Growth & Grace

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The following program is underwritten by Crawford management group, Harris capital Mortgage Group, Tiffany Lloyd consulting and Chris glow, and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jasmine Moore, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education even

Music 0:21
better than I was the last time, baby, we back,

we back and we back and we back. And we back.

Leaha Crawford 0:47
Hey, hey, hey, happy Saturday. This is Leah Crawford, and I am with Julian

Rosado. Hey, Julian, how you doing? Very good. I see

you all. You all you got on the scarf around your neck, man. Come on. It's cold. It got cold. It's cold. I just teased us last a couple of weeks ago with that 80 degree day, a little teaser, right? And then March came in with all the wind, all the wind. Well, today y'all, we have a very special guest that's gonna talk to us about all these events she has coming up. We're gonna learn more about her. Miss. Nicole Williams, welcome to the show.

Nicole Williams 1:22
Thank you. Leah, happy to be back. How are you doing? I am amazing.

Leaha Crawford 1:26
Thank you for asking. What's first Nicole, what's going on? How you I mean, it's been, it's been a couple of months. Last time we talked to you, it was we were right at right after, I think black pride, your Pride weekend, but I heard you have a bunch of stuff going on now.

Nicole Williams 1:43
Yes, I am actually took the last of the year, in spite of everything that's been going on, to just really regroup, be intentional and pivot, to get back based on community and really thinking about, like, how are we going to move forward for 2025, with the festival, okay, and still be visible. So it's finally starting to pan out, and I'm starting to see the vision, and the roads starting to clear. And I've just, I've been hitting the ground running for the last few weeks. Okay, yeah,

Leaha Crawford 2:15
because last time you shared some stories about just, just some things that happen with you trying to grow this festival? Well, I'm glad that you're still doing getting because no if you go back, she shared some some, I guess, the the pitfall sometimes of being an entrepreneur and how hard it can

Nicole Williams 2:32
be. Yeah, you know, I find with House of Vegas pride, the festival, that the this will be my eighth year producing, okay, House of House of Vegas pride every year has a theme, all right, you know, so my theme last year, which was a personal one, was trust with my team to, you know, to work with me and to help execute because my father was sick, and it was a beautiful, Beautiful thing and healing for me and for community. Just, you know how everything still came together perfectly, even when I wasn't 100% you know? But my team

Leaha Crawford 3:09
filled the void. They filled the void. I love it. So what's the Do you have the theme yet for

Nicole Williams 3:12
this year? I do have the theme. I will tease it a little bit. All right, come on, let's tease it. We um, this is the first time even speaking about everybody's asking. So yes, we are indeed having a Pride festival. A lot of people have been asking me about that, and it is going to be the third weekend of August, traditionally, August 15 through the 17th. So we are planning and gearing up some events. I have some new amazing community partners that are going to be working with my foundation, social influence, and going to be working with me to make it happen. So we're going to see what we can do, and despite all things that are going on, but we're still going to make something happen this year. You still

Leaha Crawford 3:52
didn't tell me the thing I know I can't tell you, I see she said a teaser. I guess that was a tease. Literally didn't get the Dave

Julian Rosado 3:59
run for office. My gosh,

Leaha Crawford 4:03
smooth, right? Third weekend of August. Don't have the theme. You'll have a bunch of events, new community partners. I am so looking forward to it, but leading up until then, what do you have going on? Well,

Nicole Williams 4:14
we're getting back to the purpose of community, because it's just we've been kind of all trying to, you know, all over the place, so I've been honing in and bringing things back. So we are been hosting a paint and sip series to honor our LGBTQ history. Last year we did a Black History Month one, and we did it with be of the painter. We did a painting. We had small business vendors for networking and just happy to come out and have a good time with DJ bossy Lee, and we had Black History Month bingo to where we got to learn about our culture, which was super fun. So I'm going to be bringing that back. And this month, March 29 we're going to be doing LGBTQ Women's History Month themed paint and sip with the bingo and small business owners in our community. Same thing. Come as you are. I

