Prevent hardship
Career training and emotional support help families avoid homelessness, poverty and poor health.
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Our story and leadership
A mission built from lived experience
How Delane Sims turned her own experience as a single mother into a path for other women and families.
Delane Sims, Founder and Executive Director
Delane Sims, an Oakland, California native, created DNNC Steps to Success drawing on her own experience as a single mother of four children.
The work began informally in 2000 and was formalized as an organization in 2016. In 2005, while serving as an outreach coordinator for the ACLU of Northern California, Delane noticed that many of the people she met who were serving time had grown up in single-parent homes weighed down by poverty. She came to believe that when mothers raising children alone get the help they need, families are steadier and children have more chances.
Delane also founded Delane’s Natural Nail Care in San Leandro, the teaching salon where participants train. Her earlier community work included Senior Moments, an elder outreach program she started in 2005. That program is now carried on through the Delane’s Natural Nail Care website and is separate from DNNC Steps to Success.
Mission
Why we do this work
DNNC Steps to Success provides vocational training, education and support to women and single parents so they can obtain and keep jobs with thriving wages, and improve stability and quality of life for their families.
Build careers
Scholarships and hands-on training open a path to licensed, stable work.
Strengthen families
Mentorship, classes and community support reach beyond the classroom.
Our approach
Women helping women
We use a working nail salon as a teaching space and an entrepreneurial incubator. Both staff and clients of the teaching salon provide mentoring and support, so participants learn from women who have walked a similar road.
DNNC Steps to Success works in partnership with Delane’s Natural Nail Care. Participants learn professional skills alongside social skills, wellness and financial literacy.
History
Our journey
- 2000
The work begins
Delane Sims begins helping single mothers build careers, informally at first.
- 2005
A calling takes shape
Delane’s work with families affected by incarceration deepens her commitment to supporting single mothers.
- 2016
Formalized as an organization
DNNC Steps to Success is formalized as a nonprofit organization.
- 2017 onward
Galas and community events
The first annual gala is held in 2017, followed by galas, award celebrations and vehicle giveaways. See our events history.
Leadership
The people behind the mission
Delane Sims
Founder and Executive Director
An Oakland native and former single mother of four, Delane founded DNNC Steps to Success and Delane’s Natural Nail Care in San Leandro. Her nail salon was named Business of the Year by the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce in 2017.
Myeshia Jefferson
Assistant Executive Director
Myeshia came to the program as a participant and grew into a co-owner of the salon and a leader of the program. She earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Cal State East Bay in 2010, formed the consulting company Beauty Means Business LLC in 2012 to coach women entering the beauty industry, and holds a medical manicure certification.