Today we’d like to introduce you to Shoareged Phillpotts.
Hi Shoareged, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
It Takes A Village Collaborative(ITAVcollab) was born from something my sister, Aishia, and I had been living long before we had language for it: the practice of showing up for one another.
We grew up in a Hyattsville, Maryland household shaped by our Caribbean roots and a way of living that did not need a name because it was simply how things were done. You showed up before you were asked. You held grief and celebrated wellness with equal consistency. You built what did not exist, and you shared what you had. Collective care was not an ideology in our home. It was an inherited way of being.
That understanding became the foundation for It Takes A Village Collaborative.
Before ITAVcollab had a name, we were already witnessing the gaps between what communities were being offered and what people actually needed. Through our professional work in public health, social work, education, wellness, and advocacy, we saw how often Black women and families were expected to navigate burnout, grief, trauma, economic uncertainty, and systemic inequities without spaces designed specifically for their healing.
In 2019, my sister and I began building the heart of It Takes A Village Collaborative. What started as an idea became a gathering, and that gathering became a community.
For me, the work was also deeply personal. After years of carrying the weight of community needs professionally, I eventually felt that weight in my own body. I experienced a kind of burnout that rest alone could not reach, the exhaustion that comes when purpose has been separated from sustainability for too long. I realized I was not uniquely struggling; I was carrying, in my own way, some of what so many of the people we hoped to serve were carrying.
In the fall of 2020, we held our first Queen B.E.E. Talks Retreat. That experience helped clarify what ITAVcollab could become: not simply another program or organization, but a place where people could experience wellness, connection, and healing in ways that felt culturally familiar and accessible.
From those first gatherings, we built deliberately- bringing practitioners together, developing our Self-Care Beyond the Surface™ framework, cultivating partnerships, and creating infrastructure around a community that was already showing up.
Year by year, the gathering became an organization. The organization became a movement. And the movement has grown into an ecosystem.
Today, It Takes A Village Collaborative operates as an Integrative Wellness Hub™ serving Prince George’s County and the greater DC region. We bring clinical care, holistic healing, community care, and healing justice into the same room, creating culturally grounded spaces where people can restore, reconnect, and build sustainable wellness.
At its heart, though, ITAVcollab is still what it was in the beginning: a practice of showing up for one another.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Yes and no.
In many ways, the relationships, community connections, and people who have believed in this work have made the journey feel possible. We have been carried by community in the same way that we have tried to create spaces that carry community.
But building this organization has also meant navigating systems that were never designed with our communities, or organizations like ours, in mind.
One of our greatest challenges has been figuring out how to build sustainable wellness infrastructure while keeping the work accessible to the people who need it most. Flexible funding, limited startup resources, capacity, and the realities of building a growing organization have all required us to constantly think differently about sustainability.
But there is another layer to the challenge that feels just as important.
We are not only trying to shift systems; we are also working to shift cultural narratives about what wellness, healing, and care can look like. We are asking people to examine coping mechanisms that may have helped them survive but are no longer helping them thrive. Sometimes people can feel that something needs to change long before they know how, or when, to put it down.
That makes this work deeply personal.
For my sister and me, building ITAVcollab has stretched us far beyond what we imagined when we started. We have had to grow as leaders while allowing the organization itself to grow beyond us. That has required faith, humility, resilience, and a willingness to keep learning.
Through strategic partnerships, community trust, grassroots support, and a commitment to our mission, we have continued to build. The journey has not always been easy, but it has consistently reminded us that the village is not just something we serve. It is something we are part of.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
It Takes A Village Collaborative is a community-centered wellness organization rooted in a simple belief: healing is a birthright.
We operate as an Integrative Wellness Hub™ serving Prince George’s County and the greater DC region, with a focus on Black women and justice-impacted individuals. Our work brings together mental health, holistic wellness, healing justice, and community care in ways that are culturally grounded and accessible.
Through healing circles, wellness cohorts, retreats, leadership gatherings, reentry and healing justice initiatives, and other community-based experiences, we create spaces where people can pause, reconnect with themselves, build relationships, and develop practices that support their wellbeing beyond the moment.
One of the frameworks that anchors our work is Self-Care Beyond the Surface™- Awareness, Acceptance, and Change. We believe wellness is more than what happens when someone gets a massage, attend a yoga class, or takes a day off. It also means understanding what is happening beneath the surface, accepting where you are, and having the support and tools to make meaningful change.
What sets us apart is that we do not see individual wellness and community wellness as separate things. When people have opportunities to heal, reconnect, and feel supported, families and communities benefit too.
Since 2019, ITAVcollab has reached more than 850 Prince George’s County residents through wellness programming, healing justice initiatives, and community engagement experiences, with more than 80% of our services offered at no cost.
What I am most proud of, though, is not a number. It is the trust.
People continue to show up, bring their friends, return to programs, share their stories, and tell us that they finally found a space where they did not have to explain every part of themselves before receiving care.
That is the kind of infrastructure we set out to build- a village where wellness feels like something you can actually belong to.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that being a founder and being a CEO are two very different things.
As a founder, you are often fueled by vision, passion, instinct, and the urgency to build what you know needs to exist. You are willing to wear every hat because the thing does not exist yet.
But eventually, the organization becomes bigger than the founder.
Becoming a CEO has required me to learn a different kind of leadership. It has meant learning how to build infrastructure, create sustainable systems, develop people, make decisions that serve the organization beyond the immediate moment, and perhaps hardest of all- understand that I cannot personally carry every part of the vision.
I have had to learn that sustainability is not separate from the mission. It is part of the mission.
That lesson has changed how I think about leadership, growth, money, capacity, and even success. Building something meaningful is one thing. Building something that can continue to serve people without consuming the people who built it is another.
My sister and I started ITAVcollab with a vision. Now we are learning how to steward something that has become bigger than either of us.
Pricing:
- Join us: Participate in an upcoming healing circle, wellness experience, retreat, or community gathering. Offerings vary in cost, and we intentionally provide free and low-cost opportunities throughout the year.Join us: Participate in an upcoming healing circle, wellness experience, retreat, or community gathering. Offerings vary in cost, and we intentionally provide free and low-cost opportunities throughout the year.
- Support the work: Become a monthly Village Keeper or make a one-time contribution to help us continue offering accessible wellness experiences to the community.
- Partner with us: Organizations, businesses, practitioners, and community partners can collaborate with ITAVcollab through sponsorships, wellness programming, retreats, trainings, and community initiatives.
- Share the work: Follow ITAVcollab, share our resources with someone who may need them, and help us continue building a culture where collective care is something we practice, not just something we talk about.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.itavcollab.org/#/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itavcollab
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ITAVcollab
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/itavcollab/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ITAVcollab
- Other: TikTok tiktok.com/itavcollab
