'Jewels': Jacksonville nonprofit mentors girls, builds social activists and community

What started out as a nonprofit mentoring program for girls has taken to the streets.

Members of Jewels of the Future in Jacksonville have marched and protested and held signs proclaiming their passionate views on police accountability, women's rights and social change. They have rallied seeking bodycam footage of Reginald Boston being shot and killed by a Jacksonville officer in 2020 and against the local police beatings of Le'Keian Woods and Kimberly Cobb, both in 2023.

They took part in the Women's March fight against Florida's 6-week abortion ban and were among the loudest voices in a community effort to rename Duval County public schools that are named after Confederate leaders. And they collected petitions to reinstate to Riverside High School the nationally recognized EVAC Movement leadership class, which predominantly served young African American men.

"It means the world to me to know I'm a positive influence on my ladies," said Diamond Wallace, 24, who founded Jewels of the Future with her mother, Renita Turner, 41. "Nowadays our school system is trying to take away their ability to learn the good, the bad and the ugly, so it's extremely cool that they get to be a part of history."

The group has also organized countless school supply drives for youth and food distributions for families, as well as mental health workshops and financial literacy classes and an annual community Christmas party.

"We creatively give back to the community as a whole, creating engagements to ultimately help the community help themselves," Wallace said. "We believe that the community has the power to bring themselves out of any hardship with a little community love. We’d like to get back to a point where our community feels safe trusting their neighborhood family."

Spurred by grandmother's community service

Protesting and holding signs was not initially part of the plan for Jewels of the Future, which welcomes all girls ages 8 to 18.

It was inspired by Angela Daniels — Turner's mother and Wallace's grandmother. Daniels, who died of breast cancer when Wallace was young, was the kind of person who went out of her way to support others.

"She was a pillar in the community and prided herself on doing things such as sending my mom with an extra lunch for hungry students," Wallace said. "She was the woman who had her family, community and friends' backs. We created this program in her memory."

The mother-daughter duo — Turner is president, Wallace vice president — formed the nonprofit in 2018. The goal was to "give young girls a safe space, to be themselves," Wallace said. Providing them opportunities to also "say what they feel" led the nonprofit to eventually add social activism to its mission, she said.

"Things honestly evolved that way," she said, as inviting group members to "rallies and engagements encourages the ladies to speak up and make a change."

Wallace is a former student of EVAC founder Amy Donofrio, so pushing for that program to be reinstated was a natural cause for the group. She was "passionate" about the Duval County school system reassigning Donofrio from Riverside High School — and then not renewing her contract — after displaying a Black Lives Matter flag over her classroom door.

The EVAC Movement helped youth channel personal tragedies, such as losing siblings to murder, having family members incarcerated and witnessing shootings, into positive change. They called themselves EVAC because of their collective efforts to escape hopeless situations. They worked on juvenile-justice advocacy, met with local leaders about being Black youth in Jacksonville and, in Washington, spoke at Senate committee hearings and a White House roundtable and met with members of Congress. They also won a national Harvard contest for promoting kindness on campus.

In 2017 the program ended after the school system failed to designate class time for it to continue.

"That caused viral conversation," Wallace said. "She was … bullied out of the classroom. It was terrible."

Donofrio is currently fighting to keep her teacher's license.

"We normally try to keep our hand in relevant issues that plague any part of our community negatively, period," Wallace said. "We believe people have the right to true freedom, which means love, religion and human rights."

Sometimes they also encounter people who disagree.

When the group fought for Duval County to rechristen schools named after Confederate leaders, "we had to prepare our girls mentally for the themes of racism, prejudice and hypocrisy," she said. "It wasn't easy exposing them to hearing elders talk about why they were less than or not needed, but we ultimately felt it was necessary to raise these issues with our girls that are right here in the city and this lit a fire underneath them to make a change."

On the mentoring side, Jewels of the Future provides programs that teach the girls about a range of topics from financial literacy to mental and physical wellness and more. They learn about agriculture and climate change through volunteer trips to locally owned farms and community clean-ups and, this year, planting their own gardens.

The nonprofit also has taught the girls to support youth education by establishing an "unbanned book club" in a community barber shop and joined the 2022 nationwide unbanned book tour hosted by law professor Kimberle Crenshaw. In partnership with the Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program, they learned the history of Iraq and experiences of its students, and have joined the nationwide unbanned book tour hosted by Crenshaw.

"We teach our girls valuable skills," Wallace said.

Also they show them what their futures could look like by introducing them to successful women. "We bring in ladies with local-owned businesses and give our girls insight on how to become their own girl boss," she said.

Jewels graduate learned to 'be the change'

Former Jewels of the Future member Janasia Phillips, now 24 and in graduate school, is becoming one of those successful women. She joined because Wallace was her best friend. What she learned, she said, was invaluable.

"She told me she wanted to give back to the community that raised us and I was on board from there," Phillips said.

She remembers the joy of helping children at back-to-school and Christmas events, which also taught her leadership skills. "In those moments, you can see you spark a change in their day. It may only be for that moment or it could inspire them for a lifetime and that's what matters," she said.

The activism taught her about "being the change we wish to see in the world," Phillips said, and helped her find her voice as a woman and as a Black woman.

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"When you see something that could be improved but decide not to speak out, you do as much harm as those inflicting microaggressions and injustice," Phillips said. "We have so much power in our voice, or lack thereof, through silent, peaceful protest … I can spark change in the lives of so many people, and Jewels genuinely polish their girls to do so."

They encourage girls and women to be the change and give back while also helping them become the women they're meant to be, she said. "Those lessons I could never part with."

bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4109

JEWELS OF THE FUTURE

To donate, volunteer at events or get more information, call (904) 701-8804, email jewelsofthefuture1960@gmail.com or go to jewelsofthefuture.com. The nonprofit's mailing address is in care of the Cutz, Linez and Trimz barber shop, 6050 Moncrief Road, Suite 10, Jacksonville 32209.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville nonprofit builds girls with social activist voices