Leaha Crawford 5:01
love it. I love it. Let's back up a little bit. Nicole, who are you? Let's, let's, let's learn a little bit about you. Who are you? I'm

Nicole Williams 5:08
the woman with six jobs, all right, and a lot of purpose. You know? I'm, I'm, I'm just somebody that really cares a lot, um, learning how to be of service and but build it in a way that I can service more people. Our organization has grown immensely from when I did my annual report and seeing all the things that we did, we had like two major events each month last year, and I was like, whoa. I didn't even realize it. After doing everything, I'm just somebody that's just looking to keep the LGBTQ community lifted, keep our allies and support, and just find the resources and help people get stable in this city and find happiness and people don't have to struggle, whatever that looks like. And if it's having a good time at a party, if it's going to school, if it's finding that job, you know, helping with the kids, or just having somebody to talk to with mental health, I really want to find that space and just keep it there consistently. Got

Leaha Crawford 6:04
it all right, all right. Now, do you have a brick and mortar, or are you still virtual?

Nicole Williams 6:10
You are, are you okay? I love you. I know you do. Come on. So I am working on some things. I am still virtual, but by the love of the community, I'm grateful that I can call anybody on one of my community partners and be in any space, okay, if I need to have something, everybody's very generous about that, but I am working on some things for community to have something that's a little bit more stabilized so that is ongoing certain hours, because I get calls constantly, like this week, I must have received like 10 calls about housing, jobs, you name it. And I just want to have a place to where everybody can receive the information in one space and online. But I am launching an online directory. Okay, so I'm excited about that, so to help combat us not having the choice of being visible or take visibility away from us with the new laws and stuff. Hope that's okay to say I am. I am putting together an online directory for resources on social influence foundation.org,

Leaha Crawford 7:17
I'm looking Go down. Go down. What is it again? Social influence

Nicole Williams 7:20
foundation.org,

Leaha Crawford 7:24
social influence foundation.org, okay,

Nicole Williams 7:27
and on that, I have a sign up if you are an employer, if you are a person looking for a job, if you're looking for education, if you're looking as an ally to support.

Leaha Crawford 7:41
I'm an ally. I'm sorry. I'm an ally. Amazing. I am an ally. I love I am an ally. I've known

Nicole Williams 7:46
you for as long as I've been doing this, right? But you can put in your information, and there's a series of questions of how you would like to be listed on that. Director, I'm starting out in the city of Las Vegas, but I am already had some work on expanding. It's going to be national, okay, a national directory for all things that you need. So because my resource fairs are only twice a year, okay? And I want people to be able to continue to see those resources, because my partners are always there if somebody needs them. So I'm getting that online, and I'm super, super excited about that. It's going to be a community where people can post jobs that they're looking for, housing, they can do it all on that site. So I'm building that out. I

Leaha Crawford 8:30
love it. I love the fact that you are actively engaged, and you find the need, and you try to solve the problem, solve the problem. I love it, all right. So you are listening to growth and listening to growth and grace. I am. Leah Crawford, it's Julian and Julian, Julian, Julian. You have any questions for Nicole,

Nicole Williams 8:48
yeah. So after they How would one go out and find you? Let's say if, if, if someone is broken, how would they go out and find you directly? Oh, most people literally will DM me on my instagram, House of Vegas pride on Facebook or Instagram. A lot of people have my personal Instagram, the Nicole Williams. I'm really public. I don't I don't hide. So a lot of people just DM me. Or somebody gets a number, calls me, has a question, and I try to find the answer for them. So that's why it's so important for me to build these, these products, so that people can just go online, from all the things that they ask, it's always the same questions, you know. So that they can go and see them right there. Saves time, you know, so, but yeah, the Nicole Williams, our house of Vegas pride anywhere. Okay, so made you get into this. My degree, my background, degree is in marketing and event planning. I wanted to be a doctor, but I was class president and used to do parties in high school. Found out that. It. I was class president, so, but, you know, we had to do the school

Leaha Crawford 10:03
dances. But you wanna know what? But true story, because I saw Nicole. We were out at an event, and it was about maybe nine o'clock, and she's all hyped up, and I'm calm and calm. She said, Well, Leah, what are you doing next? I was like, Nicole, is that this is past my bedtime? She said, Girl, I'm just getting started. I said, Okay, you did. We were sitting. We were sitting. Yeah, we minister, stretches, Minister, yes, we were, and we were sitting there. And you were like, I'm, like, No, it was nine o'clock, and I'm, and I'm, you know, you know, I go to bed at 830 Yeah. So it was his birthday party, his birthday party. And, yeah, she was, she was ready to go. So I see it. I see, I see the party.

