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A video still of Dana Schmaltz ‘85, P ‘17, ‘20 delivering the Prize Day Chapel Address in May. His son, Bower, is a graduate of the Class of 2020.

PHOTO BY TIMOTHY SMITH

Style, Social Justice, and Sustainability

Whitney McGuire’s worlds are finally coming together

Whitney McGuire ’04, a lawyer with a distinctively artistic side, wants to hold businesses accountable for their environmental impact and for their policies and practices on equity and inclusion.

“I want folks to really understand that communities of color are the most impacted by our unsustainable behaviors, whether that's economic, social, or political,” she said, “resulting in climate crisis, resulting in a school-to-prison pipeline, resulting in a lot of vast, deep inequities.”

Along with building a solo law practice that focuses on creative entrepreneurs, including artists and musicians, Ms. McGuire for the past three years has been the cofounder of Sustainable Brooklyn, which works to bridge gaps between the mainstream sustainability movement and communities of color. Sustainable Brooklyn has been featured in various publications since its inception, most notably, Vogue magazine three times this year.

It’s a project that brings together Ms. McGuire’s deeply held beliefs, various interests, and expertise. And it’s also a victory of sorts — the hard-won result of years of personal financial instability, difficulty finding jobs, even bouts with homelessness.

Sustainable Brooklyn was born in 2017, when Ms. McGuire and Dominique Drakeford, introduced to each other by mutual acquaintances, met at a coffee shop in Brooklyn. "We ended up having a conversation where we were basically finishing each other's sentences,” Ms. McGuire said.

Ms. Drakeford, whose personal style also features prominently in her work, is a writer, youth advocate, and public speaker on equity-based sustainability. She holds a master’s degree in sustainable entrepreneurship and fashion from New York University.

Together, the two host educational events and community programs in Brooklyn, and work with brands and designers wishing to re-examine their environmental impact and racial-equity efforts. Recently, Sustainable Brooklyn partnered with Levi’s on the launch of their “Secondhand” label. In addition, the two have consulted for — or hosted events with — Apple, Eileen Fisher, Mara Hoffman, and ReFashion Week New York.

Amid the Black Lives Matter protests this summer following the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and many others, Sustainable Brooklyn caught the attention of Vogue, which highlighted the partners’ activist efforts, providing valuable publicity. Long before this summer’s racial unrest, however, Ms. McGuire knew the partners could help not only businesses, but the general public, make the connection between injustice, commerce, and the environment.

One of Sustainable Brooklyn’s first events was a “town hall” at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) in Brooklyn they thought might draw 10-15 people. “But it was packed, standing room only,” said Ms. McGuire, “with lots of Black and brown faces all wanting to know how they could contribute to the sustainability movement in their own way.”

Ms. McGuire arrived at St. George’s from Ohio in 2000 to what she called “a totally different world than I had ever, ever experienced.” She came to the school via the A Better Chance Program, which places underprivileged, academically gifted students into prestigious independent schools. She learned about boarding school from Jamila Frank ’02 and Ed Roberts ’01, who attended Fairview Elementary and Middle School, where her mother was a teacher.

Ms. McGuire first met her father when she was 4 and though her parents divorced shortly afterwards, both were supportive of her decision to attend boarding school. Together they drove her to the Hilltop. “It was the funniest trip ever,” she said, “and when we pulled up on campus, I saw the girls playing field hockey and I was like, ‘What are they doing? Why are these people in skirts?!”

At St. George’s she said, Director of Equity and Inclusion Dr. Kim Bullock and her family were the “anchoring” support she needed. “They really grounded me and made me feel like there was a piece of home — even in this weird space.”

Ms. McGuire was elected Senior Prefect in 2003 — and became beloved by the student body for helping to overturn the “no flip-flops” provision of the dress code.

After St. George’s, Ms. McGuire attended The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English. At GW, she was involved in a successful student-led effort to get Africana Studies declared as a minor. (Years later it was also declared a major.) And she became president of the NAACP group on campus as just a junior. “Social activism has always been a huge part of my interests,” she said. “I'm the child of a formerly incarcerated parent. I've just always been aware of the criminal legal system and how it impacts people.”

When Ms. McGuire graduated in 2008, the country was in a deep recession, a period that was particularly brutal for financial-aid students like Ms. McGuire. “I struggled with being unhoused probably every summer in academia,” she said. “I would be working one job and then another one wouldn't start until two months later, so I'd have to couch surf for two months. Or there was one time when my lease was ending in the summer and I was on a waitlist for another apartment, but that one didn't open up until a month later — so I was couch-surfing again.”

