 Welcome to Seymour's World on Think Tech, Hawaii. I've been away for a few weeks, as you probably know, or as so many of you have reminded me in texts and emails. I just got back from Germany, where yours truly was skiing on the Chuk Spieze Mountain and having a good time in Bavaria with some friends of ours, and also doing some work for a board meeting that I had. But I'm back in Honolulu today, and I'm happy because it was mighty cold up there. It was zero degrees on top of the mountain and 65 degrees at the bottom, but still very cold for us Hawaiian people. Today, I want to introduce a wonderful friend who I have—I'm in love with this woman. Her name is Sharon Yarborough. Sharon is the president, chief executive officer, chief bottle washer and everything else with a company called Sisters Empowering Hawaii. Sharon, welcome to Seymour's World. Well, thank you for having me, Seymour. This is exciting. It is exciting for me to have you because, A, I respect you tremendously for what you are doing for women in the state of Hawaii. Not just in the state of Hawaii, you're reaching out all over the place. And I think that is terrific, and I wanted to introduce you not just as a business person here in Hawaii, but somebody who has the same passion that I do. It is the passion for helping others. So let's get a little background, tell me a little bit about you and your past. All right. As he said, my name is Sharon, Tomas Yarborough. I am from Toledo, Ohio. That's where I was born. And I attended school all over, really. My father was a minister, a seven-day Adventist minister, my mother a school teacher, and later on principal. So we traveled a lot. He built churches all over the East Coast. Oh, my gosh. And now I was able to start getting my passion to helping people. I watched my father and mother do this all my life. And so after that, I attended the University, Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama, where my father met my mother. And from then on, I moved to Los Angeles and had a shop on mail roads called Michikosmetics. Yes, it had skin care for men and women. And then later on, I moved to Hawaii. But Hawaii is just, it's very different here. I love living here. How long have you been here? I've been here over a little over 20 years. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to call my Aina, I feel. So when I moved here, I did not know one single person. And I said, well, there is no way that I could find out. There wasn't really a community here, per se. Like, you can go to New York and find a community. You can go to Los Angeles. I have lived in Atlanta, where my father had a church there. So I said, you know, I am going to start women. We love to lunch. And so I'm going to start an exclusive networking lunch, luncheon for women. This is how we started. Because I said, where am I going to get my hair fluffed? Where do I go for my nails? What church do I attend? What gynecologist can I go to? So I started this networking organization, Sisters in Parang, Hawaii. This is how we started. And it's grown. I mean, we're going to show some pictures out there about some of the work that you have done. But Sharon, this is becoming a big organization. Are you by yourself? Where do you have help? I do have help. Well, I've started it by myself. I mean, 15 years ago, I was addressing 200 invitations, personally sitting down at my dining room table, addressing envelopes to people. And how I started when I was a chief fundraiser at the Red Cross. I would go around and I would collect business cards. And this is how I started. But moving forward now, we have social media. We have email. You can do event pride. You can use PayPal. We don't use to put a stamp on that envelope and people mail in your check. I love it now. And you have Facebook, social media. It's wonderful. But yes, we have grown. I do have a vice president, June Fletcher Dennis. She lives in Monterey, California. I do have marketing people who help me now, digital marketing, where we have urban Hawaii media to help us. And I have, you know, this has been wonderful. It's just been a learning experience. Well, let me ask you this. If you were my client, and you're not my client, just for you people to know. If you were my client, the first thing I would ask you is what is your mission statement? My mission statement is to empower, motivate, and educate all women. And so how we do that, we have various events. We have workshops, conferences, book signings, and usually I couple a speaker from the mainland and I use speakers from Hawaii. And we bring them together in a form where you can just tell your story. And so the women that you have here in Hawaii that have started to come to you, are they becoming part of the organization as well? Do they start to realize that this could be like a pebble that goes into a lake and starts spreading out? How do you find the organization growing? It's growing. Word of mouth is wonderful. And what I really enjoy about this is, my organization is Hawaii's foremost women's empowerment organization. And it's not a sorority, it's not a business where you have to pay dues. I just want people to come in and relax at work all week. You just come in and you dress up. You come to various venues and enjoy yourself. People think that networking is an old fashioned word, no it's not. You're networking from the time that you graduate probably from high school and forever. I agree. It's a forever mission I think. So yes it is growing and I've been very fortunate to start off doing this solo and it was just my husband and I doing this and now we've grown where we started off, ladies love to lunch, we started off with 25 people and we're going up to maybe 300 people who are attending. Wow. Now you have an event coming up or you have an event that you're planning, I understand. I do have an event that I'm planning as we know March is Women's History