If she had known about the Agents of Change program for employers of AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers, she might have seen it coming. Or, if she had known that her husband had nominated her for it, which she didn’t.

“It was incredible,” she says of the experience of being honored at the White House last week. “Just to be thought of and thanked for taking care of the least of these was just an incredible feeling.”

Spencer is a benefactor to those who most need help in Greensboro. She is the president and CEO of the Welfare Reform Liaison Project, a federally funded work force development group in Greensboro that provides low-income adults with classroom training and internships to help them get jobs. She took the job a year ago after being recruited by philanthropist Betty Cone and Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson.

Her career as a community advocate followed a successful business career. She started out in radio, working for a number of Greensboro-area stations, first in sales, then management and eventually as an on-air personality. (She keeps that aspect of her career going as “Wild Irish Rose,” an on-air volunteer for N.C. A&T’s WNAA, 90.1 FM, each Saturday at noon.)

Then marriage brought a new opportunity, as she and her husband started an advertising and marketing agency, the Spencer Group.

“After the success of the Spencer Group, I felt there was something missing,” she says. “So I decided to join VISTA, Volunteers in Service to America.”

With the “domestic Peace Corps,” she spent two years working with Big Brothers Big Sisters in Greensboro, where she developed new programs that received statewide recognition.

VISTA offers an education stipend to volunteers, so Spencer used hers to enroll at A&T. As a nontraditional student, in 2006 she became the first graduate of the liberal studies degree program with a concentration in African American studies. She went on to receive a master’s in humanities from Tiffin University in Ohio and a doctorate in management from Colorado Technical University.

Her experience with VISTA and higher education led to community service as a career. The Spencer Group has been refocused to help veterans work through the complex process of getting their benefits. Her husband, William M. Spencer Jr., is a disabled Vietnam veteran, giving him particular expertise in that area.

The Welfare Reform Liaison Project was a logical next step. She leads the group’s efforts on behalf of economically disadvantaged adults, working with the community, federal and state agencies, the faith community, corporations and other public and private agencies.

She also has been recruited by City Council member Jamal Fox to be a volunteer in the creation of a new project to help hungry children. The Kids Kitchen will supplement free breakfast and lunch at school with a free meal on Saturday.

“Everyone needs an advocate,” she says. “Whether it’s a veteran who came home from Vietnam and no one ever said, ‘Thank you for your service,’ to that person who’s living in a car with children and they don’t know what’s going to happen, to feeding children. That’s where my heart is.”

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