Each child belongs to all of us and they will bring us a tomorrow in direct relation to the responsibility we have shown to them
- Dr. Maya Angelou
Our Mission and History
How We Began: A Journey of Love
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a disaster that left so many of our youngest and most vulnerable children without caregivers and operational schools, Susan L. Taylor—then the chief editor of Essence—founded Essence CARES to raise awareness about all of the children whose homes, friends, schools and even parents had been brutally swept away by the storm. They were hurting, often hungry and unhoused—and she knew the community had the ability to help. In 2006 the affiliate network began taking shape.
It wasn’t long before it became apparent that Katrina was but one kind of storm. There were so many others laying waste to our children’s hopes and dreams. Despite living in a nation home to more millionaires than any other in the world, it became evident that the poverty that stunned us after the hurricane hit, had been all too commonplace in this land of plenty.
In 2008, Taylor handed the reins of the magazine to a new generation of editors to focus fully on the development of what is now the National CARES Mentoring Movement, a pioneering, nationwide community-mobilization initiative whose mission is to end generational poverty by healing the traumas borne of its multiple, consequent harms foisted upon our children.
The multitudes of our babies have survived experiences that would whither most adults—but we have the tools needed to unearth their pain, help them heal it and begin the process of claiming the height of their dreams. Our work follows the best traditions of African American families, communities, moms, dads, aunties and uncles—and captured powerfully and simply by Dr. Maya Angelou:
Dr Maya Angelou and Oprah Winfrey read
Dr. Angelou's "A Pledge For Our Children"