- April 24, 2024
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This year, the Pace Center for Girls Volusia-Flagler is celebrating 25 years of service, having transformed over 2,500 girls' lives in the local community.
For new Executive Director Sheila Jordan, it's a milestone that celebrates these girls becoming productive contributors to society despite the challenges they faced early in life. She's spent the last 30 years working in youth development and leadership, and Jordan brought nearly three decades of experience when she started at the local center in October 2020.
“Working with Pace has allowed me to continue to fulfill my passion of working with youth and empowering the next generation of girls and young women,” said Jordan, in a press release. “I’ve witnessed the influence our programs have on girls and their families and I look forward to expanding Pace’s presence in this community to reach even more girls.”
Jordan previously served as the executive director of the Pace Center for Girls of Citrus County since its opening in January 2019. She assumed her new role after the retirement of past Executive Director Georgia McCurdy.
The Ormond Beach Observer spoke with Jordan on Monday, March 29, regarding the future of Pace and the impact of her leadership, and here is what she had to say.
I always had that. I lived in communities like many of our Pace girls live in. We happened to live directly across the street from our recreation center, and so I volunteered a lot of times teaching classes at the recreation center and doing little fashion shows, and dance classes and cheerleading with girls at the recreation center. So, I’ve done this kind of work as a volunteer or as a youth worker in some form or fashion for most of my life.
Pace’s mission is about providing girls and young women an opportunity for a better future, through education, counseling and training and advocacy. I think for me, in my life, I deeply value education. I went back to college very, very late in life. In fact, 27 years after I graduated from high school did I finish my bachelor’s degree. I immediately went back for my MBA, so I’ve always valued education. I have taken many classes, certifications and all sorts of things in the middle of that, and have always stressed it with my own children.
I have used counseling myself and I promote it for folks who have the need. I think it’s a viable way of getting support when you’re going through situations. Everything that I think we do for the girls here at Pace, and all of the different pieces of Pace’s mission, are all things that I have used, and do use, throughout the course of my life when I have a need, so it really is an opportunity for me to walk the talk.
When you think about how many of our girls are in the lower socioeconomic status, the learning loss has been even worse, and the education gap that already existed is also even worse. Many of our students, not just here in Volusia, but across the state were at a disadvantage because, when we went to virtual learning, there was not the technology to support them being at home learning.
We in Volusia and across the state were scrambling and were fortunate to have partners and staff who figured out ways to get our girls technology and also get them connected...As we returned to the center is when we realized here in Volusia, our technology was done.
We had to replace all of the student technology in order to bring girls back into the center to do some of that learning recovery and to resume in-person counseling and all the things that are most valuable about the experience.
It was a big expense for us. The beautiful thing is we have most of the girls back in our center learning and beginning the process of learning recovery.
This is our 25th year here in Volusia-Flagler. I would love — and I’m working with our board to try to figure out — if there’s someway we can possibly mark our 25th year with some event that might allow us to bring people together in some reunion-type of a fashion, and a lot of that will be reliant on COVID and the restrictions.
Beyond that, it’s so important to us to figure out how we can create a foundation here that is sustainable enough and expandable enough that allows [the center] to serve any girl who needs our services. There are a number of things we need to put in place to make that happen. Right now, we serve a little over 50 girls at any given time, and there is a significantly greater need than that.
