SHAWNTA PULLIAM – Nurturing Hearts and Leadership

BURBANK, Calif. - Oct. 9, 2013 - PRLog -- Shawnta Pulliam, Founder & CEO of Nurturing Hearts has always been passionate about her community. As a teenager and young adult, she worked as a tutor at the YMCA and held other various social service jobs. As an adult, Pulliam earned a criminal justice & psychology degree from Gannon University and transitioned into the role of safety monitor and plant protection officer for General Electric Transportation.  Pulliam recalls, “I could not help but look back on the girls I was leaving behind. I grew up in a single parent home, my father was incarcerated and I lashed out a lot at school which ultimately got me expelled from the Erie School District.  However, I turned my life around and realized I wanted to help young girls who were going through the same struggles as I did as a child, so I formed Nurturing Hearts.”

Nurturing Hearts provides leadership and life skills to inner-city teenage girls. “The girls that we provide service to do not have a level playing field; I say this because a lot of them have been physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually abused and/or are growing up in single parent homes and in foster care,”  says Pulliam. By providing these girls with programs and workshops that focus on positive self-esteem, healthy lifestyle choices, leadership skills, goal setting, recreational activities and field trips, Nurturing Hearts seeks to help set young women on the path to life success.

Despite having no paid staff and only five volunteers, Nurturing Hearts has been able to serve more than 450 girls who have subsequently shown positive changes in grades, school attendance, self-worth and development of positive goals for their futures. Pulliam says, “I want these girls to know that we instill a sense of purpose and a sense of worthwhile helping them to realize that although they have had some struggles, their past does not dictate their future. We have been successful in ridding the negative self-doubts and instilling in them hope and direction towards a bright and positive future.”


Pulliam has received many life changing testimonials from women who have utilized her organization and then gone on to have meaningful, productive lives. She has been repeatedly recognized with awards from prominent institutions, government officials and was recently honored with the 2013 Women Making History Award by the Mercyhurst D’Angelo Performing Arts Center.

Shawnta’ Pulliam is one of those rare young women who took a traumatic childhood, impacted by parental drug addiction and incarceration, and turned it around for good.  She says that every person she has encountered in her life has taught her something, whether that person was successful or unsuccessful.

After getting expelled from the School District in the 10th grade, Shawnta’s mother enrolled her into a catholic alternative education school.  She worked diligently to graduate on time, coming in early to study and staying late for extra help.  Her dedication and perseverance led her to Graduate as valedictorian of her senior class; she attended Gannon University majoring in Criminal Justice and Psychology.

Shawnta worked at GE Transportation for ten years as Safety Monitor and Plant Protection Officer, but still had a passion to help at risk girls such as she once was. In 2006, her vision came to fruition when she founded Nurturing Hearts, a self-esteem and self-development non-profit organization for at-risk girls.  The mission was to provide supportive leadership and life skills, which furnish and prepare at-risk girls between the ages of 10 and 18, for a bright and positive future.  Her organization has already turned around many young lives.

Shawnta’ Pulliam has evolved into a visionary, entrepreneur, motivational speaker and life coach. She is secretary of the Erie Policy and Planning Council, serves on the Board of Directors for the Erie Downtown Partnership as well as the Truancy Committee, the Erie Weed and Seed Crime Committee, General Electric’s African American Engagement Committee, Erie Times News Diversity Committee, and the Athena Power link. She has been recognized for her outstanding community volunteer leadership, by the General Electric Gerald L. Philippe Award 2006, nominated for the 2011 Women of Worth Award, the GE ICON award, she is a receipt of the 2013 Women Making History Award, the 2013 Phoenix Idea Women of the Year Award, and is recognized in the Who’s Who of National Executives and Professionals.

Most recently, she founded Shawnta’ Pulliam Arise LLC, which provides motivational speaking, life coach assistance and the creation and implementation of programs for people from all facets of life. One of her latest jobs is under the new organization is at UPMC Hamot as a facilitator that will provide seminars and workshops for women and girls.

Shawnta’ not only ‘walks the walk’, but grabs other young women by the coattails and supports them, along on the path to success. She has never forgotten children and women who are struggling with the same issues that she had to overcome herself. Hence, she founded Nurturing Hearts and Shawnta’ Pulliam Arise LLC. Her message to young women: the only limitations you have are the ones you place upon yourself, spreading her testimony and enlightenment around the world.

To learn more; listen to Debbi Dachinger as she interviews Shawnta’ on Dare to Dream radio, listen via podcast at: http://www.deborahdachinger.com/interview-archives. Debbi’s Dare to Dream radio show is a syndicated, multi-award winning program, featured in news sources around the world. Dachinger is a bestselling author, keynote speaker and media personality. Dare to Dream radio airs live on the following networks:  Indie 100 Morning Inspiration show (Burbank, CA); it is also syndicated on WROM Radio (Detroit), WHTB (Massachusetts), Butterfly Radio (Florida), Triangle Variety Radio (USA, Japan, Canada, UK, Australia), LiveJamz Radio (Missouri) and AirCheck (Florida) - all stations also stream worldwide.