Melva “Mimi” Taylor Grimes – an activist and educator who taught for three decades in Chicago-area elementary schools before becoming a supervisor of teaching education at the University of California, Santa Barbara – spent her life believing in the power of empathy, community engagement, and justice.
Working to create a world free of gender-based violence, an issue that had directly impacted her family, was a labor of love for Mimi. She was a founding member of the Speakers Bureau at The Voices and Faces Project; served as an advisor to the board of directors of the Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault; and was recognized for her activism on behalf of victims when she received the National Sexual Violence Resource Council’s “Visionary Voice Award,” which was presented to Mimi and her daughter, Center for Story & Witness co-founder Anne K. Ream, at a 2011 Clinton Presidential Center ceremony.
To carry forward Mimi’s legacy in the wake of her death in 2024, her family has launched the Mimi Taylor Grimes Scholarship Fund, to provide full scholarships for survivors of sexual violence and human trafficking seeking to take part in our Center for Story & Witness writing program. Thanks, in advance, for considering a donation in this extraordinary woman’s honor!
