25 Women for 2024: Morgan Evers works to be 'part of the solution' for young people
Morgan Evers had to leave the country to appreciate how much she loves Tallahassee. As a Palm Beach native attending Florida State University and craving some freedom, she took the opportunity to study abroad in Florence, Italy, for six months.
“Small world, I met two women there from Tallahassee, and when I got back they asked if I wanted to work with them at Roberts Elementary,” she laughs. “It took going overseas and coming back to see the gem that Tallahassee really is.”
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Since then, she has cultivated a career focused on childhood development and advocacy, a passion she developed while observing her mother’s work as an attorney working in homicides. “I grew up hearing about crime at the dinner table, and I wondered what happened to the people who committed the crimes, the victims, and what resources they had.”
Her focus on children and ability to make connections to help others make her one of Tallahassee’s 25 Women You Need to Know for 2024.
When she began work in behavioral and mental health with the Florida Department of Health, she had the opportunity to answer those questions. “I would hear kids being described as, ‘bad kids,’ and in my mind, there are no bad kids. Bad things can happen to kids or the people raising the kids, but people don’t come into the world inherently bad.”
Evers began to advocate for the children who didn’t have a voice, helping them get the services and support they needed in order to thrive.
“I would wonder what the experience had been for these kids from the ages of zero to five,” Evers said. When she had the opportunity to work with the Early Learning Coalition of the Big Bend Region as the early childhood education manager, she was able to step in earlier in their lives and help them connect to support. “I was trusted to go out there and try to make the world a better place, partnering with agencies to support families with early childhood intervention as early as possible.”
Seeing more opportunities for community collaboration for kids, Evers stepped out on her own about three years ago and opened Finacious, a consulting firm where she advises companies, community leaders, nonprofits, and more on what it takes to build a community focused on education and our families.
“It was the scariest and most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done,” Evers said. “I am continuing to build better systems of care for high-need populations of children and families.”
One of the most rewarding projects Evers has worked on is a collaboration between MetaVisions, a Tallahassee-based nonprofit, and Boys Town North Florida to launch a financial literacy program that teaches foundational skills such as how to open a bank account, how to write a check, and effective spending and saving strategies.
“Seeing foster youth learning financial literacy, receiving career pathway support, and getting help with their taxes before they transition into the world as adults, hopefully we were able to play a small part in them being able to move forward,” Evers said.
A typical day for Evers might include a meeting with the Association of Early Learning Coalitions to increase access to early learning professionals, painting the walls of a newly-gifted space for a nonprofit organization, and heading up the College Access Network to collaborate with Career Source Capital Region to give youth more access to career training pathways, and advocating at the Capitol on behalf of students with a story to tell. “It’s a mashup,” she said, “but I surround myself with great people who want to be part of the solution and who I can rely on.”
If you can’t find Evers in any of those places, she’s probably down at the coast, fishing with her husband and their two children. “We love everything outdoors, spending time with family, and all things FSU sports. You name it, we try to get there.”
Ever says that if she had to choose one word to describe herself and her work, it would be connection. From a chance connection as a college student in Italy to the connections she makes daily in Tallahassee, Evers’ commitment to making the world better for those around her is one that connects all of us.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: 25 Women for 2024: Morgan Evers works to be 'part of the solution'
