Raquel Thomas
Operations Associate, Grantmakers for Girls of Color
Raquel Thomas (she, her) - Operations Associate, Grantmakers for Girls of Color
Raquel is a communicator, culture worker, and servant leader. She is passionate about wellness, restorative justice, and the preservation of memory. As a child, Raquel spent most of her time in the U.S. South exploring the Mvskoke land in Georgia on which she currently resides. Establishing reverence for Indigenous land imbued her with lessons of openness, peace, and endurance. She is a Black American writer, musician, and certified yoga teacher. Through her life’s work, Raquel hopes to encourage joy, vulnerability, and creative self-expression.
Prior to G4GC, Raquel was a student at Spelman College where she majored in Sociology and minored in Spanish. She focused on social justice, civic engagement, and healing the intergenerational impact of mass incarceration. Right before the COVID-19 pandemic, she implemented the Liberating Legacies program to address the fact that 1 in 9 Black children in the U.S. has an incarcerated parent according to data collected in 2014 by the National Resource Center on Children & Families of the Incarcerated at Rutgers University. With a grant from the Joseph and Evelyn Lowery Institute, she developed and implemented curricula that provided children with incarcerated family members social and academic support at a historical Title I high school in Atlanta. The long term dream for Raquel is to create a multifaceted organization that creates space for girls experiencing marginalization; specifically from mass incarceration and the foster care system to be recognized and nurtured.
When not working, she spends her time weightlifting, developing as a fiber artist and trying to finally win a game against her sibling in Super Smash Bros.
