Pam-G gets ‘Vision and Mission Driven’

Born and raised in Fayetteville, Ga., Pam Glass, or Pam-G as many call her, is on a mission to improve the lives of those less fortunate.

Beautiful, talented and only 24, Glass has the passion and drive of someone who is called by a higher power to do for others what they can’t do for themselves. Her calling has lead her to found a Christian based production company, Get Vision and Mission Driven (VAMD) Productions, as a way to raise funds for the people God has placed on her heart.

Glass has been singing for as long as she can remember. It started as a little girl in church and continued throughout her early years. “I was in the chorus at East Fayette Elementary School,” recalled Glass.

As she grew older, however, she focused her energy in a different area: “For a while I left singing and cheered at Fayette County High School,” she stated.

After graduating from Fayette County High in 2000, Glass enrolled in Columbus State where became a cheerleader at the collegiate level.

While in her freshman year of college, Glass realized that she felt an emptiness that she could not fill on her own. She began to attend church more regularly and says she found Christ during her search for something more.

During this time of spiritual growth and transition, Glass’ mother opened up her home to foster children with medical needs. On weekends, Glass would go home and help her mom care for the children. This sparked a desire in Glass to become a registered respite care provider. After eight weeks of training and many weekends helping her mother care for the medically fragile foster children, Glass became a registered respite provider through Childkind, Inc., an adoption agency based out of Decatur, Ga.

This allows Glass to stay with children who are in need of medical assistance when foster or adoptive parents need someone to watch the children. Throughout the past six years, Glass’ family has seen 20 foster children come through their doors. Once the kids have been transferred out of the foster care provider’s home, all contact is lost. “That’s the hardest thing,” Glass says in earnest. All she can do from there is pray for them, which she says she does by keeping a journal with their names in it and going down the list.

In 2002, Glass transferred to Georgia State University (GSU).

“Originally I went to school to be a teacher. When I started Georgia State, I changed my major to psychology,” Glass explained. Now Glass has decided that she wants to be a school counselor and has plans to go to graduate school for her master’s in school counseling after finishing up her bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in sociology from Georgia State. She has three classes left before graduating.

Outside of her work with foster children, Glass has worked as a volunteer for the last several years. As an assistant in the anthropology department at GSU, Glass would take half of each paycheck and purchase food staples to give to the homeless of Atlanta.

In one of her classes at GSU, Glass and her classmates were assigned to take on a social issue and to journal about that issue. She chose to write her paper, entitled “Dreams living among us,” about the homeless of Atlanta.

Rather than simply going and interviewing some of the homeless people she had encountered, she decided to inhabit the life of a homeless woman. Because her mom didn’t feel comfortable with Glass sleeping on the streets of Atlanta, Glass spent eight days waking up early in the morning and spending the day until late at night sitting on the Atlanta streets with others who had been living like that for days, years and some even decades. She ingrained herself into their life and simply spoke with the people she encountered.

Tears come to her eyes as she describes her time on the streets, “A lot of people have just hit a string of bad luck, or have too much pride to go home.” Others, she said, don’t have a home to go to, and just need people to show them some love and compassion. She said it was heartbreaking to see the way people treat the homeless, and her experience took her desire to help others to a new level.

Around the time Glass transferred to GSU, she began singing again, primarily at her church, Heavenbound Church of God In Christ in Riverdale, Ga.

“I have many missions, but one objective [I have is] to tell as many people as I can that God is awesome and what better way to reach the masses than through music!” said Glass.

In early 2006, Glass evaluated her long term goals, her talents and the community’s needs and in April organized her not-for-profit production company, Get VAMD. The company currently only houses Glass’ projects, but she is hoping to expand it into a home for Christian products that range the spectrum of artistry from books to other musicians. “Right now it’s just me, but my vision is to bring in others,” she explained.

Glass, who writes all of her own music, began journaling in ninth grade, she said. Of using her journals for her music she said, “I would pull out different journals and started making songs out of them.”

In December 2006, after a long and difficult process, she released her first four song EP, “We’re Takin’ Over.” She is currently booking engagements at churches, coffee shops, festivals and anywhere she can get her music heard.

Glass has a set distribution plan for any money made off the album: 30 percent goes toward her various mission projects, 30 percent goes to pay the musicians who have worked on the album and who play with her, 30 percent goes toward equipment and 10 percent she keeps for herself as income.

“People think I’m weird when I say I give back to charity,” stated Glass, a smile wide across her face. “It’s fulfilling, and I’d rather wake up excited rather than have a bank full of money and be miserable.”

People who have heard her perform have encouraged her to seek out a record deal with a major label, she said. She explained that a major label simply isn’t part of her plan, “My fear is that my mission will get lost in the mix.”

“The record industry doesn’t care about [giving back],” stated Glass.

For now Glass will continue to create her own path. Along with respite care work and her music, Glass volunteers with a battered women’s shelter in downtown Atlanta and spends every Saturday morning in Woodruff Park feeding the homeless with Atlanta West Pentecostal Church. The group also collects clothes to distribute to the homeless as well as toiletries and other needed items. “We are always looking for volunteers,” Glass offers with a grin.

To learn more about Pam Glass and her company, Get VAMD, visit www.getvamd.com or visit her MySpace, www.myspace.com/getvisionandmissiondriven, where you can hear songs from “We’re Takin’ Over.”

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