In 2020, Health Possible onboarded a new Board Chair, Catherine (Michelle) Sumrall, who brought a very diverse healthcare experience, vision, and style of leadership to the organization, in addition to her own story regarding wellness and what drives her love for the field. Michelle works full time as the Respiratory Therapy and Cardiac Rehabilitation Department Manager of Novant Health (hospital) in Brunswick County, North Carolina with an academic background in Respiratory Therapy as well as Nonprofit Management.
I quickly learned that Michelle’s style of leadership revolves around being extremely thoughtful, well-planned, asking the right questions (she really should become an Attorney), consistently communicative with weekly phone calls to simply catch up, innovation and mental-sparring, and as a business mentor to myself as the Executive Director. Michelle is the leader that every young entrepreneur dreams of having on their team.
As a nonprofit Executive Director, it is my ultimate responsibility to bring our donors dreams and legacies to life through the hearts of the community members whom we serve. I am proud to state that 100% of the Health Possible Board of Directors has always been and still are donors of our mission.
Launching the Angel Club
In January of 2021, Michelle called me with her ultimate fundraising idea for Health Possible, a means of emphasizing our nutrition sector while deepening the Health Possible support culture – something I had never heard of before though happening all over the country – a “secret supper club”. I was suddenly given the outline of my own Board Chair’s wishes, giving me the honor to start delivering on them, which we would name our Angel Club. I appreciate and respect Michelle immensely and am so excited to work on this project both with and for her. While the project has hardly even begun yet, it is already digging our culture of wellness and holistic health deeper by attracting new supporters from the grape-vine on a weekly basis.
Michelle proposed that the Health Possible “secret supper club” adopt the essence more alike a private dinner community club that is farm-to-table and food-source educational. It will entail all of the same features from Founding Members to highly reputed chefs making once in a lifetime meals, cocktail hours, hosted at beautiful venues and private homes inside of curated atmospheres and activities to engage with… and all of that on top of an intimately small group of loyal Health Possible supporters who share a big common ground.
Our First Celebrity Chef
But what are the odds that in our day to day efforts, I cold-call an online phone number that rings celebrity chef and Certified Health Coach, Lori Eaton, an upstate New York native who brought her chef business to Wilmington from Los Angeles, was the personal chef for Dwayne Johnson, Sophia Vergara & Joe Manganiello, and more, debuted in Betty Crocker’s “The Mixer,” and has dreamed of executing an identical farm-to-table supper club for years on end?! Well, I did, and Lori and I hit it off. I am so excited and honored to announce that after a 45 minute cold-call gone wild, that Lori Eaton has already agreed to be the Angel Club January chef, as well as the year-round Culinary Event Consultant and sponsor of the Angel Club. Lori brings many ideas and resources to the Health Possible Angel Club and we are so excited to have her support and partnership in our mission. We aim to equally execute Lori’s long time dreams in addition to Michelle’s, bringing the community love and use of fresh food to life.
What’s Next
Our overall efforts are to produce a more inclusive than exclusive private club through various membership payment options that bring people from various backgrounds together at “one” dinner table, while raising funds to further our mission. We already have a handful of founding members. The Angel Club requires a $1,000 couple’s annual membership fee to join and gain access to the private meals and meal ticket purchasing, which are estimated to range from the $100 to $500 range per couple. 2022 meals will be held quarterly in January, April, July, and October of 2022 in locations that will not be announced to members until the day of and even possibly one hour before the event. Memberships for January’s event are exceptionally limited to the first 30 invitees who will donate the full $1,000 before January 1, 2022 as a kick-off group. Every meal will highlight locally sourced food, farmers, and businesses, and how lucky for us to also live at Earths freshest seafood farm – the beach!
Are you interested in joining our Angel Club and spending time together making memories? Let us know!
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