Lives of Consequence
Reeshemah Brightley ’99
President, Sabree Special Events LLC
Vice President of Operations, Sabree Education Services
Reeshemah Brightley ’99, president of Sabree Special Events LLC and VP of Operations at Sabree Education Services, maintains a life-work balance with a focus on “the dash.”
“The dash is not who you were when you were born. The dash is not who you are when you die. The dash is what you do in between,” she explains. “I want to make my dash matter.”
Sabree Special Events, which Brightley started almost a decade ago, began as an event planning company focusing on the entertainment industry. But as Brightley’s life grew and evolved, so did her business. Today, Sabree Education Services (SES) works to improve the lives of infants, toddlers, and communities throughout the greater New York City area.
The idea of SES grew from a variety of events and opportunities in Brightley’s life. Through her role as assistant director for The Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program, designed to help economically disadvantaged students explore STEM careers, Brightley began to see the connections between early childhood education and later academic and professional success.
SES provides Baby & WeeTM classes for parents and caregivers with newborns to age 3 within New York City, focusing in particular on servicing the underserved population, and helping parents develop their infants’ social, cognitive, and emotional skills from day one. “Teaching high school students ‘soft skills’ -- things like problem solving and teamwork -- is challenging,” Brightley says. “These are skills that need to be taught from infancy.”
The classes offered are called Baby & WeeTM because, as Brightley says, “We know and understand that the family structure is different; it could be mom and dad, mom dad and dad, aunt and uncle. Whoever the primary caregiver and caregivers is or are, we want to be able to help.”
“A lot of people say there is an achievement gap which exists in under-represented and economically disadvantaged populations,” she says. “But it is not an achievement gap, it is an experience gap. A child from an affluent household enters kindergarten being exposed to 30 million words; a child from an economically disadvantaged home will be exposed to dramatically less words, however they would have been exposed to over 100,000 negative words. It is our goal to teach everyone, no matter their situation, how to close this experience gap.”
Brightley’s work helps foster both her community and her drive to improve the lives of children.
“For me, now, I can say that I found something to make my dash matter,” says Brightley. “I’m not done because the work continues.”
A Spanish and Hispanic studies major while at HWS, Brightley was recently named to Caribbean Life newspaper’s “40 Under 40.”