Emily O Kimm has a Master’s of Public Health degree from Columbia University’s Heilbrunn School of Population and Family Health. While attending this program, Emily’s maternal grandfather, Lee Stancliffe Read, Jr, paid her living expenses. When he insisted that she did not pay him back, Emily decided to, one day, pay it forward. Many years, a lot of debt, a few jobs, a few moves, a wedding, two stepdaughters, a miscarriage, a granddaughter, a toddler and a newborn later, Emily found herself, in Spring 2018, deep in postpartum depression…but also in a position to help.
During this time, she read an article in the Washington Post about the devastating outcomes for Black birthing people and their babies in DC. She knew then that this public health issue is where she wanted to put her focus. Pregnancy and birth are challenging for anyone; systemic racism and, in some parts of DC and other places, a lack of health care access and resources can make it immensely more so.
Drawing on her own birth experiences with Midwives, Doulas and Lactation Consultants as well as her public health education, Emily began to imagine how to improve childbirth outcomes in a city she loves. The idea of a scholarship for Black Midwives was born. She reached out to a Midwife mentioned in the Post article with her idea. That Midwife gave her a name of a phenomenal Student Midwife: Brittney Riddick. And then our journey began.