Month. So we're celebrating our third annual Women Making History awards celebration and book signing luncheon. And the one, let's see, we had one at the Wildlife Country Club. It was on March 26th and I honored six women. Wow, that is terrific. You know I think this is wonderful Sharon because we pay so much attention to the glass ceiling and what's happening, but you're somebody who's doing it right at the grassroots. Yes. You're telling people come to a meeting and start to feel empowered because of the ability to feel like you're somebody, right? You can actually do something on your own and be strong about it and have the support group of Sisters Empowering Hawaii. I think that's fantastic. Yeah, I, you know, I don't want to just pat Sisters Empowering Hawaii on the back but beat-beat. I've seen the effects of people attending Sisters Empowering Hawaii. I've seen hairdressers who come to Hawaii not knowing anyone, get a clientele. I've seen attorneys come here and they get clientele, clients from Sisters Empowering Hawaii. We are the go-to person. When you want to come to Hawaii, as a matter of fact, I'll tell you this quick story. Please. My girlfriend's grandson is moving to Hawaii. He's graduating from high school and he's going to be attending University of Hawaii. She said, Sharon, I'm so nervous about my grandson coming so far. I want you to introduce him to the right restaurants to go to, to meet various people. Do you know professors at UH? I said, absolutely. I have plenty of friends at UH. So this, we are the go-to person. If you want to find out what restaurants to go to, what tours, attractions to attend, just call Sisters Empowering Hawaii and we'll lead you to the right source. You know, I'm smiling, Sharon, because we both believe in mentoring. You asked me if I'm still mentoring young people before the show. And yes, I am. And I still love doing that. I find it, it gives me a lot of satisfaction now. Not everybody succeeds in what I think that they should ascribe to. But I still enjoy trying to help people and you're doing exactly the same thing. Now today, I made you an honorary member of our Make Him Smile program. And everybody in our audience knows the Make Him Smile program, our program in the hospitals where we bring musicians in. And the first thing you said to me when I, when I said to you, this is what I'm going to make you an honorary member of, you said, I know some people who could help in this. And that's what it's all about. The willingness to be able to open up your, your list of people, my list of people coming together and helping each other. And you're very good at that. Oh, thank you. And I call myself the connector. And that's what it's all about. We must pay it forward and continue to mentor people. When you said that, you know, Make Him Smile, my honorees asked me, what should I do? What should I do? And I said, just show them with a smile. This is what we want them to do, is show up no rules and regulations, introduce yourselves. I just love doing it. I love doing the book signings. And you asked me earlier when we were talking about why specifically I targeted women. And I do feel that women oftentimes are overlooked and undervalued. We bring so much to our communities, to our homes, to the workplace, to the world, really, that I find that I want to honor the women who, you know, unfortunately don't have the platform. And I was blessed to have that platform and to mentor other people. I wanted to always, I tell you, you have to be careful what you ask for. I've always wanted to have a connection with the military. And unfortunately, I had to have surgery on my elbow. And I said, oh my God, what am I going to do? I don't have anything to do. I'm sitting at home. So I called my girlfriend in Los Angeles and I said, what's going on out there? She told me what she was doing. So she said, I'm going to go to the military and we're going to give out gift bags. So this is when I came up with Valentine's Day for Hawaii veterans. And so I called the triple hospital and I said, I would love to do something for the veterans there. And they said, oh, this is perfect. So I got together and started with my church. And we gathered bags and now we're up to giving two to three hundred bags to the veterans on Valentine's Day. I think that's fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. Well, you know, I look forward to you helping us too, you know, helping the Make Him Smile program. I'm going to invite you to our foster kids program called Kids Hurt 2, which is foster kids here in the state of Hawaii. And I'd like you to come and talk to them as well, because I think you'd be very influential to the young ladies that we have. Obviously I can talk to the guys. Yeah. Talks to the young ladies who are a part of our group. I think it's very helpful for them to understand that they can have a wonderful life. All they have to do is think positive. I want to go back to the smile for a moment. OK, all right. Just prior to this show, I taped a segment of Seymour's World commentary called Look in the Mirror. And it's all about what we see in the mirror, you know, in the morning. And what do you think the most important thing you have to do when you look in the mirror? You have to smile. Because if you smile in the mirror, you realize that life is good. It's not as bad as it is. Maybe a few more wrinkles here and there. But that's not... If you're blessed. And it's just not the end of the world. Smiling is so important. I think that's terrific. Tell me about the marketing plan. Tell me about where Sisters Empowering Hawaii is going. Are you going to the mainland? Are you doing... Do you have affiliations on the mainland? I do. As a matter of fact, fortunately, we did have a luncheon in Washington, D.C. I was fortunate enough to attend not one but two inaugurations. And I said, I would like to bring Hawaii there and do a luncheon