Shirnetta Harrell was named for the two most important people in her life: her grandmother Shirley and her mother Bonnetta. Her name represents the legacy of a deep and abiding love. It’s a nod to her past and hope for her future.
“I was raised by a single mom, and I watched her struggle,” Shirnetta says. “She is a veteran who served in Desert Storm, and seeing how she has always kept going despite adversity has laid a strong foundation for me and has instilled in me the belief that anything is possible.”
Shirnetta spends every day living in that belief and pays it forward through The No Woman, No Girl Initiative, a Triangle nonprofit dedicated to providing essential personal care and hygiene products to women and girls in need. The organization has distributed thousands of hygiene kits since she launched it in 2021. She has gone on to inspire others to donate products, money, and time to the cause.
With a bachelor’s degree in social work from Shaw University and a master’s from Alabama A&M University, Shirnetta has already built an impressive résumé by just 33 years old.
Growing up in Nashville, North Carolina, Shirnetta says she was bullied as a child and faced challenges. Her mother is a breast cancer survivor and her grandmother died from the disease at the age of 50.
“Growing up in rural Eastern North Carolina, you either sink or swim,” she says. “I’ve always had a big personality, and in my adolescent years, I struggled with my self-esteem, and that propelled me to choose social work as a career.”
Her first step into community service came in college after she was named Miss Shaw University. In that role, she served as an ambassador for the university, representing its values and performing community-based projects.
There she created and led a campuswide campaign to help students who were financially strapped and struggling.
“It really bothered me that so many students at Shaw University were experiencing homelessness,” she says.
‘Hope On The Ground’ Awareness Day in Asheville. Contributed photo
Fostering a sense of community, Shirnetta led discussions with young women on topics like building confidence and managing money. She also led a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society in memory of her grandmother and worked with the university to arrange shopping trips for students to buy groceries and other items to meet their basic needs.
It was an experience that changed her life.
“Being Miss Shaw University propelled me into community leadership, and it also prepared me for starting a nonprofit organization,” she says.
After earning her master’s degree, she took on various roles, including working as a school social worker and as a lead trainer for counseling services with Wake County Public Schools before taking the leap and starting The No Woman, No Girl Initiative.
The pandemic provided the spark that lit Shirnetta’s movement.
“I was already spending time in the community making sure students had the hygiene and self-care items they needed,” she says. “It was a persistent problem that exploded during covid, and that’s how No Woman, No Girl came to be.”
She credits her husband with naming the initiative.
“I was in my living room feeling frustrated and filing paperwork, and I told my husband that no woman and no girl should go without what they need every day,” she says. “And he looked at me and answered, ‘I think that’s the name of your organization.’”
Shirnetta admits she took an unusual approach to fundraising and community support. Instead of asking for money, she started by cold calling businesses, visiting churches, and knocking on the doors of bank executives and women-owned enterprises and asking them to host hygiene drives. She says her friends and family thought she was crazy for not fundraising out of the gate.
“And that was really how we began collecting inventory for our programs,” she says. “We were strategic, grassroots oriented, and much of our advertising was word of mouth.”
Since its launch, The No Woman, No Girl Initiative has served two natural disasters in North Carolina: Hurricane Helene in 2024 and Tropical Storm Chantal last July. The events propelled the program to new heights, Shirnetta says.
“I will never forget turning on the TV and seeing the devastation of Hurricane Helene,” she recalls. “We launched a disaster relief and recovery project within 72 hours and called it Hope on the Ground.”
With worldwide support, within four weeks Shirnetta’s team had delivered 50,000 personal care items and hygiene products to women and children across six counties in Western North Carolina who lost everything.
Johnson Subaru of Cary ‘Share the Love’ Event. Photos courtesy of No Woman, No Girl Facebook
Another hurricane season has rolled around, and Shirnetta is already at work with Hope on the Ground. She recently announced on social media that her team has delivered nearly 19,000 hygiene products to victims of Tropical Storm Chantal, which caused flooding in Orange and Durham Counties.
This summer, during a sweltering heat wave, Shirnetta conducted her second GIRLS Summer Institute, a three-day service initiative to introduce 10 high school students to community service via real-life experiences.
“The girls work at our distribution site, volunteer at a local food bank, and help other nonprofit organizations,” Shirnetta says. “It’s three days jam packed with leadership development and education.”
Today, The No Woman, No Girl Initiative is on a roll, receiving corporate donations and sponsorships. Still, every dollar counts, Shirnetta says. The organization continues to rely on individual donations, no matter how small.
“We have been able to keep standing because we have individuals who skip a cup of coffee once a month to cover the cost of one hygiene kit, and we have others who give annually,” she says. “Individual donations are still our bread and butter.”
For her personally, fulfillment continues to spring from helping people.
“Whether that’s volunteering at other organizations other than my own, visiting someone who is sick, or just doing a favor for a friend,” she says, “I feel I am at my best when I am giving back.”
Shirnetta’s heart for helping others lies in her DNA, a gift from her grandmother.
She says she learned a valuable lesson about making a difference when she attended her grandmother’s funeral, which was packed to overflowing with not just family and friends, but community members whose lives she had touched — including the mailman, the cashier at a local grocery store, her pharmacist, the trash pick-up crew, and many others.
“My grandmother’s funeral was where I realized I wanted to serve people so that when I leave this world, I have made the type of impact that she left,” Shirnetta says.
And with her No Woman, No Girl Initiative, she’s off to a great start.
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