EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE: The Change Agent

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The youth are our future, we know that. It’s also no secret that far too many kids don’t get the inspiration they need to see how wonderful their future can be. Our Extraordinary Person of the Week is Suprena Hickman, a nurse who joined forces with a friend years ago to create ‘Escape 2 Sisterhood‘. Now that mission is helping girls grow into confident women.

A retreat is often a place where you have a meeting of the minds. Our extraordinary person of the week has spent years taking women on retreats. It’s there that she found another inspirational calling.

“That’s when the light bulb clicked, hey, we gotta start with the kids because the youth is the future,” Suprena Hickman told Daniel Seamans in the WWAY studios.

Suprena Hickman created ‘Escape 2 Sisterhood’ many moons ago after a pep talk from her husband.

“He said why don’t you do something about it,” Suprena said of the conversation. “You’re always complaining about it, I said I can’t do anything about it. He said you can create it.”

She did and with the help of a friend, a mission to empower women was born through retreats and other inspiring events.

“What I realized during those weekends connecting with so many women over the years,” Suprena said, “is that there was a deficit, a need, a lot of self-esteem issues, a lot of women not pursuing their dreams.”

So yet again, a mission was born. This time the focus would be a different age bracket.

“From that,” Suprena said of the new mission, “I recognized that what if we helped the younger girls because the problem lies when they are younger.”

The organization is called GRITS, or Girls Rocking in the South.

“What we do is exposure, mentoring, and empowerment,” Suprena said of GRITS. “So they have a lot of community service, I believe in giving back. That was something taught to me as a kid.”

The student has become the teacher with an inspiring lesson in life.
And that, Suprena Hickman, is one of the many reasons you are EXTRAORDINARY.

If you’d like more information on GRITS, click here for the Facebook link and here for the website.
If you’d like more information on Escape2Sisterhood, click here for the Facebook link and here for the website.