Small Business Bestie

57: Tora Carter – Cheerleading for Change in Lexington

• Michelle Smock / Tora Carter • Season 2 • Episode 57

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She’s a coach, a marketer, and a relentless champion for her community. Meet Tora Carter, who’s leading the charge to restore one of Lexington’s most historic buildings—the Robert H. Williams Cultural Center.

🎙️ In this episode:

  • The extraordinary story of 15+ Black women who founded an orphanage in 1892
  • How Tora blends roles at Guide Realty, Transy Athletics & the Cultural Center
  • Creative ideas to serve Lexington’s small businesses
  • Why the attic space will be your new fave event venue
  • And yes, Raquel Carter, Tora's leader at Guide Realty is running for mayor 🙌

💥 Want to help? Follow the Cultural Center on Facebook, DM to get on the mailing list, and stay tuned for clean-up days and the September Homecoming event!

🔗 Resources:

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2ZvC2mYQxK8sHPNRvm5zNT?si=44601c1bdaa54e89
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/small-business-bestie/id1733760829

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Speaker 1:

Hey besties, Feeling run down, foggy or just one more deadline away from a total meltdown? Well, let me tell you about Vita Oasis. It's Lexington's go-to wellness spot for small business superheroes just like us. They're way more than IV hydration. We're talking personalized functional wellness, genetic testing and care plans that actually get to the root of your burnout. Whether you're in Lexington or Richmond, they've got your back. If you mention this ad, take $25 off your next purchase. Hey, Besties, Welcome back to another episode of Small Business. Bestie, I'm your host, Michelle Smuck, and today I have the amazing Tora Carter. She is a board member with the Robert H Williams Cultural Center here in Lexington. She wears a ton of hats, but this is the one that I'm most excited to talk about. So, Tora, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, michelle, because you know this is a passion project and I can talk about this forever, but I do wear a couple other hats, so I am in my well now 21st season at Transy as the dance coach. I just finished the 20th season there, looking forward to a great one coming up, and I'm the marketing director at Guide Realty.

Speaker 1:

So many different hats and they're all completely different, which is one of the things that I love about you, because it just goes to prove how versatile of a human being you are, but I really think, at the end of the day, if you said, who are you, I'm really just going to tell you I'm a cheerleader.

Speaker 2:

So I am a cheerleader for anyone who I'm around. So, whether I'm cheering for my transy girls, or I'm cheering on the agents here, or my kids at home, my husband, whoever I'm talking to, I'm really just a cheerleader. So that's, that's what I'm going to do.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and you're a really good one too. I know that of all the many times that we've interacted. You know, face to face, you really are just that like uplifting, optimistic, energetic person that and it feels like everyone in your realm knows that that's who you are. They know that if they have a need, or even just need to be energized, they're like I'm going to go be in Torah's presence.

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean, that's kind of where I live. That's a space I live in. As a kid, obviously, I did cheer and dance all the way up through college and then after college, getting the job at Trinsy, and I've done it on professional levels as well. So I cheer people on my entire life, just in different ways.

Speaker 1:

It fits you so well. You do such a good job of it. Maybe that's why we jive. We both got that like let's bring other people up.

Speaker 2:

That's it, and that's all I want to do.

Speaker 1:

So tell me a little bit more. You said you're the marketing director at Guide Realty. What does that role kind of look like for you on a daily basis other than just cheering people on?

Speaker 2:

Well, there's a lot of cheering people on, a lot of celebration, right, but it can look like anything. Every day is a little bit different. So I manage our brand, our online presence, our website, I stage some of our houses and graphic design. I teach our marketing classes here. Just a little bit of everything. We do lots with events and community actions out in Lexington, so we sponsor a lot of events. We're always out in Women's Business Center, women Living Kentucky. We're just kind of out and about so I get to share the Guide Realty brand around in Lexington.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, One of the things that I don't know a lot of people know about Guide Realty is that in their physical location there's actually an event center that is available for use. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that space?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. I manage also the Compass Center. So the Compass Center is a professional space that we can lease out for professional and nonprofit organizations. So whether they need a meeting, a professional happy hour, continuing education classes, we can host just about anything. And I am a creative at heart so I can turn this space into anything multiple times and it flips often throughout the week.

