Partner Profile: All Leaders Must Serve

At Make It Happen for Yolo County, we are committed to partnering with other organizations working with transition age youth so that the youth we serve will have as many resources as possible as they move out on their own and into their first homes.

One of our new partners is the Woodland-based nonprofit All Leaders Must Serve, a mentor organization that empowers young adults ages 15-25 through job-readiness training to become self-sufficient, prepare for a living wage job and give back to the community.

Jayne Williams, founder of All Leaders Must Serve, knows all too well the struggles that transition age youth face.

“I grew up in this crazy mixed up house in Colorado Springs,” Jayne said. “My mother had a personality disorder and didn’t know how to connect with me. My father was an extreme narcissist. I raised my siblings from the time they were born, and when they were toddlers, my father told them that I was their mother.”

Born prematurely due in part to violence, Jayne grew up with a learning disability and experienced racism as an African American girl in a privileged part of Colorado Springs in the 1960s and 1970s. At one point, she asked a teacher when she was going to learn algebra. The teacher started crying and told her she was not allowed to teach her algebra. Between third and sixth grades, she heard her name only a few times in school and felt invisible. No one noticed that when she graduated from high school, she was basically illiterate.

“This is why my passion for young people goes so deep, especially those who are growing up in trauma, and foster youth who don’t feel loved and don’t know where they fit in or who they’re supposed to be.”

Jayne does credit her parents with teaching her responsibility and independence at a very young age as she learned to run the household and walked to school in the snow. She started work early in her father’s janitorial service, learning soft skills and answering phones in the office. By her senior year of high school, she was enrolled in all business classes. Because she was a good typist and had saved every penny while working in high school, she moved to California to attend Moore’s Business College to study court reporting. But legal and medical terminology were too difficult, so she accepted a position with the California School Boards Association.

“I could get the job because I knew the technology of the day,” Jayne said. “Soft skills get you in the door, but technology is what keeps you.”

Her career led her to become a Master in the Toastmasters speaking program, and she became a lay counselor in her church, helping everyone from moms to teens learn soft skills. When she began seeing her own kids’ friends struggling to land professional jobs, she wrote the curriculum that would become the foundation of All Leaders Must Serve.

“All Leaders Must Serve was designed to teach our young people that in order to lead, you have to serve others,” Jayne said. “That way, you will understand the people working for you and be a better leader. You have to know how to do the hard stuff at the bottom. You have to learn respect and to treat people the way you want to be treated.”

She’s proud that 170 kids have gone through the program since it was founded in 2015, and not one has had a behavior issue. Each session is treated like a business setting, and her role is to help her students get a job, keep the job and excel in the career they choose. Each is expected to speak in front of the group, and Jayne uses her Toastmasters knowledge to teach them public speaking.

“We’re a mentor organization that empowers through job readiness,” Jayne said. “I teach old school stuff, which I think we’ve lost with our kids. They may not know what works in this business world of ours. If you want to get a job, you have to dress like this, you have to approach people like this. Once you get the job, we’re here because that’s when it gets hard.”

The program uses a small group format with around seven to 10 participants in each session. Students get to know each other and develop a community. The program offers a Wednesday night job-readiness training, among other services.

“We’ve already had young people who have become self-sufficient and moved into their own apartments because they have developed community,” Jayne said. “Make It Happen for Yolo County offers one more opportunity to provide them with wraparound services and help with their needs.”

In 2019, All Leaders Must Serve began renting what is now known as the clubhouse at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Woodland, offering programs when others are closed – in the afternoon, evenings and weekends. The clubhouse is more than 7,000 square feet and has five rooms, a living space and a kitchen. All Leaders Must Serve provides Sunday lunch to transition age youth at the clubhouse so they can meet mentors. The group now has alumni of the program returning. Jayne is proud that All Leaders Must Serve listens to the needs and wants of the program participants, citing numerous examples where a student wanted to perform or hold a meeting at the clubhouse. The group recently held an open mic and jam session for young adult

“I’ve had kids come up to me in tears and say they will never forget this night because there’s nowhere else they could go and show their skills besides our clubhouse,” Jayne said. “They felt seen. It’s so important to see our young people – not for who we want them to be but for who they are right now.”