INSPIRATION / LONGWOOD, FLORIDA
Tekoa
Pouerie
Compassion has
a practical side.
If you want to understand the organization Tekoa Pouerie leads, start with a shower.
At The Sharing Center in Longwood, people experiencing homelessness can use the Oasis for showers, laundry, meals and other support. These are ordinary activities that become extraordinarily complicated when you do not have a private bathroom, a washing machine or a dependable place to sleep. An appointment does not postpone itself because your only clean shirt is no longer clean.
That is the setting for Pouerie’s work as president and CEO: a collection of services addressing the practical obstacles that accumulate around hunger and housing instability. Her career has also included fundraising for girls’ education and support, training public servants, and pastoral leadership. She moves among subjects that are often discussed separately: faith, organizational finance and how institutions treat people. She brings them into the same working day.
The interesting part is how much coordination that requires. Compassion may get someone through a door. Keeping the services behind that door useful is a larger undertaking.
From Clewiston
to a statewide
view.
Pouerie grew up in Clewiston and earned a criminology degree at the University of Central Florida. When The Sharing Center announced her appointment in May 2025, it described a leader whose experience included training professionals in trauma-informed care and working with organizations serving families and young people in crisis.
That background makes sense in a place where a person’s first encounter with an organization can determine whether they return. A patient first conversation gives someone a chance to explain what is happening. It also gives the organization a better chance of understanding which kind of help will be useful.
Training addresses that encounter. It asks professionals to consider what may sit behind a person’s behavior and how their own response can either help or obstruct the work. Pouerie’s experience includes collaborations with juvenile justice, law enforcement and child welfare organizations. Those are settings where the consequences of being misunderstood can be substantial.
Before The Sharing Center, she served as a vice president at Pace Center for Girls, overseeing fundraising across 21 Florida locations. Her Greater Orlando Sports Commission biography places that work within a career combining program growth, funding and public service training.
Twenty-one locations also means a leader has to think beyond the compelling story of a single site. A promising program needs recurring support. An organization has to explain its work accurately to people who may never meet its participants. Good intentions still encounter payroll on a fairly dependable schedule.
Pouerie’s public identity includes ministry as well. She is co-pastor of Acceleration Church with her husband, Dio, and her own account of her early leadership includes establishing a women’s prayer group while attending UCF. Faith is an explicit source of purpose in her work. It is also part of The Sharing Center’s history, which began with leaders from 17 churches in 1986.
The center’s stated commitment today is to welcome community members facing hardship regardless of their background. An organization with Christian roots can make that purpose visible in the breadth of its welcome.
Several doors into
the same problem.
Pouerie took charge of an established institution. Its programs, staff relationships and community knowledge were already there. Her story involves stewardship of that accumulated work, with room to strengthen it.
The Oasis
The Oasis is one entry point. Its drop-in services meet immediate physical needs for people living in cars, camps or on the street. A shower and clean clothes can restore some comfort to an exhausting day. They can also make it easier to handle the next practical task, whether that is a meeting, a work shift or a conversation with a case manager.
The Pantry
The Pantry serves another need, providing groceries to families and individuals. Food assistance has an obvious purpose, but it also has consequences elsewhere in a household’s budget. Money that does not have to be spent on groceries may be available for transportation or an overdue bill. The effects travel beyond the grocery bag.
Family Support
For families facing the loss of housing or utilities, the center’s Family Support program offers case management and financial assistance subject to its application process. Staff also help with benefits, budgeting and employment referrals. That brings the organization into the period when a household may still be able to avoid a more disruptive crisis.
These services create different kinds of encounters. Some people need a resource immediately. Some need help navigating a process. Others need a longer relationship. A leader has to keep those distinctions visible instead of expecting one program to answer every version of hardship.
The public rarely sees the full operational picture. It sees a donation drive or a volunteer photo, perhaps a particularly memorable success story. Behind that image are schedules, eligibility decisions, storage, transportation, follow-up and the judgment of staff members who know when a standard answer does not fit.
Pouerie’s combination of development experience and professional training is relevant here. The organization needs resources, and the way those resources reach people matters just as much. Her experience brings attention to both the funding and the encounter it makes possible.
Preparing for the
next conversation.
The center’s ProjectRISE takes a more sustained approach to employment. Its five-week program includes classroom work on workplace readiness, interpersonal skills and job-seeking, followed by mock interviews with employers and exposure to education and trade opportunities. Participants are paired with a success coach.
The mock interview is a particularly useful detail. Advice becomes more specific when a person can practice, receive feedback and try again before the stakes are an actual job offer. An employer becomes more than a distant name on an application. A coach can help connect the experience to the participant’s own goals.
Help can
be private.
There is another working connection on the property: the Village Shoppes. The boutique, furniture shop and thrift store generate revenue for the mission. Donated goods can be sold, directed to families or handled through partner organizations. A separate voucher desk is intended to make assistance confidential.
That small procedural choice says something useful. Dignity is partly a matter of how a transaction is organized. A person can receive help and keep the details of a difficult moment to themselves. Privacy is a form of consideration the organization can build into an ordinary working day.
The strength on the
other side of the desk.
In the appointment announcement published by the Sanford Herald in June 2025, Pouerie spoke about the strength and resilience of the people The Sharing Center serves. She wanted the community to hear their stories.
That is a good place for a leader’s attention to rest. The person asking for assistance has already been making decisions, managing responsibilities and trying to hold things together. A useful conversation gives that effort its due.
What I admire in Pouerie’s combination of training and fundraising is how closely the two can serve that encounter. She has worked on bringing resources into an organization and on helping professionals understand the person in front of them. A well-funded service becomes more useful when someone feels able to explain what they actually need.
An organization like The Sharing Center asks its leader to keep moving between immediate needs and the conditions that make next month’s work possible. Pouerie has brought a career in service, development and teaching to that task. The results worth watching are close to everyday life: a person better prepared for an interview, a family able to remain housed, a difficult morning made a little more manageable.
About Tekoa Pouerie
What organization does Tekoa Pouerie lead?
Tekoa Pouerie is president and CEO of The Sharing Center in Longwood, Florida. The organization announced her appointment in May 2025.
Where did Tekoa Pouerie work before The Sharing Center?
She served as a vice president at Pace Center for Girls, overseeing statewide fundraising for 21 Florida locations.
What is The Sharing Center’s ProjectRISE?
ProjectRISE is a five-week adult workforce development program that combines classroom learning, mock interviews with employers and support from a success coach.
Two other Seminole County profiles follow this work through different doors: Chris Ham at Rescue Outreach Mission, where a shelter stay must lead toward a home, and Joan Faulkner at HOPE Helps, where school breaks and home visits shape the support a family receives.
Sources: The Sharing Center’s appointment, mission and program pages; Greater Orlando Sports Commission’s biography; Pouerie’s own biography; and the June 2025 appointment announcement in the Sanford Herald. Current roles and program descriptions checked September 2026. Reflections on dignity and leadership are Rob Urban’s.
More writing and conversations about making the care behind an organization visible: meet Rob.