for the inauguration. It was sold out. We had it at the Marriott. So yes, and I've done things in Los Angeles. I moved here from Los Angeles, California. I had a skincare and a cosmetic store on male roles called Amici Cosmetics. So I have kept my connections in Los Angeles and in D.C. various places. So this is how I'm able to get so many wonderful women, accomplishment women to come to Hawaii, tell their stories. Who doesn't want to come to Hawaii and soak up the sun? So this is how I'm able to locate the women here in Hawaii and find out marketing. You spoke about marketing. It really depends on the speakers that I have. And then I market toward that group, which is wonderful. I was able to do a fundraiser where I needed mostly attorneys. And so I had a civil rights attorney of the year to speak, which was wonderful. We honored attorney Daphne Barbie-Wilton. I was able to have Dr. Maya Satura-Ing to speak. We honored her as well. And when I was talking about the military as well, you have to be careful what you ask for because it will come. I honored Brigadier General Suzanne Lam. And so that was a wonderful bridge for us to venture in with the military. They do so much for us. They protect us. And not only that, I just think that we need to find a way to collaborate more with each other. And I think the bartering system needs to come back into play. When I was growing up, this is what we were doing. Because sometimes it's not all about money. We know we need money to live. But if you have a service, I have a service, and that we can complement each other, why not work at work? I think it's also important, Sharon, the work that you're doing behind the scenes with women. The ability, I mean, the word empowerment is so important for women. A lot of them have been mothers all their lives, you know, and they don't know how to come back into the community and become successful. What you're doing is giving them an opportunity. You're giving them that first step, the ability to show that they can do what they want to do. It's not necessarily what happens when my kids are off to college now. What do I do? They can join Sisters Empowering Hawaii and learn immediately that there's a lot of things that they can do with their lives, whether they want to do philanthropy, get back to work, nursing, all of the wonderful opportunities that are out there for women. You know, to bring, you're talking about women getting back into the workforce. I was also privileged to receive a proclamation, Sisters Empowering Hawaii has received several proclamations from the majority of the, a lot of the governors here. And at that time I was helping domestic violence. So I came up with a slogan, stop the violence against, stop domestic violence against women and children. And we raised money and we were able to donate to about three or four different houses, charities to help women get back into the workforce. And it's just, you know, what it is, you have to do feel good things. This is what it's all about. It makes you feel good. Let's go for it. Wonderful, Sharon. We have to, we're going to continue, but we have to go to a break. And I just want to say that it's, I said to you before the show, we're not going to have enough time to cover everything. We haven't even covered two or three of the agenda items yet, but we will. So let me go to a break and then we'll come back in a minute. I'm Seymour Kazimurski on Seymour's World with our special guest, Sharon Yarbrough from Sisters Empowering Hawaii. Hi, welcome back to Seymour's World on Think Tech Hawaii. My guest today is Sharon Yarbrough from Sisters Empowering Hawaii. If you miss the first part of the show, get it because it's absolutely amazing what this woman has done to help women in the state of Hawaii and around the United States. We're learning all over in Washington, et cetera. So Sharon, welcome back. Thank you. The idea of bringing you on this show, I was excited because the one thing I haven't had is a woman who really has taken to heart helping other women in the state of Hawaii. So tell me a little bit about why. What is the reason? What is the personal side of this? The personal side is I've found so many women hurting, but then so many women who are just absolutely, they know who they are and they can move forward. So I wanted to connect the women who are just quite not sure. That's why mentoring never stops. And when I finally realize, because we do this, it's our passion. We don't really take it sometimes so seriously and we don't really know the effects that we have on various people. When I finally realized how serious it was, one particular person wanted to join my organization. When I say join, she wanted to partner with business. And I thought about it and I'm glad I kept my name. This is why I want people to know not all money is good money. You have to really protect your babies as if you're protecting your children. So this company is my baby. And she wanted to take it a different way. And she wanted to take it a different direction. And unfortunately we had to go through litigation. We did not go through litigation. I was fortunate enough to have some attorneys on my side. So you were able to mediate out there? Yeah, we were able to mediate. And it was wonderful. This is when I really realized that what I have going on with Citizen Park is very important. And when someone else sees it and they want to take it over and take it from you, then you know, oh, the light bulb goes off in your head. This is something that's genuine. This is something that is important to the people. Because when we inspire women, we affect the entire community. So this is why it's so passionate for me. And my sister who's a nurse, I was able to give a nursing function here as well. And she would tell me nurses are undervalued as well. The doctors, the physicians, they get all the credit. So nurses that come into your room