For a while she worked as a paralegal, but was laid off in 2009. “That was my first experience with joblessness, and it was eye-opening because while I felt free, I also felt like I had failed.“

Ms. McGuire, whose mother was both a teacher and a jazz singer, grew up in a household where full bands sometimes played in her basement. “I was just raised in an artistic household,” she said, “and art and design have been things that I've always pursued.”

McGuire at home with her husband, Nelson Nance, at home in Brooklyn.

She struggled to decide whether to apply to the Parsons School of Design — or law school. “My mom said law school would be the most beneficial use of my early-20s energy,” she said.

While she didn’t get into any of the law schools she originally applied to, she eventually landed at Catholic University in D.C. Within the first year, however, she said she thought she’d chosen the wrong career path until a professor recommended that she attend a symposium on fashion law at Fordham University. “So, I went up to New York, and I was like, ‘This is it!’ … It was like the perfect mixed bag of things that I was interested in.”

Back at Catholic, she partnered with law students at Howard University who had a fashion law club, joined their board, and became one of the first chairs of Fashion Law Week, a series of public forums to discuss legal issues and the laws that directly impact designers and consumers.

After law school, Ms. McGuire found herself jobless again. “And this time, I had to study for the bar,” she said. “Quite frankly, I was facing eviction, so I decided to move to New York. I knew I had a support system there and people I could stay with while I got on my feet.”

In New York, she worked at a furniture store, eventually passed the bar, and started developing her solo practice, mostly working with young musicians navigating nearly incomprehensible label contracts. Then came the offer of a lifetime: a prestigious job clerking for a federal judge in Las Vegas. While there for two years, she joined the boards of the Las Vegas Fashion Council and the Las Vegas Arts District, and started hosting workshops in design-industry sustainability.

When the clerkship was over, Ms. McGuire again found herself without employment. Married and pregnant, she and her husband, Nelson Nance, moved back to New York. Mr. Nance, an artist and writer, had scored a job working for the HBO show "Random Acts of Flyness." Ms. McGuire restarted her solo law practice.

Ms. McGuire said she feels like she has “things to prove” in the legal industry, but hopes Sustainable Brooklyn continues to take off.

Just this past November, Ms. McGuire and Ms. Drakeford began work on an online business directory that's modeled on “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” first published in 1936, which offered Black people advice on safe travel. “The idea is to create a ‘duty of care,’ a new set of standards that encompass the safety of Black consumers today,” Ms. McGuire said.

It’s a subject she knows her white friends don’t fully understand. “When I walk into a retail store, there are all types of considerations I have to make,” she said. “Do I present well enough to be someone that the shop owner or the front-door person would want to acknowledge?

“Basically, I'm always having to negotiate my humanity.”

Ms. McGuire, whose son Audwin is now 2½, hopes the safety standards and directory are ready to unveil this spring. “So, I'm juggling a lot,” she said, “but I'm in a place where I feel like all of the rejection that I've experienced and all of the perceived failures have led me to a career that is deeply fulfilling.

“At this point, I just feel like my story is my success.” n

With restaurants quiet and people hungry, Ellie Linen Low ’90 had an answer

More info: www.cookingforcommunity.org

Connecting Cooking & Community

When coronavirus brought much of the world to a halt in March 2020, communities struggling with food security encountered new challenges.

Soup kitchens were shut down and food banks were depleted during early surges in the pandemic. Additionally, local health and safety measures had a big impact on restaurants that were wrestling with the prospect of closing permanently due to limited operations.

It was the middle of the night when inspiration struck Ellie Linen Low ’90 with an idea on how to help those two communities of people in her hometown of Portland, Maine.

“There were resources going idle in the food industry world and there were increasing numbers of hungry people,” Linen Low said. "It occurred to me that if someone could connect these jobs effectively, we might have a new way to ignite existing resources and create channels where donations actually trickle down through multiple layers of impact.”

Together with a small group of volunteers, Linen Low created the organization Cooking for Community with a goal of raising money to buy meals from struggling restaurants to feed the hungry.

“We are very much an organization born out of crisis that prides itself on being all volunteer, nimble, reactive, fluid, and able to adapt with the times,” said Linen Low. “When we formed in March, no one would have ever anticipated the situation we would be in.”

MAINE MISSION

Since it started in April 2020, Cooking for Community has raised over $700,000 in contributions from hundreds of donors. The organization has partnered with 17 restaurants and 16 social service agencies across multiple regions in Maine, logging over 7,000 professional volunteer hours to deploy close to 60,000 hearty and nutritious meals.

Every $10 donated to Cooking for Community supports one meal, where partner restaurants receive a fee per meal to help with overhead costs like rent and utilities to meet their bottom lines and “keep their doors open.”

