By Bob Highfill
Record Staff Writer
STOCKTON — Gwendolyn Dailey has experienced so much in her life she has the empathy to relate to almost anyone.
She’s the youngest of 14 children in her family and was raised in the Sierra Vista project in southeast Stockton. She’s a sexual assault survivor. She couldn’t read or write and dropped out of high school. She was homeless.
She’s also a success story.
Dailey pulled herself up and earned degrees with honors from San Joaquin Delta College and University of the Pacific, where she is a doctoral candidate.
Dailey, 56, said she rejected job offers in Washington, D.C., after attending American University and interning with LIFT-DC. She returned to Stockton to serve her community.
Dailey and her husband, Derrick, have spent two years remodeling a second-floor office space in downtown Stockton and she recently left her full-time job to devote her energy toward fulfilling her dream, Dome of Hope, an open, nonprofit, individual-based one-on-one learning center that will teach independence, interdependence and individual sustainability through four components: education, technology, trade and the arts (ETTA). The acronym pays homage to her late mother, Etta Mae Ford.
Dailey said she has the experience, knowledge, leadership skills and organizational structure in place to make Dome of Hope a success with potential to help as many as 300 low-income and homeless individuals and families per day by offering counseling; performance arts; trade and vocational education and training through partnerships with industry leaders in carpentry, plumbing, cosmetology and clerical; reading and writing classes for kids and adults; life skills training; technology education and training; urban gardening, team building and reading circles for children 3 to 9 years old; and more.
“I have one purpose and one goal is to learn everything I can from the federal level of nonprofits to trickle down and equip myself,” Dailey said. “A lot of people who run nonprofits have no idea. They don’t have the credential; they don’t know how to effectively lead; they never took the time.”
“We go from the cradle to the grave here in the Dome,” Dailey said.
Dome of Hope has received donations from University of the Pacific, Durst Office Interiors, FLIP Office Furnishings and the Community Fund of San Joaquin, but Gwendolyn and Derrick have done almost all of the cosmetic and infrastructure work on the building themselves and have survived on Gwendolyn’s retirement savings and Derrick’s earnings.
“It was a struggle,” said Derrick Dailey, a former resident of the Ninth Ward in New Orleans who helped rebuild the city following Hurricane Katrina. “Finances are real small living on I wouldn’t even say a budget. I would go out and do a job and put it back here.”
Dome of Hope currently has no funding but will apply for grants and donations. As a new organization, Gwendolyn Dailey said it’s been difficult grabbing people’s attention.
“We’ve been asking, we’ve been knocking on doors,” she said. “We reach the people who other people can’t reach because they can’t identify. They don’t have any credibility. Those are the ones you want to go out: someone who is familiar; someone who is a success story.”
Dome of Hope will host its grand opening at 2 p.m. on Feb. 28 at 914 N. Center St. In the meantime, Dailey has a long wish list to get her dream up and running, including flat-screen televisions for classrooms; desktop computers for coordinators, receptionists and assessors; laptop computers for students’ shared usage, learning and research; desktop telephones; electric cash registers; security cameras; security doors; locking wrought iron gates; exterior painting; interior painting and artwork; signage; electrical work; window replacement; website designer; volunteers and more.
“I am getting a little anxiety because we don’t have things in place,” she said. “But I’m from faith and I believe it. So, I’m putting my money in Stockton.”