Fresh Faces of Philanthropy: Tara Tenorio

The Community Resource Center supplies its partners with essentials (like hygiene and cleaning products) so they can focus on providing critical services to Middle Tennessee’s most vulnerable populations.

Tara Tenorio first intersected with Community Resource Center (CRC) and its mission to provide essential hygiene items in times of crisis and ongoing need after the 2010 flood, when local nonprofits came together to heal and rebuild the city. After working with CRC for a decade in a professional role, Tara joined the board in 2022.

A community relations and communications executive at Meta, Tara finds herself drawn to the big-picture problem-solving at CRC. “We’re looking at poverty, partnership and community needs holistically, then determining how hygiene fits into the equation,” she says. 

While CRC’s three-person team distributed 1 million products across seven counties last year, hygiene banks are still relatively new, with fewer than a dozen in the country. 

Communicating the severity of need is essential to building support, so CRC works to broadcast the realities of hygiene insecurity and period poverty. For example, food stamps cannot be used to purchase many basics, such as cleansers and menstrual hygiene supplies. Changing systemic barriers to access requires advocacy to engage elected officials. 

It’s not a challenge that Tara takes lightly. “I’ve shed more than a few tears thinking about how privileged I am to get to be on this team,” she says. “It has also taught me to set an even higher bar for the level of time and care I need to be willing to dedicate to an organization if I’m going to take up a seat at the board table.” 

Part of that service includes keeping an eye out for the next generation of leaders ready and willing to commit their energy and expertise to the work of CRC. “For us, this is about more than hygiene,” Tara says. “We are shaping how a community works together.”

Dress: Amsale from Gus Mayer

Cuff, ring: Margaret Ellis Jewelry