Tchernavia Montgomery hailed as ‘a torchbearer of hope’

MICHELLE MURCHISON

Tchernavia Montgomery celebrates the March opening of Care Ring’s new headquarters in north Charlotte. Montgomery, The Post’s 2025 Newsmaker of the Year, lad a $3 million fundraising campaign for the state of the art facility, the nonprofit health center’s first dedicated building.

Tchernavia Montgomery is reinterpreting community health.

As CEO of Care Ring, Montgomery, The Post’s Newsmaker of the Year, that means shepherding a $3 million campaign to move the nonprofit health center into a new state-of-the-art facility. It entails expanding programs for babies and new moms. And opening a pantry to help clients at risk of food insecurity. 

The goal: help under- and uninsured people thrive in a community where growing economic gaps impacts health care access.

“We’re a business just like anyone else,” said Montgomery, who has led the clinic since 2021. “I’ve got the same features of a for-profit business. We have a finance office and operations and [human resources], and all those businesses continue to innovate, right? You want to keep your customer base that you have and then bring in new business. It’s the same here. We’re just working with people, and I get to spend all of my money at the end of the year. That part’s fun, but we have to innovate.” 

The health center, which opened in 1955, moved into its first dedicated space in March – a 13,000 square foot facility on North Graham Street. The two-year campaign, in which $2.3 million was raised within six months, resulted in a campus that delivers services from prenatal and maternal health to mental health and food pantry.

“It’s been a vision that quickly became a reality for us,” Montgomery said. “We would not be in this space had it not been for the support of the community, and they're embracing that vision that we had. We have grown tremendously over the last five years, doubling in our organization size, and we needed those new digs to make sure that we were accommodating our staff and providing our patients with a dignified place to experience care.”

Montgomery is the first Black person to lead Care Ring, and after five years as its leader, her place in the organization’s history still resonates. The nonprofit was launched in 1955 by community health nurse Maribel Conner to provide health care resources in Black neighborhoods. The goal then, as now, is to close disparities, but Montgomery’s leadership style is from a different experience.

“I’m a double minority. I’m a woman and I’m Black,” she said. “I’d add a third in that I’m short. I do have to lead differently. Nationally, only 3% to 5% of nonprofits are run by Black women, so while we have made some great strides in our country in putting Black women in positions to lead organizations where sometimes we are proximate to the problems that we're trying to serve. I am trying to do my best here in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg community to lead, to lead confidently, to lead in partnership with our government, with our private foundations, with our public entities and corporate to make sure that we are providing individuals who want to call Charlotte home a place where they can thrive.”

Carlenia Ivory, a longtime Charlotte community, education and health advocate, calls Montgomery “a torchbearer of hope” for her ability to create collaborations to help the most vulnerable live healthier.

“She has an unwavering commitment to empower young people, the people who are the parents to these babies,” Ivory said. “She wants to find a way to assist them in all aspects of their life … financial assistance, higher education, she wants to help them with housing. She wants to make sure that the future generations have an opportunity to meet their dreams. She’s a person who just feels like we can get it done, but we have to get it done together.”

Mecklenburg County Commissioner Arthur Griffin appreciates Montgomery’s leadership and impact beyond Care Ring. Her ability to articulate the clinic’s purpose and necessity for community support resonates beyond the nonprofit sector.

“She's a go-getter, principally because of her knowledge,” said Griffin, who chairs the county’s Health and Human Services Committee. “She certainly has a phenomenal personality, but she also is intelligent. When she walks up to you, her ability to capture the moment, her executive presence is one that really grabs your attention and makes it such that you pay attention to what she's saying. You not only hear what she's saying, but you listen to what she's saying.” 

Montgomery’s career goal wasn’t to lead a health center. As teen parent, her interactions with a social worker motivated Montgomery to become one. After earning an associate’s degree at Central Piedmont Community College and undergraduate and graduate degrees in social work at UNC Charlotte, she transitioned to health care while balancing motherhood. Those struggles sharpened her empathy and drive to serve.

“My career journey was inspired by a social worker named Amy who was providing me with home visitation services when I was young,” Montgomery said. … “The care that she provided me allowed me to feel safe and allowed me to feel empowered and I decided early on, I want to help people feel that way. I wanted to serve, so that’s what led me to the career that I’m in. 

“I started out at Central Piedmont, had a 10-year education journey being a teen mom having to navigate the world of being in poverty and learning the system. Some of that pays off today, and I’m here because of that degree in social work, bachelor’s and a master’s that prepared me for the career that I’m now in. I had an opportunity to work for public health and the private mental health field. I worked for Atrium Health as a leader there for nearly a decade and then decided to come back out and put those skills to use in the nonprofit community.” 

Part of Montgomery’s job is understanding clients’ needs that “have nothing to do with your genetic code.” Care Ring emphasis feedback and interaction to address not only physical issues, but holistic change by addressing geographical, social or economic determinants like transportation access, housing or food insecurity.

“Sometimes issues that people may be facing are invisible – mental health issues, for example, or hunger,” she said. “You don't see those things, but they’re felt, so our job here is not only to provide services to those who are uninsured, also those who are underinsured, or to individuals that are underserved. There’s a lack somewhere and community-based organizations like ours are able to help fill in those gaps with community partners, with different resources, and I will share that the work that we do it is not for the weak.

“We have to be agile. We have to be ready to serve. We have to be dedicated to the people that we’re committed to who have trusted us with their literal lives, so for us, it’s making sure that holistically, they are cared for whatever their need is. It’s not for me to define, it’s for them to define what they need. That’s what I learned as a social worker.”

