SHE is inspiring (Karyn Parsons Interview)

Hi,

Today is the official launch of She-Blogs.com and I am so excited! I want to give a special thanks to Vaughn Dabney (Dabonaire Media Group) for helping me bring my dream blog to life-You’re the best!
For my first interview I was blessed to have the opportunity to chat with an amazing woman-Karyn Parsons. She is the founder of Sweet Blackberry-an organization whose mission is to bring little known, miraculous stories of African American achievement to the widest possible audience. Her amazing story is below….enjoy!

Ally

SHE-Blogs: What was your inspiration for starting Sweet Blackberry?
KARYN: My mother was a librarian and she would call me once in a while with interesting facts that she would come across. One day she called and told me the story of Henry Box Brown who was a slave who mailed himself in a box from Virginia to the free state of Pennsylvania. When someone opened the box, Henry popped out and he was a free man. I was so shocked to hear the story for the first time as an adult that I thought that it just made so much sense to [be able] to share these kinds of stories with kids. Finally, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I started thinking a lot more about my responsibility as a parent and how I would teach her history and make sure I wasn’t just depending on the school.

SHE-Blogs: So how did you get started?
KARYN: I just started talking to people that I knew. [I would tell them] what I was interested in doing and would ask if they had any ideas on how I could make it happen. My mother-in-law had a friend named Gina Kamentsky who was an animator. She and I really clicked and she actually ended up becoming my partner and we started Sweet Blackberry.

SHE-Blogs: What have you learned from starting Sweet Blackberry?
KARYN: I had a rolodex full of numbers of people that I knew in one way. I knew this person as a dancer, this person as an actress, this person as a writer. You don’t realize that if you look to those people and just say “Hey this is a new thing I am doing,” that they not only have ways of helping you but are also very interested in figuring it out with you.

SHE-Blogs: What stories have you done so far?
KARYN: We have done two. The first was “The Journey of Henry Box Brown”, which was narrated by Alfre Woodard and illustrated by Mark Page. It was well received and won a Parents Choice Award and a Kids First Award.
The second was “Garrett’s Gift,” which was the story of the inventor Garrett Morgan who among other things invented the traffic signal. That one was narrated by Queen Latifah who was fantastic.

SHE-Blogs: Did you come across any financial setbacks when you started Sweet Blackberry?
KARYN: I didn’t have the money to do it regardless of what someone might think because I was on Television. We have the big hurdle of financing that we are constantly working on. We started the whole thing out with a personal loan and so it’s a matter of constantly trying to get financing to keep the company alive. It’s challenging but it’s worth it when you are doing something you love!

SHE-Blogs: Why is this so important to you?
KARYN: I hated history [when I was coming up]. I think it was because of the way I was approached and the way it was taught. It was always serious instead of it being engaging. The discussions weren’t about courage, excitement, and adventure. If you teach kids the right way then they will hopefully be inspired to want to learn more.

SHE-Blogs: Is this your main focus right now?
KARYN: My main focus is my family…my husband, my five-year-old daughter and my 14-month-old son.
Sweet Blackberry definitely comes next.

SHE-Blogs:Do you have a mantra on life?
KARYN: Yes! I love the statement “We are the change we have been waiting for”. I am a strong believer in that. Instead of always looking outside of ourselves or always looking at everyone else we have to realize the power is within. Anything that you want to have happen you can make it happen. You have to really work toward it.

For more info check out: www.sweetblackberry.com

Tags: Actress, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Karyn Parsons, Mom, Non-Profit, Sweet Blackberry

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 6:07 am and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.