Let's Get To Work.

Marcelle Perry-Rhone is a veteran youth and community development professional who has been dedicated to supporting the positive, sustainable advancement of youth and entrepreneurs within the Black community for over 40 years. She is an experienced community advocate and engagement specialist who has held management positions responsible for marketing, public relations, fundraising, and designing development programs in local organizations such as Girls, Inc., Better Family Life and Beyond Housing. Her efforts have resulted in millions of dollars in grant funding for local school districts and community-based organizations that provided for successful programmatic initiatives resulting in hundreds of youth who are now pursuing careers, expansion of entire organizations and the start-up of many business ventures for budding entrepreneurs.

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Most recently, Ms. Perry-Rhone managed the growth and development of the Better Family Life Community Outreach Department, expanding the departments funding nearly 1000%, increasing staff from 7 to 28 and implementing nationally recognized programs in violence reduction and youth diversion in 4 years. The work at BFL included grant writing and reporting, design and monitoring of data collection systems, staff training, program design and external evaluation oversight.

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Marcelle is a longtime advocate of urban and underserved students and has successfully worked alongside school districts in three different capacities; as a School Social Worker, Educational Consultant and Community Learning Center Director. Perry-Rhone coordinated the Normandy-Wellston School Districts Consortium and directed the Heart of Our Community Learning Centers, a federally funded 21st Century Community Learning Center Grant which was responsible for significant academic and behavioral improvement for over 40% of the students who attended.  The ‘Heart’ produced 10 of the 21 minority youth presenting advanced research projects at the National Association of Academies of Science Annual Conference for two consecutive years. Marcelle co-led the development of a statewide coalition to transition 21st Century Learning Center funding from the federal to the state level, garnered gap funding and designed a community collaboration to transition specific activities to the Normandy/Wellston community. Career highlights include:

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Family and Community Development

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• Designed parent engagement projects for school districts

• Coordinated family life development retreats and women’s conferences

• Provided therapeutic counseling to high risk families

• Designed successful positive parenting program for high risk teen mothers

• Designed and coordinated Youth Service Network for small  economically disadvantaged community

• Developed a network of investors to connect business expansion opportunities and emerging entrepreneurs

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Youth Development

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• Designed and implemented youth development programs including funding acquisition, coordinating marketing strategies and evaluation efforts for local community development organizations.

Mentoring (gender based, personal development, career, business, STEM)

Accelerated Learning Initiatives

Entrepreneurship/Employment Readiness

Leadership (peer, family, community)

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• Organized Youth Development Conferences, including resource acquisition and marketing/public relations activities (125 – 500 youth)

• Conducted Specialized workshops,  for groups of 25 – 250 ( CBO’s, LEA’s, PAC’s)

• Designed, directed and coordinated after-school and community education programs for schools/school districts of  95 -  6000 students