Vanessa J. Powell

"JOY"

Vanessa was born the fourth child of Amos and LoGrant in Long Beach, CA. She attended Ralph J. Bunche Elementary, Enterprise Junior High and graduated from Carson High School in 1991. After high school she attended Tuskegee University, where she received her BA in Social Work. After college, she enlisted in the US Army as an officer and served a tour of duty overseas. She married in 1996 and settled down in North Carolina, where she continued her schooling and received her MSW from UNC Chapel Hill. Currently, she works as LCSW for the Veterans Administration and is a proud single mother to her four teenage children (two sons and twin daughters).  She boasts that her "unpaid" job is being an Uber driver for her children.