Speaker 1:

It does. I've seen it as a dance party, very professional, like cocktail hour, all the way down to classroom. We've even had some events there where it was just very casual, you know, sitting around on the couches having kind of a fireside chat feel to it as well. Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I mean we can. When Raquel moved to this space I guess now we've been here almost five years when we moved to this space, that's what she wanted. She wanted to bring the community in. So with bringing in the community we were able to host so many different organizations, groups, businesses for many different whatever you can think of, almost anything you think of we can have here. We do want to guide, grow and build with the Compass Center. So anything that's going to elevate businesses and professional settings, that's what we're going to do.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. Yeah, I'm so grateful for the way that you guys do reach out and bring the community in and go out into the community. So let's switch gears. I want to talk about Transy just for a minute. There's a lot I don't know about this. I am not a dance or cheer type person, necessarily, but I am so inspired by all of the work that you put in, and one of the things that you recently were telling a group of people about was the athletes volunteering their time and that you would kind of help to coordinate that. So what are all of the different roles that you facilitate there at Transy?

Speaker 2:

of the different roles that you facilitate there at Transy. Yeah, so at Transy I'm the head dance coach my years there I did coach cheer at one point but during COVID and then as we got busier here at Guide, I kind of focused my energy just with dance. But I've had the opportunity to serve on the DEI committee within the athletics department. So there's a few myself and a few other coaches serve on this committee and we find ways to get our athletes involved and support our athletes with DEI initiatives within the community and within the Transy campus. So within that committee I served on and I already serve on the Robert H Williams board. I was like you know what, why not bring both of these worlds together? And I presented it to our committee members, presented it to our athletic administrators and they were like, yes, let's do it. What can we do? And it was even more exciting that they were like we don't want to just do a one-off event, we want a partnership. So to have the support of our athletic administrators to say we want this to be something that our athletes can do throughout the year. And that's exactly what we did.

Speaker 2:

So they've come out to the center on numerous occasions this year alone, the basketball team the women's basketball team came out and organized. We have this huge donation of books and we have a Lex Read and Play library within the center, so we have this huge donation of books. They came out, sorted the books, organized them, put them up. It was a sight to see these amazing female athletes do the work in this center. And then we had our student athlete advisory committee, which is about 40 athletes from all the sports that we have at Transy, and they came out and did a huge clean out of the basement. The basement had not had any activity in over five years, so there was just a lot of things that needed to be trashed and taken out and they did it. The work that would have taken most people days and weeks, they did it in 30 minutes.

Speaker 2:

Like the efficiency of these athletes, the way they work together, the way they created a plan, devised it, executed, you could see. That's why they are exceptional athletes at Trainsy, because the way they went to action and the way they worked out. I was I mean, I coached some of them that were there but to see them work from. You know, we had the lacrosse team, softball, I mean all 27 sports that we have at Transy were represented this day, and to see them all come together and just do an amazing job for not just the center but what it's going to mean for this community, it was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. And for them not to complain and for them to make it fun and work hard. You know those kids didn't have to do that, but they came in, they were excited and they're already planning the events for the fall.

Speaker 1:

I love that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

That's a perfect segue, because I know what I really want to talk to you about is what you really want to talk about too. So you've mentioned the center a couple of times. Tell me what it is and why you're so passionate about it.

Speaker 2:

Well, so the center itself. It's the Robert H Williams Culture Center. It's a nonprofit organization that is owned and operated by the board organization that is owned and operated by the board and it's within the building that is so historic. So the building it sits in is the former industrial colored orphanage that was formed in 1892 by these amazing women, and so this center operated as an orphanage up until 1988. So in 1988, when children no longer lived there, then it turned into the cultural center where it provides education, workshops, all kinds of things. But COVID was hard on the center, so a lot of the programming and funding ceased. And it's kind of been my mission and passion, since I've become a board member, within the last less than two years to restore, to restore the building and restore some of the energy, bring back the community to the center so we can continue to provide services.

Speaker 1:

I did not realize that it had been in service this whole time. I honestly thought that maybe it had completely like shut down operations and this is not a dig at the center in any way but when you look at that building, if you think that they have been having programming happening while the building was literally falling on itself, it's just mind boggling to me. And now I see why you're just so much more passionate about. We've got to restore this building. We've got to keep the integrity and keep the programming going for the community. So tell me a little bit more about the different types of programming that is currently offered. And then, what's like the dream, what's the passion behind all of this?