Nicole Williams 10:39
Okay, yes, yeah, I'm not a morning person at all. I'll tell you that, right? But I'm up at 4am I am too like I was up at six. You know, I just don't talk in the morning, but I will Yap and talk to you all night. But yeah, I just, I went to a college fair, saw school, the Fashion Institute, Design and Merchandising, and they had models walking and stuff. And I found out that you can be an event planner for life, and I didn't, and I so I already had a I had the Millennium Scholarship at UNLV septic, cheering there and everything. So I went to unlv, and then when I was able to transfer, I transferred to fit him in LA and pursued my dreams of just being in entertainment. I've worked in everything since then. I've been in it for like 20 years. Wow, yeah. So with the Pride festival was founded by a client that was once a business partner, we put it together and it just, it was something avoid a need out here, and it just blew up. And I've just stuck with it

Leaha Crawford 11:37
now for the Pride festival. Now, do you do a parade and everything as well, or you just do different events around town.

Nicole Williams 11:43
I would love to do a parade. I haven't that's that's on the wish list, but there's a lot of licensing and permits and money that goes into that. But right now, my main focus is my music festival. Okay, so I don't know if I told you I had launched my record label, hovp global music. Wait,

Leaha Crawford 11:59
wait, slow down. She just dropped, but she didn't. She that wasn't she didn't tell me that before. What is it again? H O V, P, H O V, House of

Nicole Williams 12:10
Vegas, pride, global, music global, okay, love it and all right, that is the community side to the music festival. So shout out to Charlie Mac, totally, no, not that, not that one.

Leaha Crawford 12:24
Okay,

Nicole Williams 12:26
he's a super producer, works with everybody, and he actually gifted me this record label, got me set up and everything, and this is going to actually help all the people that come to me that want to write music and want to perform and get royalties the right way. We're setting that up to educate people. I had a Music Conference this year with E caries, TJs, DJs, Raphael, RJ Charlie Mack and Bianca McCall and La La Shepherd from the progress report down in Atlanta. And they spoke to the artists this year, and got to ask real life questions with people that are doing the work, you know. And

Leaha Crawford 13:15
that's huge, because I learned about that sheet, whatever that sheet is, that sheet of paper that talks about the splits, yes,

Nicole Williams 13:21
and so we make it fair. So like we have the royalty, the royalty splits. It's the

Leaha Crawford 13:26
royalty splits, and it's two different sheets, from what I understand, so a whole bunch of sheets.

Nicole Williams 13:31
So we have it to where the artist, if they do an original song with us, that the Royals will be split in a very fair way on Spotify, to have a Spotify channel. So that was another program that I launched. Was the record label. It's not online yet. We have a song out. It was mentioned for Grammy, because Charlie's an amazing producer, but we're still looking for an artist to lay vocals over that. So I have some things on the horizon. Oh, I gotta get done. You have a

Leaha Crawford 14:00
bunch of stuff on, okay, so being an entrepreneur, having these tentacles out, how do you determine where you want to spend your time?

