Our Story

Mozelle Cooper, my grandma, passed away on December 29, 2018.  The idea of dedicating the foundation in her honor began to take shape in my head while I was writing her eulogy. She mattered so very much to me, and this is my way of making sure that people remember the best parts of her and what she valued. She was kind, charitable – and did not shy away from telling everyone that she loved them.  

Grandma was a simple person.  She never had a lot of material possessions; she didn’t value things like that.  She readily shared what she did have with anyone she thought needed it.  I never witnessed an ounce of greed or selfishness in her.  She treasured family, and the revolving door at her house reflected that: one of her children who might have been struggling and needed to come back home for a bit, grandchildren and great grandchildren she was babysitting and helped raise, or relatives simply dropping by to say hello and visit.

Grandma didn’t finish high school. The daughter of sharecroppers, she was raised on a farm and would spend her entire life on one.  She never had a traditional job and never remarried after being widowed at a young age. As far as I know, she lived off of my Grandfather’s roughly $800 a month social security check. She never drove a car. Instead, she had to catch rides to the grocery store from her family or people she knew through church.

Her home didn’t have central air and heat. We had box fans in the windows in the summer and heated with firewood in the winter.  I spent my summers with her, and we would often walk several miles each day to visit with her friends. Wherever we would go, she would always bring something: a five gallon bucket of vegetables she had grown in her huge garden, a freshly baked cake, or whatever type of food she had on hand.

To think of someone who only has $800 a month – and has to get a ride to the grocery store and, in turn, uses four or five dollars of those limited funds to bake cakes for others – is to think of someone who gives. How precious that four of five dollars must have been to her, and yet she turned it into love for others. That willingness, that sacrifice for the benefit of others, is what I consider true charity.

Grandma taught me my fundamentals: to read, to ride a bike, to do basic math. She was my center, a safe place and home in a childhood that was chaotic and often violent. Her unconditional love is the cornerstone on which all my achievements are built, and it is my mission to use this foundation to continue the legacy of that love and dedication, making other people’s lives better. Just as my Grandma did.