Speaker 2:

Now, this is where I can talk. This is where I am like we're going to do some, really some good things and it's going to. I mean, the building has outstood so many people and it will continue to, but it's going to take all of us working together. But current programming we only have one program that consistently happens in the building, but it is limited to weather, right, because the building is not temperature controlled. So we are. It just depends if it's not too hot, if it's not too cold, we can be inside. But we do have the Lex, l-e-x, lex Read and Play Library. So it's an opportunity to bring open up the center and let families and kids come in and just have free play. We have a room of books and toys, musical instruments, so one Saturday a month we open up the center for them to come in and play and just engage with us and other volunteers. But we also have we have to get creative with our programming right, because we can't use much of the building. Have to get creative with our programming right, because we can't use much of the building. So we have an annual homecoming event that's held outside on the front lawn Playtables, bubble machines, vendors, ice cream trucks just a good time to bring families out and it's a homecoming just to have fun on the lawn. And then we partnered with some other organizations. So there was a group that had a fireside book event for kids. Out on the back lawn they put up a movie screen, they had fire pits going hot cocoa. So we get creative with using the space.

Speaker 2:

But ultimately we have two main objectives One, to preserve the history of the center, the women that started it, the children that have come through the center, and then to preserve the actual physical building. The building has been there since 19th and, as you can imagine, it needs some repair. You've seen it, right, you've seen it. It's a big, beautiful building with so much potential and you could feel the history in it. But you know that it's going to take a lot of funds, a lot of hands on to restore this building. So ultimately we have a plan to do really four major things in the building. So on the basement floor, we would love to open that up as a community marketplace where small businesses could lease spaces on a short-term base so they can provide their services and goods at costs that they could afford, because many businesses can't afford the long-term rentals or the large lease rate.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so.

Speaker 2:

we want to make something affordable for community goods and services right there in West End. The first floor we want to continue to maintain with the Robert H Williams Sculpture Center. So we want a space dedicated to a museum to preserve the artifacts and the history of the women and the past things that they've done. We want to also do arts. So we want to bring theater, dance, music, all of those things classes to the kids in the neighborhood and then also on the second floor, which has not been touched since the children left in 88. So no one has used that space since 1988. But we would love to restore that space to be places so where nonprofit organizations or small businesses if they needed something more long longer term. And then the attic is the bread and butter. It's this beautiful space of exposed brick and wood beams, completely open. It's gorgeous up there but it would be a magnificent event center. So we had nothing but room 16,000 square feet of potential to do just some good stuff.

Speaker 1:

I love all of it, specifically because I'm such a small business nerd and I love finding creative ways for small businesses to get their foothold, because that's one of the biggest barriers for small businesses when they're getting started is like I have this great idea, this great product, this great service.

Speaker 1:

But, like you said, the long-term commercial leases oftentimes are two plus years. You know you're not looking at a 12-month lease. I mean, if we're being honest, most commercial leases start at five years and so when you're a small business first getting started, that's often a huge barrier and they require such capital to be able to say I can put down three months in advance or put down this huge deposit. So I love the idea of having a space that's flexible for small businesses to get started and kind of test their concept and say is this something that I should invest my time and my money and energy into? So super grateful for that. I'm really looking forward to that becoming a reality.

Speaker 2:

And it's all about opportunity, right? Because, much like at Transy, like with my dancers, I tell them all the time if you want to do it, I can give you resources, I can teach you what you need and I can get you to the top. But just having those opportunities so to have a small business that has a dream, an idea and a plan, they could get started with a month to month lease or quarterly lease, you know just like you said, being creative.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay. And then the first floor you said is going to be the museum and kind of the arts space.

Speaker 2:

Is that correct, absolutely. So we want to teach, like bring in instructors or dance companies to teach dance to the kids in the center in the community. So dance, theater classes, music classes if anyone wants to come in and teach, I don't know band, orchestra, anything. We want to bring in so many artistic areas that there's not a lot of opportunities and to make it walkable to where people in the community can just walk down the street, come across and we bring all of those options in. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And then tell me more about the museum portion. So I had the good fortune of making it to the recent Tea Party on the Lawn where you had Miss. Was it Loretta?

Speaker 2:

Yes, dr Loretta Flynn-Beyer, she is, she's a treat.

Speaker 1:

She was incredible and I learned so much. I was a little bit starstruck.

Speaker 2:

I was a bit starstruck because I've read her book, I've highlighted, I've marked my book up, so to see her talk about it, I was like, oh my goodness, this is amazing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I bought a copy of the book that day and I'm so excited to find some time. I'm actually taking next week off and that book is going with me on my little mini vacation because I cannot wait.