Nicole Williams 14:10
Um, well, you know, a lot of times putting out fires, you know, what's what's needed seasons. So a lot of times, a lot of the things that I do tend to be seasonal, and timeframe throughout my week being that I do work at night, I'm able to split through the days, what what I can do, what I'm able to do, and then meetings during the day, and I just work through it, you know, and just allow it to happen. I don't get overwhelmed if something doesn't go right. I'm very my boundaries are set with deadlines of what I can do. So I try not to over commit myself, even though things just come at me. But if it's on the table, like I have, I've had that label since last year, like around April, okay, I haven't done anything with it, and I talk about it, but I plan to have a website. I plan to get the artist and stuff. So a lot. Of times speaking on business, if we can talk about that, just like a jewel for people is I was telling a client this morning. Miss Helen Hassell, she's actually doing a book signing. She launched a new book called My journey through the wilderness, and she's one of the guest speakers at China Hudson's Women's History Month event at the West Las Vegas Library. So when is that? That is March 29

Leaha Crawford 15:24
March 29 Shouts out to China. Hudson, I love Miss China. Yeah, happy birthday. She just celebrated her birthday. She did Happy, happy, I think it's belated, happy, belated birthday. But

Nicole Williams 15:34
I was, I was telling my client, um, she, you know, we're getting her book signing ready, getting all the branding, the collateral, the everything. And she was mentioning some things that she was going to be doing, and one was a book club. And, you know, she has a lot going on right now. And I'm like, you don't necessarily have to do that right now. You know, soft launch it, talk about it, get people interested in the book, and then maybe come back in the second or third quarter, when you have some downtime and then start your book club, you don't you don't have to do everything now, just because it's here, you know? But that's also

Leaha Crawford 16:08
the product. The good thing about having a team, because you don't have to do everything, right? You don't have to do everything, that's important too. You got to have a team. Now, do you have a team? I

Nicole Williams 16:17
do. I have an amazing team of volunteers, and they all are instrumental to every part, from the exotic night to the resource fair, that assist with putting this all together, because it's huge. So that's the other thing that those are my tentacles to when I'm ready to talk about exotic night, I call tiny when I'm ready to talk about the resource fair, you know, I call Michael. And you know, this person, you know, and then I just basically am the glue to put everything together. But they really assist with getting, you know, advising and helping to create and what we need to do and stuff. Okay,

Leaha Crawford 16:56
I love it. I love it. So you're listening to growth and grace. I am Leah Crawford, this is Julian Rosado, and we are here with Nicole Williams, just talking about just all the things that she has going on. So if you're interested, she has give us your website again, we're we're now all your are all of your events listed on the website.

Nicole Williams 17:16
Um, not these ones currently. Um, House of Vegas pride you can find on the go events, and under what

Leaha Crawford 17:23
house of Vegas pride, okay, and that website is

Nicole Williams 17:27
social influence foundation.org, so, social

Leaha Crawford 17:30
influence foundation.org, okay, we're gonna help. Because if you put everything there, then we go to one place, and we can just click

Nicole Williams 17:37
social media, all that's there to get to everything. Okay, so following and those type of things, and they're there, and it'll link you to everything. I make sure that I

Leaha Crawford 17:50
love it. I love it. So you have the virtual, no, I'm sorry you on March 29 you have the paint and set. And that is for the women.

Nicole Williams 18:01
It's for LGBTQ, okay, but we're celebrating so I'm sorry. We're celebrating

Leaha Crawford 18:05
queer women in history. LGBTQ, can anybody come? Everybody

Nicole Williams 18:10
come? Okay, everybody comes to my parties. I love it.

Leaha Crawford 18:13
Everybody comes to your parties. Yes. And if you, when you solidify the venue, let me know absolutely so that way we can announce it every week and promoted on the show, appreciate, yeah, we want to do that for you, because I think it's very important. This valley has grown from us being, I mean, I've been here probably two decades now, and it has grown. And you never know where you know the next. I mean, where you can get the information from, who you might meet, who's listening to this, that can come and support you in your events.

Nicole Williams 18:43
Well, I need to have you on my directory and on my site too. People can come to you as well, so we can do that. Yeah,

Leaha Crawford 18:49
no, definitely. I will give you our information. We have no we. We are allies our office. We actually did something where we looked and possibly about maybe now I think we're up to like, 15% of our client base is LGBTQ.