Even with the momentum of a new building and program expansion to serve more people, cuts to federal programs like Medicaid and SNAP increases challenges to local organizations. As health care access becomes more of a challenge to working people struggling to keep pace with expected price spikes, Care Ring, like other nonprofits, will need to be nimbler going forward.

“I’ve been here for 25 years now, and I’ve seen our community shift,” Montgomery said. “I've been in the human services field for 20 years, and I’ve been the leader of this organization for nearly five and what I’ve learned through those life experiences and professional experiences are that crises present opportunities. So, I believe now is the time for us to unite together in a shared purpose. I often use our board of directors as an example of that happening. I call it a purple board. We’ve got people across both sides of the aisle that somehow find a way to work together and to row in the same direction for the people that we’re serving. It’s beautiful to watch.

“I am confident that as a community, with organizations like Care Ring and those that we partner with in Charlotte and the Mecklenburg County community, we’re going to withstand and we’re going to recover. I want to make sure that we are rebounding and moving forward with thoughts and programs and ideas and services that are progressive and that are going to help us heal.”
The perception of clinics is usually facilities that cater to poor people, but as Mecklenburg County’s affordability gap widens, so does the demographic of Care Ring clients. The center turns no one away regardless of economic status or ability to pay. 

“We’re open to anyone anywhere that needs services, and we have professionals that come to Car Ring to get services,” she said. “We are a donations-based service. Some donations may be small, right? Someone may have $5 to offer towards their care. Others may have $200. We don’t judge. We believe that being able to pay for your services is an aspect of dignity, but we want someone to not have a barrier to getting care, but we're open to anyone and everyone that needs it. The recent snap cuts were evidence of people needing help unexpectedly with a benefit that’s necessary to supplement their nourishment each month, all of a sudden being cut off. So we see anyone and everyone here, and yes, you'd be surprised, the overwhelming majority of SNAP recipients work, and we wanted to make sure that we were taking responsibility as an organization that advocates to put out some of those facts associated with the myths and reduce them so that people could see the issue for what it is.”

In a community dominated by hospital companies like Advocate Health and Novant Health, community health centers are easily overlooked but fill a vital niche. Getting the word out about Care Ring’s services and the need for public support is a full-time job, which Montgomery has become more proficient in.

“I’ll always take a check,” she said. “Our organization, we have grown to serve nearly 8,000 individuals a year, but community wide in Mecklenburg County, there are around 140,000 to 160,000 people who are uninsured, so we’re just scratching the surface. We not only want to expand, but we also believe in deepening services like the food pantry. That’s another way for us to serve and solve issues of hunger that are related to health. We also have tried to stay close to our county government in understanding what their pillars of service are based on the data they've collected.” 

Said Griffin: “She has navigated to be able to get certified for her patients to use Medicaid and other health insurance, so she knows how to run a corporation. It just happens to be a nonprofit corporation, but she would do well in even a for profit. She really knows how to run a business and to serve the public.” 

Care Ring’s results have been stellar with Montgomery as CEO. She cites the nonprofit’s physician outreach program, which launched in 2004, has eclipsed $500 million in donated care from the medical provider community. A data point Montgomery is passionate about – infant and maternal health – has shown good results, too. Ninety-one percent of Care Ring’s clients gave birth to healthy, full-term birth weight babies last year. Black women are at least twice as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than their white counterparts and their babies are three times more at risk of dying in the first year of life. 

“She's committed, she's dedicated, and she's focused on trying to provide the best health care for women, in particular women who are experiencing childbirth,” Griffin said. “Ever since I’ve known her, she’s been absolutely focused on Black child health, Black infant child health. Every April, she has this big conference on Black well childcare, and it's standing room only. People come from all over even surrounding counties, to participate in seminars in here, presentations about women's health. One of the things that we experience here is an unacceptable percent of Black infant mortality, and she’s one of the primary agencies, along with others, that are working to try to reduce that statistic.”

MATT LACZKO | THE CHARLOTTE POST

Tchernavia Montgomery, who has led Care Ring since 2021, is the first Black person to lead the Charlotte nonprofit health center in its 70-year history.

Said Montgomery: “We knew years ago that maternal child health was an issue in Mecklenburg County. “We historically, per the March of Dimes infant mortality study and report card, have had a D. I don’t know about you, but my family wasn’t accepting a D, right? I needed to be an A student today, and we like to believe it’s because of the expansion of our services and thanks to the county, we’re a C. While that’s a passing grade, we know that we can do better. We don’t want infants and mothers to continue to suffer here in Mecklenburg County. 

“We know that a Black baby is three times more likely to die in their first year of life. We know that black women are more exposed to prenatal complications and postpartum issues and maternal mortality, we want to help solve those problems. So, for us, it's word of mouth, it’s staying close to our community partners, our local hospital systems, making sure that we are in the spaces that people are living, working, playing and worshiping so that we can share the good word of Care Ring and making sure that we’re also sharing our impact.” 

Ivory believes Montgomery’s future is bright, whether it’s with Care Ring or another platform. Wherever she goes, results will follow.

“I just think the sky’s the limit for her, because she’s very ambitious, but at the same time, she’s very humble,” Ivory said. “We know that she is not done yet, and she’s going to leave behind a legacy because through her compassion for others. … I’m not sure what her aspirations are. I know she's happy where she is, but I see her leading one of the top nonprofit agencies in this city, and I’m not sure if exactly what that is, but I know that she’s focused, and she knows what her next steps are.”

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