By Matt Scalici

Special to Black Belt Community Foundation

SELMA – When Felecia Jones left her hometown of Livingston , in Sumter County , she thought she'd be leaving it for good.

After graduating from Tuskegee University with a degree in accounting, Jones accelerated quickly in her career with a choice internship with the Cargill Corporation that led to a job in Minneapolis . For Jones, opportunity and success, at least at first, lay outside Alabama 's Black Belt.

“I have three siblings but none of them live near home anymore,” Jones said. After college, her siblings moved to Boston , Miami and xxxx, Calif. , for their careers, splitting the family apart and making Jones hope for a better economy for her hometown. “There were just no jobs for people with their level of education,” Jones said.

When Jones herself moved away to Minneapolis , she endured a culture, and weather, shock. “Growing up in Alabama , I had seldom seen snow,” she said. “It was quite an adventure, but one I would not trade for anything.”

Jones enjoyed her venture North, but she eventually tired of the cold and moved to Memphis to take a job as an accounting supervisor. She welcomed the change of scenery but still felt something was missing.

“I liked my work, but I was searching for something more fulfilling,” she said. “I enjoyed traveling but the job itself just wasn't very satisfying.”

After three years, Jones took a position back home in Livingston with the Sumter County Industrial Development Authority, which promotes economic development in the Black Belt, something closer, personally and professionally, to Jones' heart.

“I thought it was important to help pave the way for educated people to stay and work in the Black Belt if they choose,” said Jones.

In 1995, Jones was asked to attend a meeting for what would become the Black Belt Regional Steering Committee. After a trip to Blacksburg , Va. , to take a look at a similar group and how it operated, Jones felt a calling to be a part of this new effort in the Black Belt.

Jones interviewed to become a member of the board of directors and won the job, steering the group toward its eventual realization as the Black Belt Community Foundation in May of 2004.

Today, she is the executive director of the Black Belt Community Foundation, working on behalf of improvement in a 12-county area, including Sumter , her home county. She now had the dream job, one that could help bring resources to her home area.

“Many organizations have made promises to improve the Black Belt,” said Jones. “Some of those promises have been empty.” They were motivated more by the proposers' own agendas than what the community really wanted and needed, she said. The biggest difference between the BBCF's approach and previous ones, she said, is that “We will listen to the people.”

During her time with the Black Belt Community Foundation, Jones has not only seen $120,000 put back into the community, but she has also seen the community respond by investing generously in the foundation.

A major fund-raising effort is now under way and the staff and board are working with a firm that specializes in fund raising for community foundations.

And this, she says, is only the beginning. Led by the BBCF's motto, “Taking what we have to make what we need,” Jones and a hard-working board are beginning to build a steady stream of giving from inside and outside the region to address not just the problems of economy and education, but to lift the morale and spirit of an entire region by involving people from all walks of life in a variety of sponsored projects supported and proposed by the very people who are benefiting from them.

“We feel that the only way to transform the community is by listening to the voices of the community and engaging them in the work to improve themselves,” said Jones. The BBCF, she said, will welcome with open arms any suggestions, and also any help, to improve the region.

Jones also believes one of the keys to the success of the foundation has been the tone of the organization. “It's not always what you say but how you say it,” said Jones. “You let people know we're all on the same side working together. We never act condescending. We want to treat everyone with the respect that those of us who happen to hold leadership positions want to be treated.”

The BBCF is not acting like conquering heroes “coming in to save the day. We are just facilitating lots of good things that were already happening here,” she said.

It is that philosophy that Jones and the BBCF board believe will help make the Black Belt Community Foundation the strong, progressive force that the Black Belt has been looking for.