Fayetteville native rises to national president of The Links, Inc.

Fayetteville native Kimberly Jeffries Leonard has been elected president of The Links, Inc., an international women’s service organization, capping a journey that began 22 years ago when she joined the chapter in Arlington, Virginia.

“I’m very excited,” she said Wednesday in a phone interview from Washington, where she lives. “Links is an organization with over 15,000 members with a common goal to serve. My theme will be transforming communities, fulfilling our purpose.”

She added, “we’re in a time like no other.

“Not only is the very fabric of what we accept in the United States under siege, but the fabric of our being is under siege.”

Leonard said people of color were disproportionately affected as the fundamental rights of people have come under attack - in the U.S. and elsewhere.

“How we use our voice right now is going to be very critical,” said Leonard, who is a public health professional and CEO of Envision Consulting.

The Links is a nonprofit founded in 1946, and comprised of professional women of color. There are 289 chapters in 41 states, Washington, D.C., the Bahamas and the United Kingdom. Leonard has served as national vice-president, secretary and the head of National Trends and Services, which is one of Links’ five focus areas, called “facets.”

She was elected the 17th president of the organization on June 29.

She is a Links legacy; her mother, Marye Jeffries, is a member and a retired administrator at Fayetteville State University. Leonard said she was inspired by her mother, "just watching her engage" with the organization.

Leonard graduated from Reid Ross High School in 1986. She would later earn her undergraduate degree from Fayetteville State University; a master’s from North Carolina Central University; and a Ph.D. in psychology from Howard University in D.C.

Marye Jeffries called herself a “proud mama” at Leonard’s election.

She remembers taking her daughter to the national conference, called an Assembly, of Links in Boston in 1998. Leonard had not long been a member by that time.

“She was so impressed by all that went on, and the members - the ladies that belong,” Jeffries says. “She said, then, ‘Mama, I want to be national president.’ I said, ‘Yeah, hmm.’ Never thought that much about it.”

Leonard built relationships with past and present Links leaders, whom she knew through D.C.-area ties.

Most significantly, she put her background in public health to use on behalf of the organization, for whom she worked tirelessly. Her areas of expertise include minority health, cardiovascular disease, substance abuse, health care reform, mental health and women’s and adolescent services. Her work helped create the Links facet, Health and Human Services.

She started a program, now in its 10th year, that targets cardiovascular disease.

“It’s still the No. 1 killer of black women,” she says.

Health and Human Services has been one focus of the Fayetteville Links chapter says Cindy White, local president. For the last two years, the local Links have co-sponsored a Colgate’s “Bright Smiles, Bright Futures” Dental Van that has served 1,800 children in Cumberland and Robeson counties, by providing dental education, screenings and packages with information and dentist-approved snacks. The next van is scheduled for October at Westarea Elementary School, White said.

The local club’s other activities include working with Boys & Girls Clubs and Great Oak Youth Development, a mentoring program; exposing children to the arts; and organizing a program that helps students transition from community college into four-year degrees.

Leonard touted the organization’s national efforts. They include building and supporting schools in Africa - 60 at last count - and working to improve children’s achievement with support of STEM projects.

She said The Links’ million-dollar Legacy grants support a wide array of causes, including a recent grant to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, toward research on sickle-cell anemia, a blood disease that disproportionately affects African Americans.

Leonard is married to Stephen V. Leonard, a recently retired battalion fire chief, and is the mother of two sons, Victor, who is 22, and Alexander, 17.

She said her husband jokes the reason he retired was so he could look after Alexander, “while I did Links.”

She admits it has helped.

Leonard says The Links’ commitment to the concept of friendship has been important for her.

“Our focus is service,” she said. “But we are an organization based on friendship.”

Columnist Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 486-3559.

LISTEN: This Day in History