School of Integrative Design™

Welcome to our January PowerHouse. We are excited to introduce Simone Gordon, better known as the Black Fairy Godmother. Simone is an online activist who helps women in immediate need. Her authoritative, no nonsense voice brings to light a stark reality and pulls together resources in real time. Her thriving social platform with over 7,000 devoted followers helps her touch lives and quickly step in to help women and children who need help. She's on the front lines and her followers help her change the world, one person at a time. We’re thrilled about this feature and cannot think of a better way to start the new year and decade as this woman speaks to the core of the Dwellosophy message. Dwellosophy in its purest form is about shelter. It’s about providing a space for yourself and your family to flourish and thrive. It’s about feeling at home in the world, safe, secure, stable. It’s also about feeling the stability of knowing who you are to your core, knowing what you’re made of and knowing in your bones no one can take that from you...ever. Simone gives women this chance. It’s my honor and privilege to introduce you to Simone Gordon...a special sort of fairy godmother and in our mind, a shining star of Dwellosophy. Imagine your typical fairy godmother...She comes to the rescue in your desperate moment of need, waves her magic wand and grants your immediate wishes. She surprises you and offers more than you would imagine for yourself. She not only comes to your aid, but she sees you. She understands what you’re going through. She knows your pain points and wants to lift you up, remind you of who you are and that you are capable of greatness. That’s the fairy tale...here is the real deal! Meet Simone Gordon. She grants wishes all day...every day. She has so many beautiful women she looks after...and yet she is one of them. Simone is a single mom. Her precious child has severe autism, he’s nonverbal and needs around the clock care. She lives on a shoestring income, paycheck to paycheck. She works the night shift waiting tables until midnight, because that’s what it takes to make her life function. She’s up before 5:00a.m. to tend to her son and get them both ready for a day of school. She is putting herself through nursing school because she has a dream and life changing goals that expand far beyond her present situation. This is Simone Gordon and for virtually every moment between being a mom, student and waitress, she’s the Black Fairy Godmother...like Clark Kent in Gotham City, she’s impacting lives one human being at a time. The Black Fairy Godmother (BFG) found her beginnings five years ago. In a time of dire need, she reached out to government agencies and nonprofit organizations, only to receive voicemail recordings with no immediate returned calls. At the end of her options with recent job loss and on the brink of homelessness as a single mother to her autistic son, she turned to social media with a plea for help. Someone recommended she reach out to Reparations of Offerings. She joined the group and within five minutes she was receiving offers for food, money and trips to the grocery store. This was the beginning for Simone Gordon’s vocation as “community organizer for instant aid”, aka Black Fairy Godmother. Inspired to help other women in immediate and urgent need, Simone started her own Facebook group with a few key volunteers who had come to her aid when she was in need. She told these women, “We’re going to transform lives. You’ve helped transform my life, let’s start doing this for others.” “Safety and food, I made that my initiative.” Simone recognized the core issues and did something about them. Simone Gordon is tapped into an under-served population of women of color. She’s filling a demand that’s virtually being ignored in this country: single moms in immediate need. She offers aid to an average of 10 women and families of color per week (depending on how quickly she raises the money). She has helped hundreds of women and children of color, including special needs families. She helped place 20 women, all single moms, into college or trade school. She helped rescue eight domestic violence victims in 2019 alone. In 2019 she helped over 200 women across the US, while working, going to nursing school and taking care of her son. Read that list twice. Simone is changing lives. I became curious about her social media handle, her vision and her personal wishes and reached out to her. How did you get the name “Black Fairy Godmother”? “A woman I helped on Facebook was being evicted in Maryland. I remember my son was sick, I reached out to donors and said ‘we need $1,000 by noon.’ She was in the courtroom and received a call from a volunteer stating the money was in her PayPal account. She posted, ‘You were like my black fairy godmother!’...and the name just stuck.” Her following went viral when a celebrity donor sent one of her mothers a six month supply of diapers and formula. The young woman from Louisiana had lost her home in a fire, she asked for help with diapers and formula for her baby. She went live sharing her story that the Black Fairy Godmother and writer, Elizabeth Gilbert answered her prayers. That’s when Simone moved her platform from Facebook to Instagram. Now she’s able to link with Instacart, Amazon & Target wishlists to get her families food, medical supplies, baby supplies and cash from coast to coast. Through her network she’s also providing for immediate safety with housing and travel expenses for victims of domestic violence. “This is me. I do this 24/7, nonstop.” When we experience the marrow draining stress of survival mode, we are not able to flourish. The Black Fairy Godmother takes care of the fundamental needs of women and children who are in need of a safe place with the basics of food, water, and shelter. She steps in and provides. She lays the foundation of home and then provides services to sustain it. She is the ultimate PowerHouse, helping at risk women create their own powerhouse from which to move from mere surviving and step into thriving. “I want to