We had the good fortune of connecting with NATASHA WILLIAMS and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi NATASHA, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I’m from San Bernardino California. My upbringing.. I can honestly say I had the good and the bad. I’ve had the pleasure of both worlds. What I mean by that is, my mother was low income where we had food stamps and loved in a low income area. Where my father was making 6 figures and lived in Redlands CA. Never did my parents treat me any different because of their living differences, I got to live in two different house holds. Both parents made sure I had everything and enjoyed life. Never did I use my father making 6 figures or giving me any and everything I asked for, I just understood there were some people that couldn’t have everything and it made me realize alot growing up.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My non profit is little but mighty. We give back in the community to low income families and feed the homeless every other month. We start the year off with our Easter Drive, Juneteenth (which had become an official day in San Bernardino, thanks to our partners Sister’s Making a Difference and other local non profits), backpack give aways, giveaway Halloween costumes to families in need, we also do 2 Thanksgiving baskets to w families in need, then to end the year we start to gear up for Christmas Drive. We try to stay consistent, but also want to start a youth mentorship program soon. The lessons we’ve learned is that since we are a smaller organization we have to fight and prove ourselves more in the community. We’ve have a fee obstacles thrown our way but we’ve found away to stay grounded and overcome.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
The first place I would take my best friend would be Bakers or In and Out. I would take her to visit the Hollywood sign and other major places in the LA area. If they were visiting during winter time I would for sure take her up to Big Bear. One of San Bernardino landscape is the 1st McDonald’s that would also be on our itinerary.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to give a big shout to my organization Survive Inc and my team. We are all 5 African American women that all grew up in San Bernardino that knew that struggles in life and want to make a difference in our community. We all are different and have or had our own struggle, we take our background and apply it to the community. Thank you, Raven, Gina, Charity, and Karasha from the bottom of my heart.

Website: https://surviveinc.godaddysites.com/

Instagram: @iesurvive19

Facebook: @iesurvive19

Other: Iesurvive19@gmail.com

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