With a rich food scene and a strong network of local growers and fishers, a big part of Maine’s tourism economy is restaurant and food driven, according to Linen Low.

“Maine itself has one of the highest rates of food insecurity in the country,” said Linen Low. “There was a lot of awareness that food was no longer reaching the people who needed it.”

Cooked and prepared food wasn’t readily available for people who were quarantined at home or those who didn’t have access to cook raw ingredients, so the organization works to provide food to social service agencies that deliver to the underserved, like immigrants, the elderly, homeless, and mentally ill.

As restaurants were sitting idle, food resources previously going to those businesses no longer had a market during the pandemic. "To help, Cooking for Community encourages

Below from left to right: Leeward, a restaurant in Portland, Maine, which opened just three days before the pandemic hit, turned its inaugural efforts to feeding people as a Cooking for Community partner. / Cooks from Nura Restaurant in Portland, Maine, showcase meals going out for delivery. / A resident of Bath Housing, a low-income Housing Authority in Bath, Maine, collects soup made by Mama Mo’s in Portland.

partnering restaurants to purchase as much food as possible from local Maine growers and producers," Linen Low said. "The model Cooking for Community operates with, is Mainefocused, but could be implemented anywhere."

“We like to see ourselves as a model and an example, both regionally and nationally, of what’s possible when you think outside the box and you join resources together that might not have come together before.”

BUILDING A COMMUNITY

Linen Low first reached out to some friends with the idea of Cooking for Community and the group quickly mobilized to raise initial funding through pledges, getting a nonprofit, fiscal sponsor so contributions they received would be tax deductible. They also organized a pilot program with some initial restaurants and social service agencies.

With volunteers taking on tasks like logo and website design, database creation, accounting, and communication efforts, it truly is a community running Cooking for Community.

“This is very much a collaborative, holistic effort with dozens of people at the table. There were a lot of parts that got it going and kept it going,” Linen Low said. “It wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of people involved.”

Linen Low describes Cooking for Community as “something that is creative and new, born out of a time that no one has really ever experienced before.”

“We can’t plan for next month, never mind next year, in terms of what’s coming. Even during good times, restaurants operate on close margins. I think that there will be increasing numbers of hungry people for the foreseeable future. No one really knows what normal is going to look like.” n

He Transformed Admission

David L. Evans, a 14-year member of the St. George’s Board of Trustees from 1972-1986, retired from Harvard University this past summer after working in the university’s admission office for 50 years. He was awarded the 2020 Harvard Medal, honoring his extraordinary service to the university, upon his retirement.

Evans joined the Harvard admission staff in 1970, when the university had not yet merged with Radcliffe and did not yet offer generous financial aid. In the 100 years since the college graduated its first Black alumnus in 1870, Mr. Evans estimated Harvard had admitted fewer than 300 Black students. During his 50 years there, approximately 6,000 Black students were admitted, he said.

The son of sharecroppers, Mr. Evans grew up in rural Arkansas. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Tennessee State University and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Princeton. In the 1960s, in Huntsville, Alabama, Mr. Evans worked for IBM Corp. on the SaturnApollo project to send U.S. astronauts to the moon. While there, he started a college-placement program for Black teenagers, according to the Harvard magazine, that drew attention from college administrators and helped several students enter elite schools.

In retirement, Mr. Evans told the

Three join SG board

Three new members joined the St. George’s Board of Trustees in July: Ted Archer ’02; Louis “Ted” Duff III ’88, P’23; and Mark Taber ’88.

Mr. Archer is the executive director and head of small business philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase & Co.. He oversees initiatives focused on creating inclusive economic growth opportunities though small-business ownership, with a focus on underserved businesses and underrepresented founders.

Prior to joining JPMC, Mr. Archer led economic development programs for Source America, the District of Columbia and World Bank, and held corporate strategy roles at HJ Heinz Company (now Kraft Heinz).

Mr. Duff is principal of Fife Partners. He is a marketing executive who has primarily worked in the investment-management industry. His expertise includes investor relations, alternative investment management, securities, and equities.

Formerly, Mr. Duff was the managing director of research and product development at Quantum GBL, and the managing director of marketing and business development at Kellner Capital.

Mr. Taber is managing partner at Great Hill Partners, where he is responsible for transaction origination, investment policy, fundraising, magazine, he hopes he has more time to contemplate and convey the meaning of his journey from a family of Black sharecroppers to being the recipient of a Harvard Medal. n

investor relations and the general management of the firm. His investment experience covers a broad group of industries including health care, financial technology, telecommunications, software, and business services. Prior to joining Great Hill in 2000, Mr. Taber worked at Boston Consulting Group and Westlake Capital Group. He also spent three years working in small growth businesses, assuming various roles in operations, marketing and business development.