build a strong community that’s better than the government. Government agencies take too long...Government run homeless shelters only allow women and children 3 weeks, that’s not enough time. I’m organizing people, places and things and getting women urgent resources.” “A lot of these women have been bullied, told they’re worthless and will never amount to anything. I tell them, ‘NO! I’ve been there. NO! We’re going to change your mindset. NO! Let’s have people help you every step of the way.’” “Everyone is coming from different unique circumstances and they think they’ll never be able to get out and my whole thing is...THEY WILL.” Black Fairy Godmother doesn’t stop at solving the crisis. She gives them faith that everything is going to turn around. “After we help with the emergency, we follow up and tell them, ‘We helped with the emergency, now let’s make your life better.’” Simone created a proprietary process each woman goes through to help inspire and empower them to build a sustainable life. “We help shift their lives in 90 days, though some take up to six months.I guess my message touches them and they just go for it. They make vision boards and they accomplish what they want. These are dreams we’re turning into reality.” Through her modest volunteer network, she offers counseling and resources for childcare, schooling, training and self care to empower them to create self sustaining lives. “A lot of these women don’t have self care. I put it in there to make them feel beautiful. It’s hard if you’re a single mom (with all of the demands), it brings you down.” Being so acutely aware of the needs of others, I had to know, “How do you take care of yourself?” “That’s funny you ask, I honestly don’t and I need to learn how to. I need to practice what I preach and get better at self care. My self care is different than the average woman. I’m not as fortunate as others. My self care is just sitting in my room reading a book or my self care would be eating an ice cream cone or my self care would be just listening to music.” Of course, our interview wouldn’t be complete without knowing what Black Fairy Godmother would wish for if HER fairy godmother granted her three wishes. As you might expect, her wishes have less to do with her and more to do with helping others. If Simone had a BFG her wishes would be: Have three transitional homes, one in New Jersey, Florida and California Build a hotline so women can volunteer from home Obtain my nursing degree “I’m making wishes come true. I was these women 5 years ago. I can’t forget who I was 5 years ago and the goals I set for myself, as well.” Ideally, she’d like to attract angel investors to help her form a foundation to create a network of volunteers and transitional homes for women. Where do you feel most at home? “I am my home.” This is everything. When you’ve been knocked down by life circumstances, you discover who you are and what binds the fabric of who you are. Everything is possible from here. You are your home. What’s essential for your home? “Stability.” Stability. How can life function without stability? Survival mode is living without the two the base levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: food, water, sleep, shelter and then safety: personal security, employment, resources, health. No one is able to thrive or flourish in survival mode. It is only when we feel the stability, safety and security of home, we are able to thrive and contribute to making the world a better place. Every human deserves this and Simone recognizes this core truth and does something about it. This is what makes Simone Gordon a PowerHouse. She is lifting women up. She brings Dwellosophy to life by creating shelter and sanctuary in physical terms, then inspiring and empowering these women to know and feel their greatness, creating resilience and sanctuary on the inside, by offering real solutions and support. If you could offer words of wisdom to inspire other people on their path or in a tough place, what would you say? “Don't ever give up. Don’t ever stop speaking up because someone will eventually listen. Treat people right. Don’t be judgmental.The people you see at the grocery store, the car wash...see them as people. People who are working hard to better themselves.” “It takes less than five minutes to change someone’s life and make someone smile.” “Sometimes you meet someone whose passion, dedication and devotion leave you without words. Simone Gordon, Black Fairy Godmother is such a person. She gives of herself wholeheartedly, endlessly. It’s rare.” You works tirelessly, I’m curious what fills you up? “Nothing replenishes me, but the conversations I have with general people every day, that’s my only joy...and the joy I get every day hearing or seeing people that I help, get the help. That’s the only thing that keeps me going.” Now you know that there really is such a thing as fairy godmothers. If you have ever experienced instability or a violent household and overcome, or if you are thankful for your home and the warmth and joy it provides you and your family, then you understand deeply why Simone's work is so vital. You can make a difference by following her and sharing her call to help the women, the mothers, their children who find themselves homeless or a victim of abuse, or needing food, diapers or a ride to the home in the middle of a rainy night.. In real time, you can help. Simone makes it possible. Click the link below and follow her RIGHT NOW and then SHARE her message with your friends! We’re so grateful for the work Simone is offering. She’s a powerful source of inspiration and empowerment, a true PowerHouse. She brings the core of Dwellosophy out into the world, creating sanctuary for physical well-being and creating inner well-being for those who need it most. Thank you, Simone! It’s been an honor to have you as a Dwellosophy POWERHOUSE! To support (it’s secure, vetted and anonymous, if preferred) Black Fairy Godmother and her cause, go to https://www.instagram.com/blackfairygodmother/ By sharing her story, you are helping her and her network of those in true need.