Rakeem Jones: Fayetteville teacher, former athlete starts wellness company
According to the website of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., members are active in their respective communities and hold dear the ideals of Service, Scholarship, Sisterhood, and Finer Womanhood.
Five coeds at Howard University created an organization dedicated to raising people’s consciousness, encouraging the highest standards of scholastic achievement and fostering a great sense of unity. Today, there are over 100,000 members around the world, keeping up with those traditions, including Azha McNeil, also known as AZZertion.
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McNeil believes healing starts from within. The 26-year-old has always been fascinated with human anatomy. As a student at E.E. Smith High School, she excelled in the classroom and in sports.
Inspired by her mother Stephanie McNeil, Azha became a standout athlete as a Golden Bull. Immediately after graduation, she went on to play basketball at Greensboro College before transferring to Johnson C. Smith University.
During the fall of 2016, she became a member of Zeta Phi Beta, Once again, she was a Golden Bull athlete, competing in basketball, softball and volleyball. In May 2018, McNeil graduated with her biology degree in hopes of becoming a dentist and opening her own practice. However, life had other plans.
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In the same month of her graduation, McNeil found out she was pregnant with her daughter — and her mother succumbed to breast cancer. Like McNeil her mother was an athlete who was All-European in track. The death of her mother prompted a number of questions within McNeil.
She began her journey of holistic wellness. Her goal was simple: Make feminine health a normal conversation.
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Through her journey, PreTee P Boutique was launched. McNeil combined her love of anatomy and helping people. She founded her limited liability company and twisted her natural hair into locs on Dec. 18, 2020.
“Medicine just treats the symptoms, but healthy lifestyle changes can solve the issue,” says McNeil, who is a mother of two and also a schoolteacher.
However, her teaching does not stop in the classroom.
More:Health Is Wealth Symposium
On Nov. 26, which is Small Business Saturday, McNeil and PreTee P Boutique will be hosting their inauguralHealth Is Wealth Symposium. The goal of the symposium is for attendees to heal their bodies as they grow their businesses. The Health Is Wealth Symposium is meant to distribute knowledge.
The event will be hosted at Kiwanis Recreation Center from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and cover various topics ranging from Life and Finance Planning to Agriculture/Vermiculture; the material will be taught by subject matter experts, such as Lashonda Hopkins, owner of Lableu Tactical Training; and Quanetta King, who is McNeil’s friend and classmate and owner of Vanity Esteem. The company specializes in colonics and body sculpting.
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Other speakers include: Dr. Erika McCormick, Kerstin Driver, Ramel Brown, Tony Brown and and Rashad McEntire.
McNeil hopes everyone will leave with more knowledge and connections than before.
“It’s for people who want to grow their business, network, connect and improve their health,” she says.
During the Health Is Wealth symposium, McNeil will celebrate the release of her life planner, which will be available on Amazon. For more information on her holistic wellness journey, log on to preteep.com.
Salute to PreTee P Boutique and every activist getting active. Peace.
Rakeem “Keem” Jones is a community advocate and father of three from the Shaw Road/Bonnie Doone area of Fayetteville. He can be reached at keemj45@gmail.com.