Drs. John and Vera Mae Perkins

John and Vera Mae Perkins helped start a day-care center, youth program, church, cooperative farm, thrift store, housing repair ministry, a health center, and an adult education program. John and Vera Mae also organized their communities during the Civil Rights era.  With marches, community action and bravely taking a stand in their own personal lives, John and Vera Mae led the way for civil disobedience. 

Their children were some of the first students to integrate their local schools and they sheltered the difficulties of that time together as a family. John was brutally beaten by law enforcement during this time.  He was imprisoned after he attempted to free black college students from Tougaloo College and Jackson State University who had been jailed for freedom marching with the Perkins.

The John M. Perkins Foundation, started in 1983, has worked hard to engage the local community in Jackson and also spread a message of reconciliation and development across the United States. Their organization has also been instrumental on the world stage. Recently, the John M. Perkins Foundation changed its name to the John and Vera Mae Perkins Foundation to honor the contributions of John’s wife, Dr. Vera Mae.  While John traveled the United States and world spreading the message of reconciliation and justice, Dr. Vera Mae Perkins worked tirelessly to nurture his ministry and keep the home-fires burning

Dr. H and Terry Spees

Having grown up in Southern California, H and Terry spent 11 years serving alongside African American civil rights leaders John and Vera Mae Perkins in faith-based community development programs in Mississippi, establishing a network of health centers in under-served rural counties.

For over 50 years H and Terry Spees have worked with business, government, health, faith and community leaders to forge solutions to complex urban problems in US and global cities.

Terry co-founded the Allen-Spees Home, care facilities dedicated to supporting children with acute medical needs, while also raising six children and caring for multiple medically-fragile foster children at home.

H has served as Senior Health Administrator for Fresno County Department of Health, Executive Director of Fresno/Madera Youth for Christ, President of the One by One Leadership Foundation, Senior Pastor of Northwest Church and Senior Vice President for Leadership Foundations, a global urban development organization.

H served as the Director of the City of Fresno’s Housing and Homeless Initiatives, having also led as Director of Strategic Initiatives, addressing human trafficking, gun violence reduction, revitalization of neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty.