Shawntelle Fisher’s life is a story of transformation through faith, determination and support from people who cared. After years of crime and incarceration, she defied the odds to become an award-winning leader, speaker, teacher, and founder and CEO of SoulFisher Ministries, a United Way of Greater St. Louis (UWGSL) partner agency. Working with UWGSL, she uses her story to show that recovery is possible, and united, we help people facing the challenges she once knew.
“From the start, United Way supported all sides of our mission and wanted to partner with us so that we can be a safety net for people as they transition back into the community,” said Shawntelle.
Perseverance through pitfalls
Shawntelle became a mother at 15, graduated high school a year early and showed strong academic promise. But without stable resources for herself and her baby, she began writing fraudulent checks to cover basic needs and was arrested at 17.
Having to sit behind bars for the first time as a teenager was an overwhelming experience.
“It was traumatic, here I am only 17, and I’m in here, in jail with all of these grownups… I was terrified.”
After her release, the cycle continued. She began to commit more serious fraud crimes and by the end of her twenties, she was a serial felon and spent the next decade in and out of prison.
Though in 2006, she made a promise to herself that her current stint in prison would be her last. Spirituality helped her turn her life around.
“I was so thoroughly sick of myself, and I think that’s a lot of people’s story, when they get sick of themselves, they finally decide to try something different, and for me, that was surrendering my life to Jesus Christ,” said Shawntelle. “Those next few years were the turning point for me, and I was committed to coming home as a better version of who I had been my whole life.”
Shawntelle was released from prison on her birthday – November 3, 2011.
While in prison, she took classes to prepare her for her future and two months after her release, she enrolled into St. Louis Community College. She didn’t stop there, in the years that followed, Shawntelle earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) as well as Washington University in St. Louis.
In college, Shawntelle began cultivating plans to start a nonprofit organization to help people like her turn their life around after incarceration. What originally started as a business plan for a class project blossomed into what would become a life-changing organization for so many people.
With the encouragement of professors and mentors, that idea evolved into what would become SoulFisher Ministries.
Now in its 14th year, SoulFisher Ministries focuses on transforming lives affected by incarceration, supporting youth with incarcerated parents, and helping justice-involved men and women through education and mentorship. Shawntelle said the most rewarding part of leading the organization is seeing students reach milestones and achieve goals they once thought were out of reach.
“Our first cohort of students that we serve in our after-school program graduated from college this year, and seeing things like that is so heartwarming,” said Shawntelle. “I knew I had always been a leader; I just went about it the wrong way, and now that I have the opportunity to lead people is a very rewarding experience, I never could have imagined that this would be my reality one day.”
Through this incredible journey, Shawntelle has won awards over the years honoring her exceptional leadership in the business and nonprofit space while also authoring three books about her journey.
“This has all been mind-blowing. When I’m at an event or getting an award and they’re reading my beautiful bio, it surprises me because this wasn’t supposed to be my story, I was probably supposed to die in prison,” said Shawntelle. “God put the right people in my life at the right time to draw out what had already been in me from the moment I was conceived in my mother’s womb,”
Take action now:
- Learn more about how adversity inspired one of our region’s greatest community advocates.
- Share this story with family and friends.
