THE philanthropist

Hey! I’m Kimba, but to my students, I’m Aunty Kimba. And serving students has been one of the best journeys of my life.

The title Aunty is one I encourage my students to use…it awards a level of familiarity but garners eons of respect. Everybody loves a great aunty! Students realize very early on that I’m there because I care, that I want them to succeed, and not because someone pays me to be there. In fact, as the President/Founder of CollegePATH, I have never collected a salary. Nothing wrong with that in the world of non-profit, but it wasn’t the goal for me. I simply asked God to help me make the difference in one young man’s or woman’s life…and in the last decade, I’ve been able to positively affect hundreds. What a blessing.

In 2006, after years of putting God to voicemail, I finally picked up the “call”. I had a successful career in corporate America and had recently become a mom. But somehow, I felt this nagging, a feeling of being unfulfilled. After much prayer, I soon realized that serving others would be my legacy and it’s what was missing in my life. Who would I serve? What was I purposed to do? In the words of President Obama, I would become the solution I needed so many years before…a counselor to bright, brown, and motivated students who wanted desperately to be the first in their families to go to college.

College was the single most important decision in my life. Ok scratch that…the privilege and honor of attending Spelman College was. My experience at Spelman created the bold, fearless, change agent of a woman you see today. Ok scratch that…my amazing mom had a ton to do with that as well. ☺️