Rev. Dr. Carol Burnett, M.Div. ’82
Executive Director, Moore Community House
Biloxi MS
What do you do?
Since 1989 I have been the Executive Director of Moore Community House (MCH), a non-profit community center that is one of the United Methodist Women’s national mission institutions. MCH serves low-income families in east Biloxi, MS, by providing two programs that research shows make the most strategic and positive difference in moving low-income families closer to self-sufficiency: quality, affordable early childhood education (Early Head Start) and job training that leads to higher paying employment (Women in Construction). In addition, MCH sponsors Congregations for Children, a statewide advocacy network of people of faith promoting public policies to improve circumstances for poor children in MS.
Growing out of MCH’s work with low-income families, I founded the Mississippi Low-Income Child-Care Initiative in 1998. This statewide nonprofit organization strengthens the child care delivery system for Mississippi’s working poor families by making full-time services more affordable, improving parents’ access and retention of child care subsidies, and making child care centers serving low income families more financially viable. I served in state government as Mississippi’s administrator of the federal childcare subsidy program. This opportunity allowed me to learn first-hand about the impact of race and gender in policy-making and the long game required to win change in statewide systems.
What’s the best thing about your job?
It allows me to work with low-income working mothers to make real change at the individual and policy levels to improve their lives and the lives of their children. This work
Rev. Dr. Carol Burnett, M.Div. ’82
