- January 4, 2026
Sheila Jordan is a girl's girl.
She loves being a girl. She loves supporting girls. And, she loves working to empower girls.
"Girls are just fun," Jordan said. "Our needs are unique, but so are our gifts."
Jordan became the executive director at the Pace Center for Girls Volusia-Flagler in 2020. But it was in 2018 that she discovered Pace and its mission to help girls reach a path to graduation through academics, counseling and life skills training.
Back then, Jordan had been looking for a career change after spending about seven years working in state government in Louisiana. Her kids were older, and Jordan was thinking about what she wanted her future to look like, and she decided she'd like to return to the nonprofit world and move to Florida.
Jordan had spent 18 years of her career working with nonprofits — most of which she spent with City Year, an education organization that she said is like the domestic version of the Peace Corps. During her time with City Year, Jordan lived in South Africa for two years, and after Hurricane Katrina, she moved to Louisiana to help with relief efforts through the nonprofit.
In 2009, Jordan decided to start her own organization, Esteem Youth Programs. Her nonprofit provided camps for elementary school students that revolved around character development. After a while, though, the need for stable employment brought her to work in state government.
But it wasn't the kind of work she wanted to define her legacy.
"I did not like the pace of state government," Jordan said. "I feel like everything moves so, so slow and I also felt like I was too far away from where the work was happening. I always remembered how tactile I was with the work in my time in City Year and I just wanted that back."
Then she discovered Pace and was hired to be the executive director of the new center in Citrus County. When the director for the Volusia-Flagler location retired, Pace asked her to assume the position.
People often say their work is meaningful, Jordan said. Others say it's rewarding.
For Jordan, the work Pace does is affirming.
"It reminds me of the girl that I was and it gives me an opportunity to celebrate the girl that I am, and also to respect the girl I'm becoming," Jordan said. "That's the work we do with girls every day."
Jordan was nominated for a Standing O by Kathleen Trutschel, a past president with the Ormond-by-the-Sea Lions Club and 2025 Standing O. She recalled hearing Jordan speak about Pace Center's mission during a club meeting some time back, and it made an impact on her.
It's important that girls in need in the community have different outlets to help them, Trutschel said.
"It will help them get a better outlook and help them progress better in life," she said.
The Pace Center of Volusia-Flagler is currently working on a transformation of its own. Housed in a 100-year-old schoolhouse at 208 Central Ave. in Ormond Beach, the Pace Center is pursuing the construction of a $6.2 million new campus, slated to span 12,000 square feet at 410 Clyde Morris Blvd.
The new building, Jordan said, will allow them to serve 85 girls at a time. In their current building, they can only help about 50.
[Pace] will help them get a better outlook and help them progress better in life." —Kathleen Trutschel, 2025 Standing O
Jordan said she wants Pace to be known as a gathering place for girls and those who love girls; those who understand or wanted to understand girls and were willing to do what it took to help them be successful.
That success, Jordan explains, can come in the form of self-confidence, academic success and feeling good about oneself despite experienced challenges and traumas.
It's about seeing themselves on the other side of whatever challenge they're experiencing. Jordan recalled a piece of advice her grandmother once told her.
"I was upset because somebody was talking about me and she said to me, 'People of integrity expect to be believed, and when they're not, they let time prove them right,'" Jordan said. "... When I'm facing challenges that look opposite of what I want, often think of that and just say, 'In time, I can work my real picture.'"
Jordan is the oldest of three daughters of a single mom who worked multiple jobs. Growing up, the academic expectations were high. Her mom wanted to make sure her daughters went to college and had a bright future, and it was thanks to the resources in their community that Jordan said they were able to enjoy many of the experiences she did as a kid — from going to summer camps to cheerleading.
"I think like most young people, especially African American girls ... in Columbus, Ohio, if you don't have significant resources, it's easy to fall prey to a host of ills," Jordan said. "It just so happened that I experienced traumas that were not necessarily of my own doing, but it happened. I had to draw on my family's support and the community support to get through those."
That led to tutoring. Counseling. Mental health services.
Now she works for a nonprofit that offers those same supports to the group of people Jordan loves to celebrate and uplift.
Girls.
"We could never say in words what happens here," Jordan said. "We could not describe it in words. People might say it's transformational. People might say it's life-changing or all those sorts of words, but the reality is that friendships happen here. Learning happens here. Mistakes happen here — all kinds of self-awareness and things like that happen."
