The Founder
Kenisa Nunley
Kenisa Nunley graduated from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles with a Bachelor of Arts in Global Business, with an emphasis in marketing. She chose to explore the event industry and was able to work on teams for events such as Coachella Music Festival, Adobe Max, TED Conference, Dreamforce, and Guess fashion engagements. Her business knowledge and experience in the industry led to her working in strategic partnerships for technology companies like Magento, eBay, and Permira. These experiences allowed her to grow into a dynamic professional who excels as a critical business partner, and provides strategic leadership to internal clients, and senior management teams. With a passion for fashion, beauty, health, business, nature and seeing people build solid foundations and become the best version of themselves; Gowns and Gardens and Gowns and Gardens House of Charities (GG House ) was born.
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Meet the Founder
Kenisa Nunley - President
I am grateful for the diverse education I was given. Some of you may read about my experiences and think I come from a wealthy family. There were some good years financially; but not all of them and more realistically I would say not most of them. But that just goes to show what experiences and education can do. I have always been between worlds. I grew up around very wealthy people and those who had very little and I got to see and take in everything from one end of the spectrum to the other. I noticed from a very young age how ethnicity seemed to be a factor in this economic divide.
Thankfully, I had an ambitious father and an elegant mother who believed in maintaining a standard no matter what was in the bank. My Dad said “broke is only temporary and poor is a state of mind and we do not do poor.” Through financially rough times and affluent times my mom would always make sure that I got to have many different experiences. As a family we went camping almost every weekend with our working-class friends and during the week and other times we might visit friends in the Palisades or Malibu. There were many plays I got to attend, art exhibits, and museums. I was exposed to different books to read and I got to explore art classes, science classes, math classes, dance classes, and many different restaurants, foods, and cultural events. They also gave me a strong moral foundation and biblical values for me to stand on, all of which has made me into who I am today.
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I have always had a heart to help people and also saw this modeled as my family was engaged in our community, city and even regionally in serving others. However, it was when I was at college at the University of Southern California that the pieces really came together as to how I wanted to help people and the gift of exposure that I had been given.
I remember being a student at the University of Southern California and feeling so deprived as I listened to one of the international students - we’ll call her Sarah (who came from a very wealthy, large family) share how she spent most of her junior high and high school years traveling the world, attending family weddings and being taught by a tutor who traveled with them. Many of the weddings had multiple days of celebration, and her mother had decided that it was best to stay in that region and spend time with family and let her daughter explore hands-on the culture and sights of the country they were in, until the next family gathering or wedding. I told her after class that I had so wanted a life like she had. I expressed to her that I felt so neglected that I did not get to have the same kind of life. I was near tears at the thought of knowing that someone got to live a dream life; and I had to work with the life I have had.
She was so gracious and compassionate as she looked at me. Kindly, she told me that I had not missed out on anything, that both our parents gave us the same thing in different ways. She referenced some of the times that I had shared how my mother taught me things through visiting museums, cooking international foods, going to international restaurants, reading books, learning about etiquette, sharing her own stories of traveling, and making sure that I was always around a culturally and economically diverse group of people. “See, we are the same; we learned the same things,” Sarah said. “What our parents wanted us to learn is how to understand and navigate through different cultures and experiences well. And we both do that.”
That one conversation changed my life. The validation, encouragement, and belonging it gave me, coupled with the kindness it was delivered in, left me in tears, clearing out so much insecurity and doubt over what I had believed I missed from all that I did not get to do.
You see I missed the real lesson as I think so many of us do who have had so many experiences. We do not realize what we have because we have never not had it, or because we are always looking at the more of what someone else has. We do not even stop to think of what we have, or we see them as bonuses that we are grateful for; but still probably do not realize all the value we received from them. The fact is exposure and experiences are necessities. Although I had been exposed to a lot and thus the bar was set high as to how I could always do or be better I failed to realize that I was never not accepted, I was never out of a conversation, I never walked into a room I could not navigate. Again, my life was not perfect and the challenges took up a lot of my focus and distracted me from what I had. Never-the-less that one conversation with Sarah”, forever gave me the understanding that it is not just education, economics, and ethnicity that keep those who are from less privileged classes from competing or being accepted into the upper echelons of society; it is also the differences of our experiences. People often relate through experiences, so the more experiences we have the more we are likely to relate to others both logically and emotionally with empathy. Experiences have the ability to bridge the gap between individuals that may seem to have nothing in common.
• Utilizing her background in missions, philanthropy, and volunteer experience with organizations such as the American Heart Association: Dear Neighbor Campaign, (which has raised over $700,000 a year in California alone), she has served the greater Los Angeles community as Board Member of Christian Legal Aid of Los Angeles from 2017-2019, and is currently serving Riverside County as a Board Member of Seeds of Love and Mercy. She is excited to now bring her experience to Gowns and Gardens House of Charities.
• Kenisa was recently recognized as a Champion for The Power of Femininity
by The Way of The Champion magazine.
Exposure to a variety of experiences, environments, and understandings and how to navigate them can truly make or break moments or determine how one’s path unfolds in small talk conversations at business events, by who is involved in social networks and who is not. This can also be seen as an attribute of people’s being fearful of the unknown; that which they were not exposed to. For if you were exposed to it, one would more often have an opinion about it rather than a fear. So, the more one knows and understands about the world around them, the more they are less fearful. Instead, they will be able to recognize more opportunities because of their awareness and their level of comfort with it.
This is the understanding of the experience that brought me to knowing how I wanted to help people not just that I wanted to help people. Just providing someone with the essentials of living is not enough. The essentials do not build confidence, understanding, critical thinking, and the curiosity one needs to get through life. Exposure and experiences are a necessity. Helping others get the needed exposure so they can navigate and feel confident in numerous social and professional environments is a joy and a skill that I enjoy sharing. Welcome to the start of Gowns and Gardens House of Charities!