JOURNEY RADIO Erin Lyons with Child Parent Center and Desiree Cook with I Am You 360 and Anita Scott with Diamond Daughters
This Journey radio segment is a dynamic conversation with three dynamic leaders of non-profit organizations that make a difference in our community by providing services to children, youth and women. Enjoy a discussion with Erin Lyons, Desiree Cook, and Anita Scott as they share how their life’s journey has given them the tools to lead organizations that make a difference.
Erin Lyons is Chief Executive Officer of Child Parent Center a non-profit with a 28-million-dollar budget, local and national leader in early childhood education. Desiree Cook is Founder, and Director of I Am You 360 and winner of the AKA Sorority Community Service Award, Sparkle Cleaners Non-Profit of the Month, and Vantage West Credit Union Non-Profit of the Year. Anita Scott, Founder of Diamond Daughters, is an ordained Minister in Glendale, Arizona, and author of “The Power of Transformational Thinking.”
These three women combined provide early childhood development, service for foster children, homeless youth and women. Their mission is to foster life transformation, develop literacy, and to ensure the emotional and physical well-being of those serviced.
Tune in and discover why they embody the Diamond Daughters Empowerment Summit theme “Fearless Women Called to Success.”
Child-Parent Centers, Inc. (CPC) is a community-based, not-for-profit corporation incorporated in 1967. CPC is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors and a Head Start Parent Policy 
Council that consists of enrolled parents. Its primary purpose as the Head Start and Early Head Start grantee for southeastern Arizona is to provide comprehensive early childhood, health and nutrition, and family development services to low income families with children birth to age five. CPC has successfully implemented Head Start and Early Head Start services for over 50 years. With an annual operating budget of over 28 million dollars, 560 employees, and services provided to more than 2,800 young children, CPC has an established reputation in the local and national early childhood community as an organization that places excellence at the forefront of all of its work.
Head Start, first launched in 1965, was designed to be a comprehensive school readiness program addressing the emotional, social, health, nutritional, and educational needs of preschoolers from low-income families. A program created as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, Head Start has now grown to serve infants, toddlers, and pregnant women in addition to preschoolers, and is a nationally recognized, dual-generation approach to ending the cycle of poverty.
There are three programmatic components of CPC’s efforts: school readiness, health, and family engagement. Health services include ensuring that children are up to date on medical screenings and immunizations, are connected to health insurance and a medical home, have a dental home and dental exams, and ensuring parents have information related to healthy eating and nutrition and the importance of physical activity for their children. CPC provides these services throughout five counties in Southern Arizona, including Pima, Cochise, Graham, Greenlee, and Santa Cruz, and serves rural and urban areas including Tucson, Marana, Nogales, Rio Rico, Safford, Pima, Duncan, Bisbee, Willcox, Benson, Catalina, Sierra Vista, Douglas and Ajo
Erin Lyons joined Child-Parent Centers in October 2014 as its CEO. She possesses a diverse combination of professional experience ranging from classroom teaching to management of adolescent residential facilities and organizational and community development activities. Her most recent tenure was as Senior Regional Director with First Things First, Arizona’s statewide early childhood initiative. In this position, she worked with local Regional Partnership Councils in Pima and Santa Cruz Counties as well as the tribal communities of Pascua Yaqui and the Tohono O’odham Nation. Her work involved oversight of the planning and implementation of annual budgets that infused nearly $100 million dollars in grants and contracts for early childhood and family education services throughout the Southeast area of the state between 2009-2014.
Lyons has also established a presence in the non-profit sector in the Tucson community and has experience both as a direct service provider and senior administrator as well as a volunteer. In addition to programmatic knowledge in the fields of education, child welfare, and behavioral health, she has a breadth of experience in establishing community partnerships, strategic planning, budgeting, quality assurance and compliance activities, and various aspects of employee and organizational development. She has also been affiliated with a number of community entities such as COPE Community Services, the Behavioral Health Coalition of Southern Arizona, United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona’s First Focus on Kids Impact Council, and the Southern Arizona Association for the Education of Young Children.
