She Saw It Before I Did

There are people who enter your life and completely change its trajectory.

Rashanda Jenkins is one of those people for me.

Rashanda is responsible for the career that feeds my soul today.

In 2016, I was invited to serve on the board of a community action agency.

Because I always want to make myself useful, I began looking for the place where I could contribute most meaningfully.

That search led me to the Head Start Policy Council meetings, where I served as the board representative.

I immediately felt at home among the families.

During those Policy Council meetings, I watched Head Start leaders and team members work directly with families as true partners.

They shared information, listened to families’ perspectives, and included them in meaningful decisions about the programs serving their children.

They also scaffolded advocacy in real time, equipping families with the knowledge, language, and strategies they could use to participate more fully in their children’s learning experiences—both within Head Start and beyond it.

I was fascinated because family engagement was my area of research.

I had spent years studying how programs could work in partnership with families while strengthening their capacity to support and advocate for their children.

Now I was watching it happen in real life.

This was family engagement extending beyond theory and taking its purest form in practice.

Head Start was walking its talk.

And Rashanda was one of the people facilitating those meetings.

Month after month, I returned.

I listened.

I learned.

I engaged with the families.

And Rashanda was paying attention.

In 2017, she approached me and asked whether I would speak to approximately 25 teachers at one of the organization’s Head Start centers.

She did not give me a prescribed topic.

She simply asked me to create a message from my heart.

So I wrote the Acorn Story.

I walked into that room carrying a basket filled with acorns and told my own Head Start story.

By that time, I had delivered many presentations, but I had never shared a message that moved an audience in that way.

People cried.

Afterward, Head Start team members came up to me and shared their own stories.

Some saw themselves in mine.

Some saw their children.

Others saw new possibilities for the children and families they served.

The depth of their response caught me completely off guard.

When I mentioned it to Rashanda, she helped me understand what had happened.

She explained that Head Start hires from within.

Many members of the teaching team had once been Head Start parents and shared lived experiences with the families they now served.

That revelation made me love Head Start even more.

This was not simply an organization providing services to families.

Head Start was creating pathways for people to build purposeful careers while giving back to the very community that had once poured into them.

But Rashanda was not finished planting seeds.

In 2018, She encouraged me to submit a conference proposal to the Virginia Head Start Association’s Health Institute.

I did.

Dawn Ault, the association’s executive director, happened to be in the room during my workshop.

When it ended, she walked directly up to me and invited me to serve as the keynote speaker for the Virginia Head Start Association’s 2020 Annual Conference.

That same year, Rashanda encouraged me to develop a proposal packet for the National Head Start Association’s 2018 Parent and Family Engagement Conference in Orlando, Florida.

I submitted it.

It was accepted.

And for the first time, I presented at a National Head Start Association conference.

Eight years later, I returned to Orlando for that same conference—this time to stand on the national stage and deliver the Acorn Story.

The story that began in a room of approximately 25 teachers.

The story I wrote because Rashanda Jenkins asked me to speak from my heart.

When I stood on that stage, Rashanda was there with me in spirit.

Her discernment was in that story.

Her encouragement was in that moment.

Her fingerprints were on every branch that had grown from the seed she helped me recognize.

Last night, nearly a decade after she invited me into that first room, I had the opportunity to stand beside her and say thank you.

You do not grow from an acorn into a mighty, mighty oak tree alone.

It truly takes a Top-Notch Village™.

Thank you, Rashanda, for being part of mine.

Thank you for recognizing greatness in me that I had not yet discovered for myself.

Thank you for planting seeds, opening doors, and continuing to point me toward opportunities that allowed my purpose to take root.

Because you saw me, my branches of service now spread wide, and my roots of commitment run deep.

And I will never forget that part of my origin story began with you. ❤️🌰🌱🌳 #MyVillageIsTopNotch #TheAcornMovement

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Dr. El Brown is an early childhood keynote speaker, trainer, and engagement strategist who partners with Head Start, early childhood programs, and children and family service organizations to strengthen family engagement, support professional development, and build Top-Notch Villages™ where children and families thrive. ❤️🌰🌱🌳☀️

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