Life & Work with Jami Oakley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jami Oakley.

Hi Jami, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
I moved to Nashville in 2013 with two small children, after moving several times over ten years – from Houston to Zurich to Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Philadelphia – all for my husband’s job (and adventure!). When we landed in Nashville, I was eager to settle in and get involved in the community. In my first year in town, I read an article in Style BluePrint about the Nashville woman at the helm of the federal program that supports students in unstable housing here locally.

Catherine Knowles has been the heart and soul of the HERO (Homeless Education Resource Office) program for more than two decades, and, luckily, she took an hour out of her schedule to talk to me and contemplate my questions about how I could somehow help her as she supported more than 3,000 students and their families each year.

My oldest son was in Kindergarten at the time, and learning that HERO served more than 3,000 students right here in Nashville each year struck me particularly hard. Other kids just like him were working through the same emotional, social, and intellectual growth that school requires, while perhaps not knowing where they’ll sleep that night or if they have a pair of shoes that fit in the morning. I saw what a “job” school was for my son, who had none of these concerns and wanted to figure out how I could help to equal the playing field a bit and ease some of the more simple, solvable worries for other local families.

When Catherine and I met to discuss the items on her checklist of school preparedness for HERO students, access to school uniforms was the one that stuck out as something the community could tackle if we just put a bit of a system in place. Most Metro Nashville Public Schools students are required to wear a basic uniform of a solid, polo-style shirt and khaki, black or navy bottoms. Kids outgrow their clothing constantly. We came up with the idea for UniCycle (Uniform + Recycling = UniCycle!), and I drafted some program parameters, had a logo designed, and made some fliers.

My boys’ Principal at Percy Priest Elementary was immediately supportive, and we launched a pilot of collecting “outgrown, not worn out” school uniform items at their school. It turned out that parents on the donation end were THRILLED to find an easy way to ensure that their too-small khakis and polos got to their best next use with another student, and parents on the receiving end were THRILLED to get a solid selection of outgrown items from which to choose. HERO students were happy that the UniCycle items were plentiful and allowed them to seamlessly fit in, as they were the styles and brands that were most popular among their peers. Teachers and support staff in schools were happy to have an in-house solution for an everyday challenge.

We grew by producing fliers, signage, and social media shares for schools to spread the word, coming up with a system of best practices, and securing UniCycle “closet coordinators” at more and more schools. Eventually, we moved out of my house (where we started) and into a portable building, then into the library of an unused school, where we were able to take full advantage of being part of the MNPS system, such as by sending clothing through the internal mail system.

In the nearly ten years since we began, distribution of items shifted from only serving HERO students via direct delivery to hosting UniCycle Closets inside of schools, and we opened those closets up to any student in need, not just those who qualified for the HERO Program. We now distribute through a variety of school-based channels, plus host a weekly shopping day for school support staff, social workers, and community organizations who work with MNPS students.

Last school year, we distributed more than 35,000 items and partnered with well over 100 MNPS schools. We also have dozens of community partners, including a good portion of the private schools in Nashville and several local businesses that serve as community donation locations.

In addition to the now-indispensable school clothing component that UniCycle provides MNPS students, it has expanded to host the HERO Family Fund, which serves as a community-resourced “PTO” of sorts to the nearly 4,000 students who receive HERO services each year.

As UniCycle grew, I continued to serve as Executive Director in a volunteer capacity, and our entire operation relied on in-school contacts and a core group of volunteers. Several years ago, encouraged by our growing impact and some funding we were gifted as part of an award, our most dedicated and operation-critical volunteer, Jennifer Ruben, became our first employee. She now runs our warehouse operations at Buena Vista Elementary School, which closed to students during the pandemic and also houses the HERO Program.

In March of 2022, I took the plunge back into a full-time job (not a volunteer one!) and began working as a Community Partner Specialist for the HERO Program. UniCycle is one of the program’s most important partners, now among many others who make up a network of support that allows the HERO team to provide critical needs to the growing number of Nashville families who lack stable housing.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The path from starting the UniCycle program to growing it to have the impact it does today has been a very organic and community-supported experience. Our mantra has been “slow and steady wins the race,” and we’ve been careful to always try to under-promise and over-deliver, rather than the opposite. When your entire business plan rests on the outgrown school clothing of an entire city being donated, processed, and redistributed promptly – primarily by a network of volunteers- you’ve got to be flexible. And grateful!

