In 2001, businesswoman Eslene Richmond-Shockley set out on a new path. “I was trying to get back into corporate America, but I felt a call from God to feed and clothe the people in my community,’” she says. With a meager fund of $25, Richmond-Shockley endeavored to organize a food drive for seniors in her Poole Creek community. She rented a warehouse off Browns Mill Road for three months for $1 and got to work. “Word got around that I would be helping for Christmas, and people reached out to ask if they could be on the list to get food,” she says. “We were able to get them the groceries they needed for a good holiday.”
Twenty-four years later, Richmond-Shockley runs Caring for Others to provide aid to her community—all from that original warehouse (and a few more she’s acquired since). In 2024, Caring for Others served almost half a million individuals. With 10 full-time employees, plus corporate sponsors, the organization does everything from running the South Atlanta Food Bank to providing clothing and housewares for hurricane survivors. Richmond-Shockley knows personally how easily losing everything can lead to poverty. “I lived it growing up in Guyana,” she says. “It’s easy to do the work when I’ve experienced it myself.”
The ultimate goal of Caring for Others isn’t just to put a meal on the table, but to eradicate poverty—in Atlanta and beyond. Each year, Caring for Others hosts the International Poverty Forum to gather international leaders to address the issue of global poverty. Even as Richmond-Shockley’s work has received recognition from the Biden Administration, it’s still the individual community members that mean the most to her. “One time I went to my CVS, and this cashier stopped me,” she recalls. “They said ‘I have to give you a hug because you started my life over again by giving me new furniture after Katrina.'”– TESS MALONE