and take care of you on a daily basis. The healthcare providers. So there's so many different aspects. The teachers are important. Teachers are my, that's one of my pets as well, too. They are so undervalued. Yes. Especially here in Hawaii, believe it or not. The HSTA. And we've had various arguments. And I mean arguments about why don't we do more for our teachers. And I think most of the teachers are women, as you know. Yes. That's one of the reasons. My mother was a teacher. Thank you. Okay. They need people like you who can help them understand that they have a very strong link to stand on. They're not just teachers. They are providers of education for the future. And if they do a good job, then they should be rewarded accordingly, which they are not. Absolutely. I totally agree with you. As I mentioned earlier, my mother was a teacher. And later on in principal, my father, a minister, but he was substitute teacher on the side, too. And I see some wonderful, wonderful teachers here. Tell us who is here. Oh, who is here? This is Hawaii's Valentine's Day for Hawaii veterans. And the lady in the middle is author Jerry Lange with a beautiful silver hair. I don't know if you remember the love boat? Yes, of course. The love boat where her son was a bartender on the love boat. She was visiting here from Oakland, California. And she came to your event. And she came to the event, and she was such an inspiration. And now you're looking at the first annual Women Making History. And I'm sure we saw on the news, to my left, Vicky Hope Takamane. Right. I know her. And she was one of the honorees. And you know she's talking about breast cancer, which is very important now. And that's the Brigadier General, right? No, no there. That's Colonel. She'd love to hear that. That's Colonel Solithia Abner-Wise. But the lady smiling is next to Vicky is Deborah Piguet. She flew in from Los Angeles. She's an author. She sold over a million copies. Take me your tongue. And of course you see Dr. Maya Satoro-Ing who's there. Of course, yeah. Dear friend of mine. And you see the civil rights attorney. Now we're on to our second annual Women Making History. And that's Dr. Joanne Williams-Lazoya from Los Angeles. And she is a national and internationally known emergency medical doctor. You've heard of ER, right? Yes, of course. They will come to her emergency room and learn about the ER. Oh, that's Mayliana. That's a great picture. Isn't that wonderful? And look at all the women who are smiling. You're talking about smiling. Now Mayliana received the Social Justice Global Peace Award. And the year before that it was Dr. Maya Satoro-Ing. And she passed a baton. And she nominated Mayliana Meyer. And in the middle that's my dear girlfriend, June Dennis, who is the vice president of Sisters in Park Hawaii. And you see Senator Willa Sparrow who is giving us a proclamation again this year. Oh my goodness. And there's Dr. Patricia Jones-Blessman. She flew in from Chicago. And she is a dear, dear friend of mine. And she really comes in and she puts it all together for me. And there we are. You know, that is just fabulous, Sharon. It is. I love it. I could tell in your voice, I see it in you. I see the passion that comes out. I think it's just fabulous. Now, let's look forward. Let's look five years from now. Five years from now. Where is Sisters in Powering Hawaii going to be? I would like to be global. And we were talking about how you travel around. I would like to take Sisters in Powering Hawaii to various countries. We're looking at right now and planning a trip to Africa in two years. And this is what we would like to do. And find their needs and fill it. And I would like to take a group of women with me that we can hold various seminars there. And this is where I see ourselves in five years. We want to be global. Fabulous, Sharon. Yes. I think it's so important. The work that you're doing, both the present and the future work, is what we need. Not just for Hawaii, but for all of the women out there that realize that, I want to do something with my life. Let's do it. And you can. You absolutely can. And I think Sisters in Powering Hawaii is the way to do it. Can they find you just Google Sisters in Powering Hawaii? Sure. You can Google. You can email me. I have a Facebook page, Sisters in Powering Hawaii. Or you can go on my personal page, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. It's all connected. Sharon, we are going to be seeing a lot of each other. I hope so. Sue, don't worry. I don't mean that in any other way than I want to help. We better clarify that with my husband as well. Good. We have to be sure that that works. Well, unfortunately, we have run out of time. Oh, no. Yes, we have. But we're going to do this again, Sharon, because I think it's important. I want to say thank you to all of you who have watched the show today. I think this is one of the most inspiring shows we have. Oh, Sharon, you have something. I have something for you. I have to give it for you. We want to pay it forward. Oh, my gosh. This is important enough for our second annual women's making history to partner with Argosy University. And I'm giving to your children a $10,000 scholarship from Argosy University. Oh, my gosh. Sure. $10,000 scholarships. Oh, my gosh. Here we are. This is it. Thank you so much. This is beautiful. Oh, I'm so happy to do that. Thank you. We have, as you know, a lot of foster kids who want to go to college and camp. This is just fantastic. Thank you so much. Oh, you're quite one. Thank you for having me on. It's terrific. Wow. I'm a little overwhelmed. What a closing that is. $2,000 scholarship from our kids. That's the way life turns, isn't it? It's just wonderful. Do something good for somebody else, and it comes right back at you. I wish you all well. This is Seymour Kazimurski on Seymour's World at Think Tech, Hawaii. We'll see you on our next episode on Oha.