Nicole Williams 19:04
That's awesome. I like, I said, like, You're everywhere where I'm at, and a lot of people like, I don't ever see you. I don't know why, because I'm in a different world, and you are very balanced to be showing up in the community at really great events. You know?

Leaha Crawford 19:20
Well, we try, well, we try what I mean strategically, because, like you just having, I don't have a lot of tentacles in a lot of places. I'm focused. I just do my my one company. But because I help so many people, I show up to their events or not, and I'm supporting people at their events, not necessarily because I'm not the one that has to be in the limelight. I can sit behind the scenes. I wish

Nicole Williams 19:39
that was me. I really want that. I'm looking for some I'm trying to train up someone. Yes, I'm a hermit, really,

Leaha Crawford 19:46
no, because I like, I like supporting people, and I like supporting I like supporting events, because you never know who you're going to meet sitting in the background. That's when a good conversation say, oh my gosh, all the time. That's when I feel good. Conversations happen

Nicole Williams 20:01
like my title sponsor. I met at Pride bingo, talking to Mario from Silver State equality, having a casual conversation. Heather met her with Heather Shoup with love, live equals you, and she was talking to them, talking to him, and I was lost my HIV sponsor, and so I needed that because, you know, top four in the country of black women that are contracted out here. And she was just talking about Clark County and HIV programming. So I was like, so you do testing? And she's like, Yeah, I said hi, and it turned out to be my title sponsor. And they've been with me for three going on my third year, and they the T shirts for House of Vegas pride, any collateral marketing. They have been a blessing, but you do the work. Thank you. That's

Leaha Crawford 20:54
the other thing. Because I hear a lot of people with nonprofits. Oh, I want grants. I want this. You gotta do the work. And you have, sometimes you have to do the work first for people to see you, and then the money comes. But you gotta do the

Nicole Williams 21:09
work you do. And sometimes it doesn't come, and you still gotta do so, but yeah, so like with that being said, April 5 event that I have the soulful wellness brunch, and is the wellness experience for care, personal care. I'm going to be a panelist at the alliante Casino, and it's an empowerment conference that's going to be speaking on health and wellness and sexual health, and that is being done through love, live you, equals you.

Leaha Crawford 21:43
I love that because we were just having that conversation about sexual health. And I probably need to bring some people on here to talk about

Nicole Williams 21:49
sexual health. What does that mean? Hmm, is that that's a rabbit hole. That's a rabbit which way you want to

Leaha Crawford 21:54
go, which way you how you want to go? No, we No. We were having that. No, we were having that conversations across, just across the diaspora, right across across different people. What does sexual health mean for you? What does sexual health mean for you? What does it mean for oh, can mean different it can mean different things. But how are you healthy in that for married couples, what is sexual health? And this, it's really having those conversations and not it not being taboo, not, oh my god, I saw you know. But how do we have healthy conversations around this? Especially because if we're number four for HIV, we need to have a conversation.

Julian Rosado 22:37
We're number four. So

Nicole Williams 22:40
the I am a part of the in HIV epidemic. Yeah, it is a, it's funded by Ryan White, which is a grant for HIV prevention and medicine, yeah. And they're obviously, like, on the in the country, we're all rated, you know, on contracting at loss, Nevada is number four in the country for black women contracting HIV and STDs. Then it leads with black trans men, black men, trans women and Hispanics too, as well. Number four, number four. That's why I'm single, educating yes so and what you find too, and just speaking openly, if I can, can you go ahead being a lesbian, black woman you know, and dating, having those conversations, you know, before getting intimate with your partner. All the my past exes, we've always gotten tests. And I had my first girlfriend we had to get she wanted the 10 panel, not,

Leaha Crawford 23:51
not just and it's so funny, the 10 panel

Nicole Williams 23:53
and I, and we, and the thing is, is, and I went and I got it. I'm like, I'm ready to get down. Let's go. Here's my papers, but that those are kind of like questions and things in those conversations where people, like, are either scared, you know, they don't know that, you know they're trying to hide something that they don't want to go get tested and you need to go get and they dance around it. And when that happens, I'm like, Oh no. Like, and we need to take that seriously if you're not willing to go get pricked on the finger and do a urine test and get a swab takes 10 minutes. Well,

