BoomerGirl Diary

Charlotte, N.C. — She didn't look like a drug abuser.

That's why Patrice Gaines said she was concealing heroin for her addicted boyfriend at a Steppenwolf concert in Charlotte, N.C., in the summer of 1970.

She didn't look like a drug abuser, but she was one.

Her mother in Washington, D.C., was caring for her 2-year-old daughter. Gaines was 21, and she was scared.

"I was extremely dissatisfied with my own self. I was looking for a way to escape," Gaines said. "My life was out of control."

Gaines worked hard and got her life back, becoming a journalist and author. She's now returned to the Charlotte area. She runs a foundation out of her home to help other women.

Growing up in Quantico, Va., Gaines said she had a poor self-image and felt isolated because of her skin color. Those early experiences led her down a path of self-loathing, which finally landed her in jail.

After her arrest, Gaines got five years' probation and considered herself lucky. But she also got a record as a convicted felon.

She was living in Charlotte, where she worked as a secretary and researcher at a newspaper. Although she promised herself she'd change her life, for several years she bounced from abusive relationship to abusive relationship.

Gaines said she loved to read and write. While she was trying to get her life straightened out, she went to night school. She became drug free. Eight years after her arrest, she was selected to receive training from what is now known as the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in California.

For the next 23 years, Gaines worked as a reporter, most recently writing news features at The Washington Post. She won awards from the National Association of Black Journalists and the Volunteers of America. In 2001, she resigned. Gaines said for the last five years she worked as a reporter, she felt she ought to be doing something else.

"I gave my two-week notice on a job I had been in for 16 years and the only career I had ever known."

With this latest change in her life, she wants to help change the lives of other women, too.

In 2004, Gaines, 57, and former New Jersey businesswoman Gaile Burton, 58, founded the Brown Angel Center, a foundation to help women who have been incarcerated get back on their feet. The goal is home ownership in five years. The method includes mentors, life coaches, education and housing.

Currently, the organization helps one woman, the first in the program. Other women are being reached through community workshops on finances, goal- and decision-making and forgiveness. Although the foundation doesn't have a physical address, plans are for a permanent location with housing for women in the program, as well as holding workshops and performances.

The founders have applied to become a United Way agency and hope to receive grants, but most of the money to date has come from private donations. Gaines hopes to have the foundation become primarily self-sustaining through book sales, motivational speaking and workshop fees.

"To teach independence, we need to live it."

Gaines is the author of two autobiographical books, "Laughing in the Dark: From colored girl to woman of color, a journey from prison to power," published in 1995, and "Moments of Grace: Meeting the Challenge," published in 1998.

Burton has a bachelor's degree in psychology from UNC Charlotte and a master's in Education-HR/Training and Development from Seton Hall University.

"This (foundation) is the hardest thing I've ever done," Gaines said. "It's challenging, not just to make something come from idea and reality, but challenging to work with some of the women. They're extremely damaged by things that have happened to them before we met them."

Gaines said despite the challenges, she relates to these women.

"Doing motivational speaking in women's prisons, I felt more at home than anywhere else," she said. "I felt I was standing in front of a group of women I could totally understand. I knew how you had to feel about yourself to be in that place. Our goal is to help them become financially independent, and mentally and spiritually healthy."

Despite some misconceptions, the Brown Angel Center isn't only for "brown" women, according to Gaines.

She said for years she's had dreams and feelings that her life is guided by an angel.

"I believe it's the spirit of a black woman who once lived. I saw her as a brown angel. I've never thought that it would make people think it was only for brown people." The woman currently in the program is white.

The Brown Angel Center aims to help women who are ready for change and who are ready to become independent, but who may have trouble finding a job.

"This is what I can do," Gaines said. "There's all this other stuff they have to do. I'm honoring them at whatever step they're at."

Building the program has been slow, but that's OK with Gaines.

"I look at it like rebuilding my own life," she said. "That took 15 years. But once I made up my mind to change my life, I've never been the same."