The backbone of the Foundation is Executive Director, Terri Florio. Without her dedication, hard work and devotion; we would not be the organization we are today. She helped build the Foundation from the ground up, bringing 25 years of hope and change to the Jacksonville community. Her kindness and generosity made the pursuit of dreams and an education possible for thousands of low-income students. Learn more about the humble beginnings of MWYF and Terri's experience in serving hope and changing lives for the past 25 years:
Q: What has been your favorite memory with Mal over the years?
One of the most impactful memories with Mal is after we met with Mayor Delany at the time and Paul Vance who was the chief legal counsel of the Jaguars and Pam Paul who the the Mayor’s Chief of Children’s services in the city a the time. We just talked about the concept of building the youth center and the tennis complex and we sat out in the parking lot of Emmett Reed and was just looking at the empty field which is now the youth center and we just kind of talked about it, we said “you know if we go forward with this we can’t really go back”, and Mal just looked at me and said, “yeah let’s do it.” That’s probably not necessarily my favorite memory but my most impactful memory with Mal and we never really looked back from there we just kind of kept going forward.
Q: What do you feel is the biggest accomplishment of the Foundation so far?
I think there are two really big accomplishments that the Foundation has, one is the transformation of the neighborhood with first the Youth Center and tennis complex and then the Teen Center. But I think the biggest accomplishment of the Foundation is the hundreds of kids that have the trajectory of their lives changed. They’ve been able to experience things outside of their immediate neighborhood. They’ve been able to go on trips really all across the country. They’ve been able to go to college and come out of college debt-free. They’ve been able to learn about different careers that they may not have been able to learn about without MWYF and they’ve been able to grow up and go on to be successful contributing members of society.
Q: What was the moment you realized how much of an impact the Foundation has on the community?
I think the moment I realized how much of an impact the Foundation has on the community was the first time we opened the doors to the Youth Center and how much of a waiting list we had when we opened that building and again when we opened the Teen Center over here. To see how much both campuses really transformed the community and how much it transformed the neighborhood as a whole.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share?
We couldn’t do this work without all of our sponsors, donors, volunteers, and professional staff. So really just a huge thank you to everyone from day one until today who has contributed a minute of their time or a dollar of their resources to support everything that we’re doing here. It doesn’t go unnoticed and it’s incredibly important to the work that we do and the success that we have.
