About
Street Works was founded in 1997 as a mobile outreach agency. We target youth, drug users, incarcerated persons, sex industry workers and those engaged in other high-risk activities. Through an aggressive program combining on-site counseling, a mobile outreach clinic/outreach center, community footwork, and home visits we combat HIV/AIDS where it most disproportionately affects American society: in our most economically disadvantaged communities. Street Works provides education, prevention, and care to those infected, affected, or both by HIV/ AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) on the inner city streets of Nashville. We are the only such agency to operate a 24-hour emergency help line and 24-hour on-call counseling in Davidson County.
Street Works is listed by GuideStar, the most complete source of information about U.S. nonprofits, and has been reviewed by The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee which provides access to our GuideStar profile.
Executive Director – Ron Crowder
Ron Crowder began Street Works in 1997 as a community program to proactively provide street outreach to high-risk populations in the previously unreachable corners of our communities. Prior to 1997, Mr. Crowder spent over ten years working with other HIV outreach programs. He founded Street Works because he saw an unmet need in the community. Mr. Crowder is a certified Not-For-Profit Accounting Professional (CNAP) and has effectively implemented community and street outreach programs using the Harm Reduction Model.
Street Works has received commendations from numerous organizations including the 5th Congressional District of the State of Tennessee, the Minority HIV/AIDS Coalition Project, and the Tennessee AIDS Support Services. In 2005 Mr. Crowder was one of ten recipients, chosen out of a pool of over 600 nominees, to receive the nation’s most prestigious community health leadership honor, the Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Program Award.
Through Mr. Crowder’s guidance, Street Works has developed into an organization that serves a diverse community in the area of HIV/AIDS, STD, and substance abuse education prevention and treatment.
Street Works is one of the few agencies in Nashville that is able to reach populations that still remain underserved by more traditional social agencies. Our success is based upon our unique rapport with the members of the communities in which we serve; we are members of the communities and continue to base our counseling centers within them.
Board of Directors
Commander Robert Nash, Chair
Revlon Briggs, Secretary
Ron Crowder, Executive Director
Barbara Biggers-Matthews
Beverly Brown, Ed.D.
Marino Bruce, Ph.D.
Chuck Bryant
Millard Collins, M.D.
William Collins, Esq.
Reverend Leslie Davis, Sr.
Wilhelmina Duncan
Carmencita Espada
James Hildreth, M.D.
Wayne Miller
Reverend Ernest Norman III
Mike Pigott
David Raybin, Esq.
Kristy Sinkfield
Michael Smith
Louis Torres
Honorary Board of Directors
Peggy Andrews
Bettina Beech, Dr.P.H., M.P.H.
Eileen Beehan
Father Joseph Patrick Breen
Chris Chamberlain
Howard Gentry
Rep. Brenda Gilmore
Senator Thelma Harper
Cherry Houston, Ph.D.
Darlene Jenkins, Ph.D.
Paul Juarez, Ph.D.
Reverend Charles King
John Lyle
Dale Quillen, Esq.
Kay Kraft Raybin
Kenneth Robinson, M.D.
A. Dexter Samuels, Ph.D.,
Chief Ronal Serpas
Gwendolyn Sharp
Honorable Monte Watkins
Colleen Conway-Welch, Ph.D.
Roger J. Zoorob, M.D.
