Welcoming our New Operations and Women's Service's Director
We are very excited to announce that Elaine St. Clemmons has just joined A Way Out Ministries as the Operations & Women’s Services Director. She came aboard in early January to manage daily operations and the residential program for survivors of sex trafficking. Elaine received her B.A. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and M.P.A. from Troy University. She has over 10 years of organizational leadership experience in 5 different non-profit organizations. In her time in management at non-profits, she has excelled at building and implementing systems, building and growing internal talent, and helping organizations increase in their efficiency and care of staff and other stakeholders. She fully believes that God gives us all different gifts and feels that her gifts are working behind the scenes supporting staff and seeing the gaps in the systems. She loves to have the stakeholders come together, see where the bottlenecks or source of gaps are, and work together to construct creative and dynamic solutions. She longs to be a catalyst for team members to feel seen, heard, and to have the resources and training to be most effective.
Elaine’s calling at AWO is to use her expertise in organizational development and systems management to oversee the ministry’s exponential growth over the next five years. According to our Executive Director, Kaitrin Valencia, “our ministry has been praying and interviewing for the twenty months I’ve had the privilege of leading for someone to be my right hand administrative and operations person to assist in the vision to increase our capacity to serve more exploited women and children. Our team is confident we have found the perfect person for such a time as this. We are so thrilled to welcome Elaine to our growing dynamic team. In her first several weeks here she has hit the ground running and truly display the utmost professionalism and has a calming spirit and servants heart, all of which are critical when serving those who’ve sustain extensive trauma.”
Elaine is enthusiastic about the position at A Way Out because she is meeting a need in the operations of the ministry, while seeing the organization through a projection of great expansion. She is particularly excited about being part of a Christ-centered ministry and learning more and helping against the fight of sex-trafficking. She feels most comfortable in faith-based organizations because our north star is following God and when our work is aligned with following Him, then we can live out who He has called us to be authentically and in every part of our lives. This is a new area of ministry for her and she is excited to grow, learn more, and connect with the ladies.
Elaine has been gifted with a servant’s heart which she puts into action in many areas of her life. She attends and volunteers at Memphis Christian Center and loves filling in and putting her operations skills in use there in helping the church in growth and special projects.
Her favorite scripture is Romans 12 about being a living sacrifice and says, “I strive to live out this Christian walk daily with purpose; honoring and collaborating with my brothers and sisters in Christ.”
Elaine is a native Memphian and enjoys spending time with her family. For fun, you will see her at the movies watching all the DC & Marvel characters. Familywise, she is now an official “empty nester” as her daughter, Sydney, recently relocated to the Nashville, Tennessee area. She loves exercising and walking outside and being in nature. She also loves pizza and dark chocolate.
Please join us in praising God for bringing her to this ministry and pray that He will bless, protect, and strengthen her in Him as she partners alongside Him in this important work.
Elaine can be contacted at elaine@awoministries.org.