Paying homage to her own days as a poor mother struggling to feed her family, Paula Deen announced Wednesday the launch of a foundation aimed at inspiring and supporting women and families in need.
The Bag Lady Foundation was named for one of Deen’s first entrepreneurial efforts in Savannah, a catering company initially run from her home making sandwiches and meals that were delivered around town by her then-young sons Jamie and Bobby.
“I think back on those tough times and remember how hard we worked to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,” said Deen, who could not be reached by phone Wednesday, in a prepared statement. “It was a difficult time for us, but an experience that made me and my sons stronger. My legacy is to encourage people to reach way down in their souls and find their inner strength to overcome their troubles. That is why I am so excited about The Bag Lady Foundation, which will help those in poverty deal with the challenges they face in their daily lives.”
The new foundation has been a long time in the making, said Lucie Salhany, who will serve as its chairperson.
“Poverty affects everybody in one way or another,” Salhany said. “Paula took her own life experiences and said, ‘This is something I really want to do — start this foundation and focus my work on helping.’ Paula lived (poverty), she breathed it, so she is in a really unique position to understand it and offer this aid.”
Salhany, a longtime friend of Deen’s who’s consulted for Paula Deen Enterprises for about two years, said The Bag Lady Foundation was a way to centralize much of Deen’s giving.
The charity will raise money from a variety of financial resources, including a percentage of the net proceeds from Paula Deen Foods, and will accept public and private donations, which can be made directly to bagladyfoundation.org. So far, the foundation has received financial commitments from Meyer Inc. and the FOX Network show “Master Chef.”
“We’re going to raise money for this foundation any way we can,” Salhany said. “There was a ‘60 Minutes’ episode a while back about families living in cars; Paula and I both watched it, and it really affected both of us. We can’t just sit back, we have to help aid these families any way we can.”
Along with Salhany, Nick Gallegos, a partner in Paula Deen Foods, and Susan Green, a longtime supporter and friend of Deen and her endeavors, will serve on the board.
“It’s Paula, its the board members, and it’s so many people all throughout (Deen’s) company who believe in this,” Salhany said. “This is a whole team of people who are going to put everything they have into it and really do what they can to make a difference.”
As the foundation gets under way, the Albany Herald reports that plans are in the works to turn Deen’s childhood home into a museum.
The effort is led by businesswoman B.J. Fletcher and Jimmy Deen, Paula’s ex-husband who still lives in Albany with his wife, Therlus, and a local group working with city officials, the Herald reports.
The organizers hope the museum will attract her legion of fans to her hometown.
“It just takes my breath away that folks back in Albany would consider doing something like this,” Paula Deen was quoted in the Herald, which said she has given her blessing to the plan.
“I’m just trying to wrap my head around this incredible honor. I would want something like this to be a symbol of hope for people looking to make their lives better.”
Fletcher said she has been working with Jimmy Deen and others for more than a year to breathe life into the museum. Their efforts took a giant leap recently when a group purchased Paula Deen’s Whitney Avenue home with the intent of turning it into the museum.
Fletcher said she called Paula Deen to talk about the museum and Deen said she had a lot of the original furniture from that house.
“I told her I’d heard she had a great passion for Albany, and she started talking excitedly about being involved in the museum project,” Fletcher said.
Paula Deen said the house holds many memories.
“All the cheerleader cookouts, the spend-the-night parties. ... And it just so happens I can pretty much furnish it like it was,” she said. “I still have mama’s living room set and daddy’s — they had separate rooms later on because daddy had to sleep with a night light on and mama couldn’t.
“I’m just so excited about the possibilities.”