2022 Bridge Builders: Rex and Wanda Meade

Below are remarks from director Carrie Silver, presented at the 2022 Bridges Builders Luncheon in July:

I am excited to announce Rex and Wanda Meade as our 2022 Bridge Builders! Unfortunately, the Meades alerted me they are in a covid quarantine and can’t be with us today, but that isn’t going to stop me from sharing with you all the ways they have helped our students build bridges to their best futures.

Rex first came to us to share his professional expertise in organizational leadership. Rex built a career as a successful leadership coach and has worked with clients locally and internationally to help them assess and plan for success. For us, Rex designed an extensive and inclusive structure for identifying key Bridges stakeholders and collecting in-depth feedback on the program, it’s potential, and how we could improve. Months of focus groups, conversations, and analysis helped inform the current direction of Bridges, which you can find in our 25-year report on our website. With his guidance, we are confident that our current overarching goals for programmatic and organizational success will help set us up for another 25 years of success.

Rex is wonderful to work with, always working “with” me rather than talking “at” me. He clearly cares about Greenville and the success of our young people.

Then one day Rex asked me, “have you met my wife, Wanda?” Wanda built her career as an educator, administrator, and overall advocate – and she’s a wealth of knowledge when it comes to assessing the hands-on sort of intervention we specialize in.

Sitting with the two of them one day, I just wanted to soak up every word that came out of their mouths. I spent the whole meeting thinking: “Carrie, you need to make these two people your new best friends!”

This past year, Rex and Wanda helped me plan a presentation at the Woodlands and are introducing me to folks in the community who share a passion for education and ensuring that all young people have equal access to higher education. They are doing this not because they have to, or because it’s part of their jobs—but because they WANT to. They genuinely care and are sincerely in their hopes for our students’ futures.

And for that, I thank them.