CELEBRATING TWENTY-FIVE INCREDIBLE YEARS EMBRACING GIRL POWER

The Embrace Girls Foundation celebrates twenty-five years empowering young women to live the life of their dreams.

MIAMI, FL, UNITED STATES, July 14, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Embrace Girls Foundation, a Florida based 501(c)3 charity, will mark its twenty-fifth birthday this year with an enchanting classroom makeover and blockbuster concert - and by continuing to give Miami/Dade and Broward county schoolgirls the tools to choose their futures.

Founder and CEO Velma Lawrence created the organization in December 2000 after meeting with the late Florida 17th District Congresswoman Carrie Meek, who was impressed with the services a journalist group Lawrence belonged to was providing to girls in her district.

“Growing up in an under-served Miami community I never saw career professionals, dignitaries, or celebrities I could copy,” said Lawrence. “I’m a strong believer in the adage if they can’t see it, they can’t be it, so we plant the seed."

Lawrence gave Embrace a singular mission - find and work with at risk girls and help them develop the strong academic, social and life skills needed to create successful lives.
Thousands of young women have taken part in the program and gone on to college and professional careers.
Lillian Dukes has been an Embrace parent since daughter Paris was a second grader. Paris is now a Florida State University senior majoring in Information Technology with a minor in Computational Science.

“Paris was struggling before she became a part of Embrace,” Dukes said. "I had to come to her school nearly every day because she was constantly getting into fights and causing trouble.
“Thanks to Embrace she learned that real strength doesn’t come from being aggressive,” Dukes said. “It comes from how you carry yourself.”

Briana Lewis joined as a second grader and is now Embrace’s Director of Operations and Program Management. "I can be what I want to be if I work hard and study hard is what was instilled in me,” Lewis said. Lawrence hired her while she was a high school junior and Lewis has remained with the program even after earning a nursing degree from Florida Atlantic University.

Embrace’s comprehensive programs include tutoring, social, emotional, and life skills training, as well as etiquette, time management, financial literacy, personal hygiene, health and nutrition, test prep, meditation and yoga..

Community service is a bedrock as well. The girls have packed and distributed Thanksgiving meals to families, fed the homeless and provided relief packages for communities devastated by natural disasters including a recent donation to Mission Mules Foundation to aide in the search and recovery of the many girls and others affected by the Kerr County, Texas floods.

Social skills training is a key component of the organization's mission. Their signature tea parties and forums have attracted a Who’s Who of accomplished people, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, actors Will Smith, Tiffany Haddish, Janet Hubert and Keke Palmer, Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz, talk show host Sherri Shepard, former Florida First Lady Columba Bush and the Harlem Globetrotters.
“Embrace girls can talk to anyone about anything,” said etiquette expert Sharon Jackson, founder and CEO of Amazing Grace Enrichment and Social Development company. “Education will get you in the room, but what will keep you there is your social behavior.”

Embrace’s impact goes beyond etiquette skills training.
Sharon Abdullah-Alli, Embrace site director at Arcola Lake Elementary, said the school improved to an A rating from a C in part because of a rise in test scores by program members.
“Our certified teachers provide one-on one and small group tutorial settings,” Abdullah-Ali said, and homework is completed, checked and corrected before parent pickup each school day. “We track attendance, behavior and grades every nine weeks, sooner if needed,."

To mark the anniversary supporters Steven Gurowitz, president of Interiors by Steven G., and Interior Designer and Lifestyle expert Martin Amado collaborated on a major clubhouse makeover at the group’s Arcola Lake after-school site.

Amado has done several Embrace classrooms designs over the last 19 years. During the Covid pandemic lockdown he and Lawrence visited several students’ homes to help them create study spaces, complete with desks and school supplies.
Amado said the Embrace logo was central to his clubhouse design theme.
“We did a beautiful wall wrap with an outdoors garden theme,” Amado said. “I incorporated the logo in the design to create a whimsical, enchanting space so that when the girls walk in they feel like they’re walking into a special environment.”

Gurowitz sponsored the work, adding elegant high end touches.
City Furniture company contributed kid friendly furnishings.
"The personal attention Martin and Steven put into this project is priceless,” said Lawrence. “The girls are going to be in shock when they see the reveal."
For five years Gurowitz has also sponsored the organization's popular benefit concert series, with seven sold-out shows.

The 25th year anniversary fundraiser, scheduled for Dec 14th at the Casino at Dania Beach, features Deniece Williams, Karyn White, Cherrelle, and Michel’le. Songstress Regina Belle will host.
“The Embrace team keeps the girls very busy so fundraising is crucial to sustain services,” Gurowitz said. “I’ve watched them grow, watched their grades improve, watched them become young women. Like me, many of them come from nothing.
"There's no other organization doing what Embrace Girls does, not on the level, scale or scope they do,” Gurowitz said.
“I'm very honored to be a part of it."

Velma Lawrence
Embrace Girls Foundation Inc.
+1 877-466-4769
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