For more than 15 years, Shirley Grimes has helped bring educational resources and charitable services to hundreds of local seniors, children and families through her work with the Tamina Community Center.

Grimes said she was motivated to take action in the Tamina community after reading a newspaper article that outlined high crime and foster care statistics of several demographics across the Houston area. In 1998, Grimes founded the center inside a two-bedroom trailer home after identifying a need for dependable community resources in the area.

"Even though we are a small organization, we have a big heart," Grimes said. "Before I started, our community didn't really have anything that was a permanent structure in our community. I am here for people's sake. I am for women working. I have six kids, and I have been on food stamps, [even though]I worked. But I had a mom that could take care of my kids. That's one of the ways I want to help these people stay in their jobs."

When funding for the center fell short, Grimes took a job as a chef's assistant at The Woodlands Waterway Marriot Hotel and Convention Center in order to subsidize the organization.

"I worked there in the mornings from 4 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. so that I could have money to run the business," Grimes said. "Things got hard financially, but God always pulled us out."

Today the center has a permanent facility donated through the efforts of a local developer in 2004. The center provides services to more than 100 seniors, about 60 registered children and almost 150 children through outreach programs, Grimes said.

The center offers before and afterschool programs to help parents needing child care.

Grimes said she sees herself as a role model for community children and will go out of her way to help families in need, even if the center is closed.

"My day just doesn't stop on Friday evenings at 7 o'clock—it goes on through the weekend," Grimes said. "If they call me on Saturday because the weather changed, it got cold, and the kids don't have any clothes, they come to me and I open up and give the kids some clothes. I try to make sure that their lives are easier."

Working for the Tamina community for the past 15 years has taught Grimes to overcome life's obstacles, she said.

"Throughout this business, I have learned that even though things get hard, it's not going to last forever," Grimes said. "It gets easier as you go. I learned not to quit—if there is something that you have a desire to do and a passion, don't let any obstacles stop you. You have to persevere through them."

Grimes said the most rewarding part of her efforts is seeing the children grow up and become successful adults.

"One young man who is a brain surgeon came back and thanked me for all of the times that I made him sit down and do his homework," Grimes said. "Those moments like that make me feel very proud to be a part of their lives and to have a hand in changing lives. It is a very good feeling."