Promoting community wellness
Our mission is to promote community wellness through education, prevention, and resources with special regard for diverse cultural and racial minorities who are under-served and under-represented in the United States and its associate territories, with offices located in the St. Louis and Illinois regions.
Serving St. Louis for over 30 years
Dana Williams has dedicated her career to addressing health disparities, especially within the Black community. As a co-founder and Executive Director of The Community Wellness Project, Dana tethered herself to Black community leaders and local businesses within the St. Louis, MO to offer free sexual wellness screenings and link individuals living with HIV into CARE services.
Our shared vision
We share a vision in which the individuals and communities that we
serve are informed, empowered and encouraged, freed from the
burdens of disease, and benefitting from improved health outcomes.
Our board members
Lyell H. Champagne, JD
President
Lyell Champagne, a native St. Louisan, attended Cardinal Ritter College Prep and graduated from Senior Classical Academy at Soldan. He then attended Yale University on a National Merit Scholarship and later Washington University School of Law where he graduated with honors.
Raymond L. Scott, PhD
Vice President
Dr. Scott is a licensed Psychologist in both Missouri and California. A large portion of his clinical experience involves providing age-appropriate and evidence-based services to adolescents, adults, and seniors experiencing a range of psychological disorders. He specializes in conducting psychological assessment of patients’ cognitive, personality and behavioral-functioning and providing individual and group therapy for military personnel and veterans and their families. Other areas of clinical work include providing crisis management and treatment for persons with trauma from sexual abuse, coherent sexual disorder, and gender identity issues (LGBTQ) and Individuals living with HIV/AIDS.
Patrice L. Pye, PhD
Secretary
Dr. Pye is a licensed clinical psychologist who has served in the United States Air Force for over 7 years. She is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, GA and St. Louis University. She worked with the St. Louis Veterans Administration and various FQHC. Currently, Dr. Pye provides consultant services to the state of Illinois division of Children and Family Services and provides direct patient services at local churches.
Thurman Brooks, CPA
Treasurer (at large)
Mr. Brooks is a certified CPA with over 20 years of experience in accounting, serving as a plant controller, internal auditing for a pharmaceutical company and banking for small business owners particularly those in the healthcare field. He currently has his own independent accounting firm with services ranging from traditional general accounting, auditing, personal and corporate tax returns. He has a worldwide network of resources managing companies across the nation. He received his degree in accounting from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and his master’s in education with an emphasis in instructional design from SIUC. He is a member of the Missouri Society of certified Public Accountants and serves on several local community boards.
Mecca T. McDonald, MD
Former Vice-President/Secretary
Honorary member—deceased
Dr. McDonald, MD received her bachelor’s from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 1979, her master’s at Southern Illinois University and her MD at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago in 1987. She has served as Vice President of the Community Wellness Project board since its inception in 2003. She is a well-known and a respected physician in the St. Louis and East St. Louis area who has practice medicine for over 30 years in the emergency room and Family practice. She also served as President, Academy of Family Physicians.
Dana Williams, Executive Director/Co-Founder
With over 30 years of experience as a National and International Public Health Consultant in the field of HIV/AIDS, and over 20 years of experience as a CDC Capacity Building Assistance Provider, Ms. Williams serves as the Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Community Wellness Project, (CWP), she has established a strong reputation in her abilities to manage and implement a variety of programs and special project initiatives for both care and prevention services. She has extensive experience providing direct oversight of programs and assessments on federal, state and local contracts. She is an expert in managing directly- funded CDC projects for over 28 years including prevention and capacity building grants and all their related activities. She is a master networker, coordinating with and negotiating solid essential services in conjunction with other agencies, developing materials and providing in- service trainings for project staff as well as community based and AIDS service organizations. A former health department employee for the City of St. Louis, she understands and conducts effective and efficient programmatic designs to maximize staff performance in implementing and utilizing Bio-medical and behavioral interventions. With extensive experience in gathering, tabulation, and interpreting required data to ensure programmatic effectiveness for CBO’s and Health Departments accordingly. She serves as the lead Master level trainer for the Centers for Disease Control - Capacity Building Assistance Branch (CBB) for their Evidence Based Interventions (EBI’s). They include but are not limited to: Defend yourself (D-up!), Popular Opinion Leader (POL), Women Involved In Life Learning From Other Women WILLOW), Transgender Women Involved in Strategies for Transformation (TWIST), Sisters Informing Sisters about Topics on AIDS (SISTA), Real AIDS Prevention Project (RAPP), ARTAS, HIV Navigation Services, Program Management, Enhanced Facilitation Skills and several other interventions. She is directly responsible for the curriculum development of seven interventions and conducting the piloting of many EBIs. She continues to serve as an advisor to several CDC Technical Monitors, the Training and Development Team Members and other CDC Service Providers. She also serves as a coach and mentor to new and current trainers in the field for CDC. She has represented the CDC in various forums nationally and internationally adapting interventions and providing technical assistance for special populations locally, nationally and in Africa and the Caribbean.