Speaker 2:

Here's what's going to happen. You're going to read it and you're going to say I need to learn more. Like it just gives you just enough to say, all right, let's go pull back some layers.

Speaker 1:

Well, I know, even during her talk she kept mentioning and bringing up the minutes from the original meetings that the women were having when they started the center and she was saying, if you read through these minutes and I was like I want to read through the minutes, I'm like let's take a field trip down to the library.

Speaker 2:

I think is where she said it's at the UK Special Collections and I can't wait to see the physical paper that is still around from 1892, you know, when they first started this organization. Yeah, okay, so we've been around the bush a lot.

Speaker 1:

Fill everybody in, tell them about the history of this place, because it just blew my mind.

Speaker 2:

Well. So, like you said, we do want to preserve the history, to make sure that these women are not lost, because if we're not talking about them, who is? Who's going to be the one to keep their memories alive and to keep that history current Because it is so current. So, a group of women, a group of African-American women between 15 and 20 in 1892. Yeah, they were in their mid-20s when they started this. They were very young women at the time who saw the need of the unhoused Black children of Lexington. No one was caring for them, but think about it who would care for them in 1892? One generation out from slavery? You?

Speaker 2:

know, so Civil War was 1865. And here we are in 1892 that these women said there's a need. They're unhoused Black children, someone has to care for them. And these women formed this organization and built the home. And in 1892, they cared for the unhoused children of Lexington up until 1988. It's incredible. I know it's our lifetime. People lived in that home, that we sat on the lawn. People lived and we had the treat to have one of them at the tea party.

Speaker 1:

And he's written a book as well. Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

He has Bricks of Grace. It's amazing that the cover of his book is him standing in front of the home that he once lived in.

Speaker 1:

It's incredible. I'm going to make sure to link both of those books ways that you can purchase them in the description. I don't Loretta's book. Dr Loretta's book is no longer available. Is that correct? Well, that is correct.

Speaker 2:

So it is not in print, but the Culture Center does still have a few copies left. So when they're gone, they're going to be gone for a while, my gosh.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to keep mine in a safe.

Speaker 2:

Right, the history is fleeting us, and this book was written in the 90s. So here we are 30 years later. Someone has to keep it alive, and if that is my call and admission, well, I will be toting my book around, so I think it's.

Speaker 1:

History in general is a strange thing, right, because we do get to be selective as the years roll by, of what history remains and what history gets buried. And I think that the story of these women and this center is so poignant because it speaks to the capacity not only of women, but of anyone who is facing unrealistic challenges. You know these like huge barriers, you know at that time, not only being a woman and you know not having the right to vote, but also being black women who, like you said, were one generation out from slavery, and they saw a need in the community and said you know, despite any of the challenges that are in front of us, we're going to find a way to do the right thing and to help the people around us. Story is such an incredible testament to the will of women to say when there's a need, we're going to find a way to meet that need.

Speaker 2:

And that is that's what you do every day. That's what you do in your job, as you're coaching these amazing women and and and all these other organizations that you're supporting. Like we are the same as these women, you know. We have the same challenges and the same barriers that that they had did. The only difference is is now there's more of us that can band together. There's more of us that can make a louder noise and a bigger ripple.

Speaker 1:

Yes, okay. So I'm kind of like you, I'm on fire about this and I think I told you at the Tea Party I've been looking for a way that just like felt right to me. I've had this desire to support a global mission or nonprofit. I found that with UR. That's a local Lexington nonprofit, but they serve women and girls globally. And now I've found this organization and I'm like, okay, this is my where I feel really good about supporting locally and getting really involved. So I know how I'm gonna be involved is. I'm gonna keep talking about it, spreading the word, donating my time and money when I can. How?

Speaker 2:

can people get involved to help the Cultural Center. What do you guys need right now? Well, right now we need awareness. I need people talking about it. So we do have a Facebook page, so if people can follow us on Facebook like comment, just to know that things are happening.

Speaker 2:

We're going to be doing a few things coming up in the near future. We are going to have another basement clean out day, so that's just. You know, a lot of people can't always donate financially, right, but however people donate, whether it's their time speaking about the center, it all matters. So we are going to be releasing a date and it'll be a summer clean out date. Really think it's going to take one more day to finish out that basement, but so that. And then we'll have the homecoming event that's usually held in September, held in September. So just coming out, whether it's coming out to be a vendor or just support, come out and shop with the local businesses that'll be there. But yeah, so we just it's the awareness right now, and when we have events, it's support, and support is the action. We want people, we don't just want your dollars. We want you to show up and make a big noise.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, do you have a mailing list for the center that people could get on?

