By Lorrie DeFrank 
The night of JAX Bridges’ 10th anniversary celebration in July, Della Sellers pulled out the pitch she had written during her participation in Cohort 16 in spring 2022 and read it to herself. “I was in the process of negotiating a lease on a building to use for my workshops,” she recalled. “Every room, every detail that I wrote on that paper two years ago is exactly how the Girls of Virtue Empowerment Center is today.”
Largely because of JAX Bridges, Sellers’ vision became reality and her longtime dream came true.
In May 2022, while still enrolled in the entrepreneurial growth program offered by JAX Chamber, Sellers signed a lease for space in the former Daily Recond building in downtown Jacksonville. Renovations required a year to open full-time. “It has a gym, kitchen to teach cooking and nutrition classes, life skills room, two private mental health spaces, an art therapy room, computer lab, and an entire space dedicated to our young executive life skills program,” she said.
Through partnerships with primarily dropout prevention high schools and community outreach, her nonprofit Girls of Virtue empowers girls and women ages 14 to 24 spiritually, mentally, physically and financially, Sellers said. Volunteer mentors facilitate a variety of workshops ranging from physical fitness to life and job skills. Although the target age for the core program is 17 to 24, the center provides space to give younger girls a constructive place to go after school. Vocational training starts at 18 and includes such resources as money management and employment assistance.
“Last year from outreach at four high schools we reached 115 young women who we saw an average of two hours a month,” she said.
But Sellers made a fast pivot when it was time to make that pitch for JAX Bridges.
After 22 years in the auto industry, in early 2020 she had launched a company called Virtue Consulting to improve the way car dealers do business with vendors. She was determined to make enough money to leave corporate employment. Profoundly spiritual, she prayed and tithed with a goal to save $10,000 to help young people learn vocational trades.
“I was that kid. I got into the car business in my 20s and it changed my life. I learned credit and communication skills, and was able to make enough money to be financially grounded,” she said. “When I launched my company, I started telling people I wanted to help young women and I wrote an entire business plan on how to create a center that offered all the things I needed to know the last 20 years.”
Virtue Consulting became the springboard for Girls of Virtue.
Sellers had planned to focus on her consulting business at JAX Bridges, but when she realized that she would be pitching her plan to local businesses, she switched it to the nonprofit she had created. She sought community awareness as well as support to open her center.
Most of the startup funding came from her consulting firm, of which she remains CEO. Her nonprofit holds two major fundraisers a year—a golf tournament and 5K run. “The rest is from people who have come alongside me when I needed it the most,” said Sellers, who plans to launch a capital campaign.
Sellers gives JAX Bridges enormous credit for her success in the business and nonprofit worlds. For instance, she found her capability statement to be critical when applying for City of Jacksonville bids for additional funding for outreach programs. “I never would have known what a capability statement was had it not been for JAX Bridges,” she said.
Sellers said the program helped her clearly identify her target clients, and that the conversations, meetings and workshops opened her eyes to things she had never known about starting and operating a business.
“The biggest thing I got from JAX Bridges was the networking … people I got to know who continue to support me, and simply knowing who to call,” she said.
She said those sentiments extend to the entire Chamber, which she has embraced by sitting on its Arlington board and recommending its programs to potential and current women business owners. She was selected as the 2023 Jacksonville Chamber Arlington Council Small Business Leader of the Year.
“I see our Chamber as a heart for small business,” she said.
To contact Della Sellers:
Founder and President
Girls of Virtue
10 N. Newnan St., Suite 2
Jacksonville, FL 32202