Meet QV Thomas | Minister, Educator, Entrepreneur, and Advocate

We had the good fortune of connecting with QV Thomas and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi QV, we’d love to hear more about your end-goal, professionally.
The end goal is always that you give and serve more than you expect in return. I want to be able to leave structure/ corporation for full time entrepreneurship and my own creative brands. I want people to know me by the fruit that I produced on my own dime.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We became educators and saw a need to support educators. There are so many places that support kids and very few places that took care of the educators. Educator sacrifice a lot to teach comfortably and ensure that all of their students’ needs are met. In the summer of 2022, we birthed Ed After Hours-CWOW. Our mission is to give back to those that give their all. We support West Georgia public educators in the Carroll, Carrollton City, Douglas, Coweta, Heard, Fulton, Atlanta Public, Paulding, Haralson, and Bremen City school districts. Although we are housed at a church, everyone is welcome to network with us regardless of their beliefs or religious affiliation. We host an annual supply giveaway for teachers to get lunch on us and pick up supplies for themselves in the classroom. We also do meetings throughout the school year where educators can come and talk, share resources, gain knowledge from other educators, and have a snack on us. Some of these meetings include fun and relaxing activities. We give away thousands of dollars of food and school supplies every year. This year we are trying to turn our giveaway to a mini one day retreat. We have a GoFundMe (https://gofund.me/3fb798eb) set up to help out with the cost. Our plan is to always keep our events and services free and would appreciate the donations. Running this organization isn’t easy, but the feedback we get from the ones that we serve make it worthwhile. We collect donations, but most of this is funded out of our personal finances. As the economy has clearly raked all of or pockets, we need more donations to continue our efforts.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Atlanta is a wild place, but I was born here… not transplanted. I miss the old Atlanta and have since become a homebody and a workaholic ever since. I recommend asking the locals on what side of town you’re visiting. I am also learning that some of the best Atlanta gems aren’t public or advertised like they should be especially when it comes to food. I will recommend that you visit all of the museum and prominent public memorial in and out the city.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We would like to shout out Apostle D’Andre and Pastor Shawnnetta Green and the Church Without Walls- Carrollton for letting us cultivate the vision of Ed After Hours in their space. The love and support that you show does not go unnoticed and we couldn’t operate like we do if it wasn’t for you. Thank you!

Website: Our Founder’s Linktree- http://linktr.ee/allthingsqv

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/edafterhourscwow

Other: https://gofund.me/3fb798eb

Image Credits
Our headshot for our main photo- https://www.facebook.com/DemarquesBonner