We continue to make what we feel are the next best decisions for the program and have no fear of reevaluating what’s working and what’s not. We commit to ensuring that our North Star continues to be “Is this helping students and families have easier school days, while also making it more efficient for school support staff to do their jobs?” We don’t get swayed by things that seem fun, and showy, or that have an outcome that doesn’t affirmatively answer that North Star question.

I’ve struggled a bit with the fundraising and money piece of the programming because, at the start, I thought that UniCycle would be a sweet, completely volunteer-run organization forever. Taking on the responsibility of maintaining our positive outcomes now that they have become a relied-upon resource for families and school staff alike means raising funds, hiring two contract workers, and occasionally spending money to purchase items that are perpetually needed and not often donated.

But – that piece has also come naturally and as needed, so it feels right. People respond well to practical, difference-making initiatives that are easy to relate to, easy to replicate, and easy to recognize. We’ve created something simple, that makes sense and is working, and I’m proud of that.

Alright, so let’s talk business. What should we know about your work? 
I started my professional life at a public relations firm in Houston, Dancie Perugini Ware Public Relations. We had a fun roster of clients including restaurants, museums, and local businesses and events. I’d interned there in college and then it became my dream job. I was surrounded by an amazing network of women, all of whom served as mentors in some fashion. I was in the right place at the right time and with the right attitude to learn a lot from my first job.

Over the years that our family moved around a lot, I always found a way to get involved in the local community, usually in a way that utilized those PR skills. I was a founding board member of Hands on Switzerland and did a lot of work for the American Society in Sao Paulo. Once settled in Nashville and before UniCycle and eventually working for the HERO Program took over most of my available time, I enjoyed being closely involved in local public school advocacy – again, mostly in a communications role.

Luckily, I’m able to remain close to that world, now from inside of the school district and by bridging the gaps between local community groups and corporate partners and the students and families who are ready to receive various kinds of services. Emphasizing and encouraging the importance and value of an equitable, accessible, and high-quality public education is something that I’m sure will remain central to my life. We’ve got a lot of room to grow in education funding and legislation here in Tennessee.

What are your plans for the future?
I am enjoying these last two years of full-time work. It has forced some priorities and there is never nearly enough time, but I feel happy.

I also love having two teenagers in the house and am soaking up every minute with my boys – they are great kids and it’s so much fun seeing them start to navigate their own lives, relationships, and education. It’s my favorite parenting phase so far, and I wish we could freeze time for a bit.

My husband started his own company – Tiny Mighty Communications – a few months before the pandemic started, so that has kept our house full of energy…I would say stress, but it’s gone well and he is happy and I’m proud of him and his team.

I plan to keep growing the offerings of the HERO Program as we settle into our new space at Buena Vista Elementary. It’s gratifying to be a part of the team right now, while our program is working more deeply and intentionally than ever with our schools and school staff as well as with other community organizations. Integrating our work with our partners’ work is so valuable, and creating new relationships that amplify all of our collective efforts makes me excited.

Nashville is filled with so many irreplaceable community resources – I love to find ways that we can all be more impactful by working together in the various ways that we excel. The HERO Program works with Soles4Souls to provide shoes to our students, and that partnership means that we don’t have to collect shoes and rarely spend money on them; the Community Resource Center offers that same relationship for basic hygiene products.

We’ve worked with PENCIL often in the last year to take advantage of their leadership in the school supply space, and the Assistance League of Nashville’s Operation School Bell Program is helping to ease our inventory around school uniforms for elementary-aged HERO students. There are so many things we can do with what we already have here in our community through relationship building. That way, the new initiatives that we DO have to work to create, fund, and make happen “from scratch” are all things that are so highly specific to what HERO families need to obtain or maintain housing and stability that their impact is undeniable.

As far as the ways that we work currently and how the community can get involved -please reach out if you’d like to be a UniCycle partner to collect school clothing, do an underwear or coat drive, host our HERO Pantry for a month with a food collection, fundraise for the HERO Family Fund, or if you have something specific to offer. Recently, some of our special projects included Halloween costume collections, a series of high-dosage family resource events, Fall Break snack bags, and Thanksgiving dinners. New ideas are always welcome!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.unicycleforschools.org
• Instagram: @unicycle.nashville and @mnps_hero
• Facebook: UniCycle: A School Uniform Recycling Program and MNPS HERO

Image Credits
Kiki Morton Photography