Lyons began her career as a teacher and kicked off her classroom experience with preschool students at Marva Collins’ Westside Preparatory School on the west side of Chicago. She eventually taught at various grade levels ranging from first grade through high school. As an undergraduate, she attended Yale University and then Northwestern University where she completed a Bachelor of Science in Education. She is also a proud University of Arizona Wildcat and earned her Master of Public Administration at the Eller College. Erin lives with her family in Tucson where she has lived for the better part of her life.
For more information and to get involved, find ChildParentCenters on Facebook and Twitter.
I Am You 360 is a 501c3 non-profit organization that focuses on providing personalized and life skills services for primarily foster care and homeless youth in Pima County improve confidence, 
appearance, school attendance, academic achievement, and overall well-being.
Services include: Full size, new hygiene and hair care products according to ethnicity and gender to promote healthy hair and skin in a personalized backpack. Participants are served at one of three of I Am You 360 Hygiene Dispensaries, and each participant can have their hygiene bag refilled every 6 weeks to continue a healthy personal care routine.
They also provide a 9 week life skills programming which includes: Self Esteem, Self Awareness, Positive Thinking, and Be Good to your Mind.
Desiree Cook was born in Newark New Jersey and lived in Brooklyn New York. Mother of 7 children and married to Terry Cook. She has been a Tucson resident since 2002. She is an active member of Gideon Baptist, local hair stylist at Artistry since 2012, and created I Am You 360 in November of 2013 and became a 501c3 non-profit in July of 2014.
To learn more and to get involved with IAmYou360 find them on Facebook , Instagram or email iamyou360@hotmail.com
Diamond Daughters Motto – I am you, you are me and we are ONE. It is a global womens movement geared toward empowerment and transformation helping women reach the potential inside of them. We provide tools and resources to improve and enhance goals and vision. We recently held our 5th Anual Diamond Daughters we had the privilege to honor women in the community who were making an impact in different areas. This was the second year we also gave a scholarship to a young lady preparing for college. Our attendance was 300 women from all over the valley and surrounding cities. We host a fashion show annually to show women their worth. Women who 
come from Human Trafficking, , domestic violence and single mothers are part of the fashion show.
My name is Anita Scott and I was born in Hobbs, New Mexico. I’m married to Freddie Scott and we have three beautiful children..I’m an ordained Minister and have been a resident in Glendale, AZ since 2006. Diamond Daughters was founded in 2012 and established a 501c3 in 2014. It is my belief that every woman has the potential to be and do something great no matter the past or background. I have recently authored a book The Power of Transformational Thinking designed to change thinking patterns.
Connect with Anita and Diamond Daughters at aitruth@yahoo.com and Arise and Pray Ministries
ABOUT JOURNEY RADIO
Tune into Journey Radio to learn from successful professionals who will provide you with a roadmap for your own Journey to success. Our guests are individuals who want to share stories, tips and guidelines based on their own journey. Listeners will be encouraged to stay the course after learning that a journey that ends successfully is not a straight line but is a winding road of experiences that teaches life lessons that can be built upon, providing us grit and knowledge to complete our Journey.
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ABOUT YOUR HOST
Journey Radio’s host and sponsor Enid Moore-Cranshaw is a consummate business professional. Enid holds a Master’s Degree in Finance and Accounting from Regis University. She is the Immediate Past District Director of Toastmasters International, District 3 (state of Arizona) with a membership of over 4,000. District 3 Toastmasters is ranked seventh in Arizona’s networking and is one of the top organizations for communication and leadership development in the world. She is a Financial Professional and owner of Divinity Beauty Bar. Divinity Beauty Bar specializes in nails, hair styling, wigs, hair extensions, maintenance and growth. Enid is the Immediate Past Board President of Child Parent Centers (Headstart). Child Parent Centers is a leader in early childhood development and serves Southern Arizona’s underprivileged children. Her passion is early childhood development, community service, personal development, effective communication and empowering others to realize their full potential.