Leaha Crawford 24:27
not only that, I'm a proponent of going because I was getting I worked in HIV. First story is my first business. We were actually able to get a hair salon in Washington, DC, because the woman that owned the salon passed away at a Pride festival in San Francisco, and me and my partner at the time were able to get the business and eventually buy the building. And I. After, and I told him, I was like, We need to get tested. And he was like, We need to get I said, we need to get HIV tested because we were living in Washington, DC, in the light in the late 90s, we need to get tested. And we we started then getting tested every year for HIV. And it expanded to a whole STD panel, even when my celibate years, I always just got tested. Yep, I got tested. I get tested regularly, um, at least annually. And part of it is I just, I need, I need to click. I need to know. For me, y'all scaring me, bro, oh, there's nothing. There's nothing to be scared. See, the scary part for me is not knowing. It's not knowing. But I believe in sexual health, because I mean sex is real. I mean it's real. People want to

Julian Rosado 25:45
but number four, number four,

Nicole Williams 25:46
yeah, so my platform is utilized because I have a lot of African American and Latin people that come to my festival, black women, whether lesbian or an ally, and so we host HIV mobile rapid testing on site at all of my events. So we are working to bridge the gap. So that's why, like, you know, for House of Vegas, pride, my festival, me hosting events and doing things, they're able to bring out the mobile testing like the LGBTQ center comes out, and they can rapid test people right there. So, yeah, so it helps to, kind of, like ease that going into a clinic that, you know, I have volunteers that'll go around, hey, hey, come get tested. We'll get away through tickets. We give away all kinds of stuff. So that's pretty much a major, major part of what we do for community to help with that the epidemic going on right now. Yeah,

Leaha Crawford 26:40
because before was a death sentence, HIV is not anymore. There's medication. There's a way. I mean, because one of my very good friends is HIV positive, and he's been living with it for 20 years, 20 plus years, and healthy living with it, yeah, and but again, he discloses to people around him, you know, I am positive, you know, because you have to just, I mean, for me, I'm like, you have to disclose, but if you don't know, and some people, you know, families sometimes treat you differently when you are, um, when you're positive. And I've learned, I mean, I've been around some good people, healthy environments, just understanding the disease and all that. You know, I'm not scared of it so,

Nicole Williams 27:23
and I'm grateful that, I must say, space, yeah, I've had a lot of people confide in me to let me know, and never would have thought, and you would never know. You know. You wouldn't know. You wouldn't know. There's, um, you'd like, like Leah said, there's a prep to help lower the blood, like the count, the count and inside of the for the virus, so that you can be with a partner. But these things, these open discussions, need to happen in order you know what kind of precautions to be able to take for, you know, intimate moments or sexual activity, because you

Leaha Crawford 27:57
can still have sex, it's just you gotta take a little bit more. Yeah,

Nicole Williams 28:02
so educating people to know that it'll make the conversation easier for people just to be safe. Like, oh, okay, you know, all

Leaha Crawford 28:10
right. Well, we have to wrap it up. That was that was good. That was good. HIV is, hmm, we're number four. Okay, got it understood? Alright, so you've been listening to growth and grace. I'm Leah Crawford. This is Julian Rosado, and I hope this show was very informative to you. I am an ally of the community, and I wanted to promote your event. So Nicole, as always, thank you for accepting our invitation and coming on the show. I really, I truly appreciate it.

Nicole Williams 28:38
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. This was nice, and just to be able to talk about these things is important, and I really appreciate your support. Yes, yes.

Leaha Crawford 28:48
Remember, y'all, growth is a journey, and grace makes it worthwhile. That's why we named the show growth and grace. And our goal is to expose you to different things so you can start having healthy conversations sometimes about very hard topics. Keep growing in love. Have the and give yourself grace, because when you're growing you gotta give yourself grace. Amen, until next week. I'm Leah Crawford. I'm Julian Rosato. Be Well, be great, and we will talk to you next week. Bye, bye.