Speaker 2:

We do so with our Facebook page. If you just DM us, send us a message, we'll add you to the mailing list and anything that's going on. We can make sure that you're in the know. That's how we. You know in my marketing brain here what I do a guide realty. I'm using those expertise as we're building out the brand for the culture center.

Speaker 1:

I love it so much.

Speaker 2:

Well, okay, it's strange how it's all connected and I'm bringing all my world together.

Speaker 1:

Isn't it great when you realize, like I didn't know why I was learning that skill or connecting with that person. And then it all gets tied up at the end and you're like, oh right.

Speaker 2:

Because now I have Guide Realty, who is a huge supporter of the Culture Center, and I'm marketing director at Guide Realty, and then I have the support of the Transylvania Athletics, where I coach the dance team. But I brought them all in this world, so we're all connected and we all are getting different things out of it.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I love it. Are we allowed to make any sort of public announcement about the head honcho at Guide Realty and her new ventures?

Speaker 2:

Well, it's, it's public information, and that's the other task is, we've got to bring awareness to that as well. I mean, you know, and I think for me, I'm inspired by the women of the industrial orphanage. You know, I'm inspired by what they did and to see that on their backs. Here we are, with Raquel going to be running for mayor of Lexington and 100% believe she can do it, 100% that she can do it and she'll be the one to bring change, make Lexington accessible for everyone and that everyone gets opportunities. And I don't think there's anything wrong with everyone having opportunities.

Speaker 1:

You know there's a lot of things I could disagree with you on, but that's not one of them. Okay, you know, I think when we all have a chance to succeed, there's a better chance that we're all going to succeed and other people have said it, but we are truly stronger together.

Speaker 2:

We, you know we'll be stronger if we all work together.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Okay. So I'm going to in the show notes and on the social media I'm going to link to the cultural center. For sure I'll link to the compass center and guide royalty so people can know about those resources. And then I'll also link to um Raquel's mayoral candidacy page so people can get involved in that if they're so inclined to do so.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we've got big things happening all over us and, at the end of the day, I just get to cheer people on. I just get to keep cheering and making sure everyone reaches the top.

Speaker 1:

Could not be more grateful to have you in my life because, truly, when I do get to talk to you, it's like my cup gets filled again. You know I could be having the worst day, and talking to you it's like, okay, I can make it through.

Speaker 2:

No, it's true. I'm going to say it here because I want to keep it clean, but you are a bastard and just I love every bit of it and just happy, so happy that to have you in the network as well Cause I know you originally came into our network because you did work with Guide Realty and just so interesting how it has evolved into these other businesses and Small Business Bestie and running the Women's Entrepreneurs Leadership Group, and it's just great to see where you've gone and no telling where we're going next.

Speaker 1:

Truly could not do it without the cheerleaders out there, and you are for sure, one of the best. So I'm so grateful to be a part of everything happening in Lexington. We live in a great city.

Speaker 2:

We really do. We really do. Yeah, it's funny because a lot of my friends don't live here in Lexington and most of them have gone to other cities, but I've never left this home. And you talking about this forever.

Speaker 1:

So maybe we'll have to do a follow-up episode and like do some check-ins of how the centers do it.

Speaker 2:

Well, I also have to bring you on for the behind the scenes tour. You have to go see the basement, you have to see the second floor, you know, and that's when your mind will really say oh, my goodness, you could feel the history. You can feel it.

Speaker 1:

I'm so excited and I know that if you say the attic is going to be like the best event center, I can't even imagine because I know the kind of creativity that you have and I'm like, OK, this is going to be good.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'm excited. Right, it's going to be good. We have some really great partners, grateful to the city of Lexington for their partnership and what they've already done with us. We've had a partnership with Lexington Leadership Foundation assisting us with getting a new roof, and just we've had. We've been blessed. We have been blessed as we're moving towards these goals and just excited about the future.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Well. Hopefully we'll continue to get more momentum, more people wanting to partner and sponsor and do all of the things, and please keep us updated if there's things that we can do and, as always, drop it in the Small Business Bestie group. If you need any sort of collaboration, please let us know.

Speaker 2:

We are here for you, yay, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. All right, tara, we will talk later. So much to me. If you follow the show and take just a few seconds to rate or review, a five-star rating really helps the show become visible to other besties who may just need the support and friendship that we offer.