Northwest Arkansas black women leaders unite for service and connection

Members of the new Northwest Arkansas chapter of The Links, Inc. stand together as they're introduced Saturday during the chapter's chartering luncheon at Embassy Suites in Rogers.
Members of the new Northwest Arkansas chapter of The Links, Inc. stand together as they're introduced Saturday during the chapter's chartering luncheon at Embassy Suites in Rogers.

Members of a new service and social organization for African-American women in Northwest Arkansas say it will help make the region a better home for minority groups and the overall public.

The local chapter of The Links Inc., a nationwide group that began in 1946, formally opened Saturday with about 30 members. Friendship among its members and service to others are its core principles, chapter president-elect Phyllis Harris said Wednesday.

The Links

The Links, Inc. is a service and social organization of African-American women and counts more than 200 chapters. Other nearby chapters include:

• Little Rock

• Pine Bluff

• Tulsa

• Oklahoma City

• Greater Kansas City

• Memphis, Tennessee

• Dallas

Source: The Links

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"Through those bonds, we'll be connected to do incredible things," said Harris, who works as senior vice president of legal operations at Walmart. "The service component is very intentional, and it's very focused on having measurable impacts."

The Links counts around 15,000 members nationally who are community leaders and volunteers, according to its website. The groups says it aims its volunteer work in five directions: children, the arts, health and human services, national needs and international needs.

Northwest Arkansas members for the past year or so have worked together on several community projects, basically as if they were already a full-fledged chapter, Harris said. She described the overall goal as serving an African-American community in ways that also enrich the entire area and have long-term effects.

"We have very high expectations, and it's not a one-time thing," Harris said.

Harris said members sponsored Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art's "Soul of a Nation" exhibit of works by black artists and an event at Fayetteville's Art Ventures gallery for kids. They partnered with Saving Grace, a transitional housing group in Rogers for young women who've aged out of foster care or other homes, to provide professional clothing for jobs.

The group also provided several racially diverse dolls for the Children's Advocacy Center of Benton County. The center helps kids who've experienced abuse and their families for free, often with play-based therapy that can help them say what happened to them and how they feel, director Natalie Tibbs said.

Clients are more and more racially diverse each year, and "it absolutely makes it easier" for children using the dolls in therapy if those dolls look more like them, Tibbs said. The center also provides bilingual staff members for all sessions that need them.

"We just are so grateful we do have such a giving community," she said.

To keep the momentum going on that project, The Links might check in to see if the dolls are helping or what else the center might need, Harris said. The center's wish list includes personal hygiene products and clothing for families in need, games and household items, Tibbs said.

Harris said the group in its first official year would start up a mentorship and anti-bullying project with the Yvonne Richardson Community Center in Fayetteville.

Besides the outward service, she said the group can also build connections among women who otherwise might not encounter each other.

The region's African-American community is relatively small, around 13,000 in 2016 by census estimates, in contrast with much larger black populations in the center and southeast parts of the state. A Northwest Arkansas branch of the 109-year-old NAACP, which fights racial discrimination around the country, opened in 2013.

"I actually don't have a lot of opportunities to partner with other women like me," said Sheerah Davis, chief operations officer for the Fayetteville marketing firm Mitchell and a CASA of Northwest Arkansas board member who joined The Links' local group last fall. She moved from Nashville six years ago and didn't know much about Northwest Arkansas, except that it wasn't as diverse.

"It allows me that time to connect, you know, make friends, learn," Davis said of the new organization. "A lot of these women are very accomplished."

Harris said membership is by invitation and so far includes women in Benton, Washington and Sebastian counties. Everyone is a transplant from somewhere else, coming for work or to stick with family or some other reason, she added. The Links could fill something of a vacuum for them.

"For a place to feel like home, you have to feel connected to the culture," she said. "We're here, we love Northwest Arkansas, and we want to stay. We want this to be and feel like home for us."

Harris and Davis said they felt a sense of responsibility and honor from needing to measure up to The Links' tradition and history. Members from around the country inducted the new chapter at a Saturday luncheon in Rogers. It joins chapters in Little Rock and Pine Bluff.

"Now I feel like I'm ready to serve," Davis said. "I think a lot of us are just, 'Let's get going.'"

NW News on 04/29/2018

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