black History Understanding Me, The Power Of I Am; Joel Osteen.
Pricing:
- 1 hour Consultation $175
Contact Info:
- Email: anita@anitadanielsfoundation.org
- Website: www.anitadanielsfoundation.org
- Instagram: @anitaddesignerfoundation
- Facebook: @anitaddesignerfoundation.org
- Twitter: @anitaddesigner
