{"id":2477,"date":"2025-03-16T13:27:42","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T20:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspenglobalinnovators.org\/?post_type=our_fellows&#038;p=2477"},"modified":"2025-06-30T11:00:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T18:00:18","slug":"brandi-coleman","status":"publish","type":"our_fellows","link":"https:\/\/www.aspenglobalinnovators.org\/en\/our_fellows\/brandi-coleman\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandi Coleman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brandi <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coleman<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is the proud founder and CEO of The Lemonade Circle.\u00a0 The Lemonade Circle is dedicated to empowering young Black girls to use life\u2019s lemons to make LEMONADE. The Lemonade Circle has identified five \u201clemons\u201d where there is either a lack of resources or a lack of representation for Black women in: STEM, Identity and Wellness, College and Career Readiness, Literacy and the Arts, and Civic Engagement. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mrs.Coleman<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a native of San Antonio and founded the organization in 2017 with five girls, and now the Lemonade Circle currently serves over 100 young women all over San Antonio and the surrounding areas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mrs. Coleman uses a lemon as a symbol of inspiration. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A lemon starts as something tangy and sharp, representing some of the various challenges and difficulties she often faces as a Black woman. Yet, through The Lemonade Circle, she demonstrates how these challenges can be transformed into something positive, refreshing, and energizing\u2014like lemonade. One of Mrs. Coleman&#8217;s guiding principles leans into the importance of educating and empowering Black girls to take what life hands them and, with a blend of support, empowerment, and guidance, help them turn it into something resilient, hopeful, and uplifting. Just as lemonade requires balance\u2014sweetness to offset the tanginess\u2014she strives to create a balanced approach to empowerment, offering both support and encouragement to guide young women toward growth, healing, and opportunity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the right mindset and resources, even the sour moments can be transformed into something powerful and refreshing. This is why she does what she does! This is why she <\/span><b>#makesLEMONADE!<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","focus_area":[89,90,129,93,132],"expertise":[103],"class_list":["post-2477","our_fellows","type-our_fellows","status-publish","hentry","focus_area-economic-empowerment","focus_area-education","focus_area-entrepreneurship","focus_area-gender","focus_area-youth","expertise-equity"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspenglobalinnovators.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/our_fellows\/2477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspenglobalinnovators.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/our_fellows"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspenglobalinnovators.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/our_fellows"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspenglobalinnovators.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"focus_area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspenglobalinnovators.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/focus_area?post=2477"},{"taxonomy":"expertise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspenglobalinnovators.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/expertise?post=2477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}