In Switzerland, France and Italy, youth sports organizations were always gracious of American athletes that took special interest in promoting good sportsmanship and leadership skills to the younger players. While volunteering in this capacity over seven years in a foreign country, along with appearances on Italian talk shows and countless television interviews, civic engagement came naturally.

After a 1998 injury in the WNBA’s Houston Comets’ training camp, marriage and children volunteering began to take a new turn. Focusing on students with disabilities and at-risk youth, mentoring moved into the forefront. Highlights of her volunteer career included teaching fifth and sixth grade English and creative writing at the Christian Academy and developing educational tools for the summer reading program titled “Run Away with Reading”. As head coach and mentor for the A.A.U. basketball team for girls 12 and under, Mrs. Waitman helped encourage and exhort young girls to succeed academically and inspired them and their parents with service learning initiatives, poetry readings and luncheons in their honor.

As a military wife and volunteer, she helped form and served on the Youth Action Council in Fort Hood, Texas which subsequently developed B.O.A.T. (Better Opportunities for Army Teens) a replica of the Army’s B.O.S.S. program (Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers). The program offered military teens transitioning with their families to new duty stations the opportunity to adjust socially, therefore increasing their chances for positive academic adjustments. She also formed a non-profit organization for youth called H.E.A.V.E.N. Bound! (Help Every American Value Education Now!) sharing a vision with parents, ‘to nurture and instill a love of learning in all youth’. True to her faith, Mrs. Waitman taught Children’s Ministry for her local church, an act of kindness lasting one and half years before relocating to Florida.

Doreatha served as chair of the Santa Rosa County Volunteer-Sub Committee, as a member of the Faith Based Coalition, and as guest presenter representing Santa Rosa County Long-Term Recovery Committee at the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters Conference. She presented and implemented a county-wide disaster plan, the Help Thy Neighbors Initiative, involving the training of community organizations and CERT teams and assisted in the creation of the Hurricane Recovery Task Force of AmeriCorps* members, national disaster response teams and local volunteers during hurricane Dennis response. During Katrina, she organized faith based volunteers to donate and distribute life sustaining supplies directly to sister churches in Gulf Port, Mississippi and surrounding areas with the assistance of the Volunteer Florida Foundation. She is now empowering communities and developing leaders as the founder and CEO of Help Thy Neighbor Ministries, Inc. A silent warrior, woman of God visionary and leader, she truly believes that “together we CAN do more!”