In addition, we thank April S. Anderson ’86, P’20, ’23 and Michael S. Kim ’88, whose tenures ended in the spring, for their exceptional work on behalf of our school. n

New trustees, from left to right: Louis D. Duff III ’88, P’23; Mark D. Taber ’88; and Ted Archer ’02.

Black Alumni Council and School Unite on DEI Efforts

The Black Alumni Council, formed this summer, will and was our Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel Service speaker partner with the school to strengthen connections in 2013. “I joined the Black Alumni Council to be conduit for between Black alumni, students, faculty, and staff — and progress and historical nexus for St. George's Black commuto address the specific needs of our Black students during nity, including students, faculty, staff, and alumni.” their years on the Hilltop. The council’s intention is to build upon the longtime work of many in these areas, and to work Dejania Cotton-Samuel ’16 is the council’s head of today in collaboration with Director of Diversity Dr. Kim communications. Dee graduated from the University of Bullock, Associate Head of School Mervan Osborne ’86, Pennsylvania in 2020, with a major in neuroscience and a former trustee April Anderson ’86, P’20, P’23, and cur- minor in jazz and contemporary music. She’s currently on rent trustees Clyde Dorsey ’70 and Rudy Bethea ’87. Mr. Long Island working as an associate scientist in a proteomBethea has been named the Board of Trustees’ liaison to ics research lab developing diagnostic technology “that can the BAC. Following are the members of the Black Alumni streamline biomarker identification so that intervention Steering Committee: for diseases like cancer and neurodegenerative diseases can be detected much earlier in a patient’s life.” Dee was Toni Woods Maignan ’16 is the council’s president. Toni motivated to join the BAC by the posts she saw on the graduated from Columbia University, @blackatsg Instagram page. “I wanted where she was a Kluge Scholar majoring in economics with a special concentra- “During my time at SG, to be a part of efforts to bring healing and closure to our community.” tion in business management. She is currently a legal analyst at Goldman Sachs I had a wonderful time as Sydney Jarrett ’16 is the council’s head and preparing for law school. During her a Black student, so I want of fundraising. Sydney is finishing out senior year at Columbia, Toni worked closely with the university’s Black Alumni to make sure I do my part, her final year at Georgia State University. She is majoring in interdisciplinary Council as the senior chair of Columbia University’s Black Students‘ Organization. adjacent to the school, in studies, with a concentration in Law & Society, and interning with KIPP Metro “Like Columbia’s, I want SG’s BAC to be a bridge among students, alumni, and creating a community where Atlanta Collaborative. “I joined the BAC to not only better serve as a beacon of the school to improve the experiences of everyone feels welcome.” change and reform for both Black and Black people in the community, as well as POC students on a campus I hold dear the community overall.” Martin Ejiaku ’11 to my heart, but also to enhance the SG experience for all students who step foot Martin Ejiaku ’11 is the council’s vice president. Martin on the Hilltop.” graduated from Rutgers University in 2015, with a degree in public health. He’s currently working in his field of study Kari Elisa Robles ’19 is the council’s co-fundraising and also looking to expand on outside projects, including a chair. Kari is working on a double major in social work and podcast and creating economic reform in his community. Spanish at Providence College. She is serving as a resident “The reason I decided to join the Black Alumni Council was assistant for an upperclassmen dorm and participating, to help foster a renewed culture where Black students do virtually, in the Fall College Internship Program for the not feel isolated from the rest of the student body,” he said. Administration for Children’s Services. “I joined the Black “During my time at SG, I had a wonderful time as a Black Alumni Council because I see it as a direct, growing, realstudent, so I want to make sure I do my part, adjacent to life way to support Black kids like me … during the trials and the school, in creating a community where everyone feels tribulations of attending a predominantly white institution. welcome. I hope to bring in newfound energy that allows I think this organization … will make it so that in time, this future Black students to feel welcome and for Black alumni particular environment definitely encourages success on all to rekindle their connection to the school.” fronts for Black students and faculty.”

Albert Lucas ’85 is the council’s treasurer. Al is the director of legislative services for the New Haven (Connecticut) Board of Alders and a graduate of Yale University, where he focused on political science and Latin American Studies. He is a member of the St. George’s Alumni Board of Visitors

Advancement Officer Conor O’Rourke is the liaison to the Black Alumni Council. To ensure that you receive news and future correspondence from the BAC or would like further information, please contact the Alumni Office at alumni@stgeorges.edu. n