Empowerment, Inc. was founded in 1992 by the senior pastor, Lance D. Watson, and associate pastor, Rev. Darrell Smith of Saint Paul's Baptist Church on the belief that empowering people transforms communities. The vision was to make a difference in the historic community of Church Hill surrounding the church's Marshall Street facility.

 

Since that time, the Church has experienced exponential growth and now owns three additional campuses in Eastern Henrico, South Richmond, and Petersburg, Virginia. This growth helped precipitate the broadening of Nia’s vision, from serving a single community to multiple ones and from viewing communities strictly from a geographical perspective to seeing communities as a groups of individuals with diverse cultures, interest, issues and needs. 

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