Welcome to Precious Sunflowers
Denise M. Mitchell, Executive Director
Who We Are
An organization dedicated to helping families
We provide immediate financial and non financial support to families who have lost a child to gun violence.
An organization dedicated to increase anti bullying awareness
We gladly provide support to any community or faith based organization who seeks to increase awareness about anti bullying strategies. We seek to begin the conversation and stop the bullying.
An organization dedicated to teaching social emotional learning skills to children
We are dedicated to teaching and promoting social emotional learning skills to children to increase self esteem and reduce social isolation. We are available to set up a table at your event, host a workshop, conduct training or speak to parents/caregivers.
My Story
I am a sensitive sunflower. Sunflowers are my signature flower because they always look for the sunlight for energy, nourishment and I believe their sense of self. What happens when the sun isn’t visible through the clouds? What happens if the sky is dark? Sunflowers then look to each other to draw sustenance from each other. This means that sunflowers must always keep a well of energy, nourishment on deck to help each other. I have been both the energy giver as an educator and an energy seeker as a bullied child.
I had a very hard time adjusting to my early years of schooling due to crippling social anxiety, low self-esteem, being the new kid, and a lot of misperceptions by others; all of which set the foundation for a bully’s target. I was bullied. When I say bullied, I mean, verbally, mentally, and occasionally physically. Each day that I arrived at school, I had to assess the terrain to see if I would have friends that day or not – a particular set of people set the tone for a miserable 2nd half of elementary school, junior high school and high school brought its own set of challenges in terms of finding my place. I distinctly remember being pushed into a full garbage can in 4thgrade while at recess. I shed my usual tears but there was also an anger that was beginning to well up inside of me. In high school, a teacher sensed the urgency of my word choices in an essay when I was 16 and dragged out of me the suicidal ideations I was beginning to have because it was just too hard to be a student. Today, as I read about school shootings, angry children, and inept social emotional behaviors in children, I realized that I had the potential to exert violent tendencies because of being bullied. I could have been part of the 87% of persons who project violence toward the bullies – with a gun. I often thought about how I would get revenge against every single person who made me cry, who nurtured my deep sadness and low self-esteem, who made me want to disappear.
However, I stand before you today as a woman of faith, a woman working every day to develop a healthy self-esteem, a woman full of gratitude for the safe spaces I was finally able to find and thrive in. From church to Girl Scouts to graduating from an HBCU, I was blessed to find my tribe and learn along the way that it’s okay to be sensitive, it’s okay to be emotional, it’s okay to not be okay and most of all it’s okay to be me. As an adult I always have those nagging thoughts and fears of inadequacy in the back of my mind, but I have learned to push through in the face of trauma, disaster, and the vicissitudes of life.
The Precious Sunflowers Nonprofit is the result of finding a safe space in my community and in my educational setting. We seek to address the root causes of bullying – poverty, trauma, and lack of social emotional skills in school and community settings. If we can prevent one young person from making permanent choices based on temporary circumstances, then I have done my job as a sunflower. We all know the school shooter is a school shooter way before they walk in with an AR-15, it starts when they feel isolated, terrified, alone, angry, and hopeless. Precious Sunflowers seek to be the givers of energy, nourishment, and most of all light…
Our impact thus far has been to:
a. Provide school supplies for students in a third-grade public school in East New York, Brooklyn. The public school is in a low-income high need area.
b. Distributed (5) $50 gift cards to families in East New York as a contribution to Thanksgiving dinner and assist with food insecurity.
c. Donated funds to a family shortly after the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
d. Donated money to a church in South Jamaica who provides turkeys to their community for Thanksgiving to address food insecurity.
e. Donated funds to an advocacy group in Uvalde, Texas that seeks to promote gun sense laws and school safety following the tragic events of May 24th.
f. Donated toys to the 21 families affected by the Uvalde tragedy.
g. Created an anti-bullying program that can be tailored to a community group, church, or school audience.
h. Offer workshops in healing from trauma
Visit our website at https://precioussunflowers.godaddysites.com today to learn about our anti-bullying program and healing trauma workshop offerings.
Call me today at (646) 544-1651 to schedule a workshop, a meeting or to “table” an event!