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About Sustained Life
A healthier future starts with dignity, wisdom, and community.
Our story
From crisis response to sustained flourishing
Food insecurity and diet-related health challenges are rarely isolated problems. They are shaped by access, knowledge, time, relationships, resources, and the systems around us.
Sustained Life was created to help communities connect those pieces. We bring nourishing food together with practical education, faith-sensitive support, stewardship, and collaboration—always honoring the dignity and lived experience of each person.
Our mission
Equip people to steward what sustains life.
To equip people and communities to steward food, health, relationships, and resources in ways that support whole-person flourishing.
Our vision
A credible pathway to thrive.
Communities where nourishing food, practical wisdom, dignity, faith-sensitive support, and sustainable systems work together so every person has a credible pathway to thrive.
What guides us
Values expressed through action
Dignity
We see people as partners with strengths, insight, and agency.
Stewardship
We care thoughtfully for the body, relationships, and shared resources.
Evidence
We pair lived wisdom with credible, research-informed education.
Compassion
We meet people without shame, judgment, or fear.
Faith
We welcome faith-sensitive reflection while respecting each person.
Community
We build with people, not merely for them.
Learning
We listen, measure, adapt, and continue growing.
Hope
We believe practical change is possible, one choice at a time.
Meet our founder
Sophia Loren Blake
Founder and President
Before Sustained Life, Sophia Loren Blake spent 39 years in public service, retiring in March 2023 as an Investigator with the Defense Contract Audit Agency, U.S. Department of War, where she specialized in fraud, waste, and abuse investigations and digital forensics. The same principles that governed that work — justice, integrity, and accountability — now anchor her nonprofit leadership.
She founded Sustained Life in 2018 to advance a simple conviction: food is medicine, and health is holistic — nurturing body, mind, and soul. In December 2023, she was licensed as a minister with New Vision Ministries, pairing institutional discipline with ministerial care.
Since 2023, she has volunteered as Executive Director of New Vision Community Outreach Association FXBG, showing up every 2nd and 4th Saturday to lead its healthy pantry initiative. That commitment is not just administrative. It has put her in direct, ongoing conversation with neighbors about food insecurity and diet-related disease — the conversations that shaped how Sustained Life approaches this work in the first place. In 2025, the pantry initiative served 655 families — 4,318 individuals. In March 2026, she was named one of Central Virginia’s Most Influential Women by ACT Enough, Inc. for her advocacy on food insecurity.
“From the federal halls of justice to the frontlines of faith and food equity” — her work traces a direct line from investigating institutional failure to building the systems that prevent it.
Our Team
Sophia built Sustained Life around people whose expertise fills in exactly where hers does not:
Rebecca Brown
Rebecca Brown, retired college professor, brings a career of researching the food/health connection and a genuine love of cooking to the program — she’s the one making sure “nourishing food” isn’t an abstraction, but something people can actually make simply, sustainably, and with confidence in their own kitchens.
Mayron Platt Shumpert, MSN, RN, CNOR, NPD-BC
Mayron Platt Shumpert, MSN, RN, CNOR, NPD-BC, brings 36 years of nursing experience, including 27 years in perioperative care and 18 years in clinical education and leadership. She keeps our health guidance grounded in evidence-based practice and clinical rigor — not just good intentions.
Katrina Dill
Katrina Dill, a Master Medical Qigong Practitioner and co-founder of Yes to Holistic Health, brings a background in adult education and program design, plus a live connection to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fredericksburg’s emerging Community Wellness Hub — turning “whole-person wellness” from a phrase on our website into an actual pipeline of programs and partners.
Yvette Anderson, PMP
Yvette Anderson, PMP, brings more than 35 years of project management and strategic leadership on complex federal government initiatives, plus a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Jackson State University. She is the one making sure programs are planned, resourced, and delivered on time and within budget — the same discipline and financial rigor she applies as owner of her own business, Crafts by Yvette, LLC.
This is not a founder claiming to be the expert in everything. It’s a founder who knows how to trace a systemic problem to its source, paired with a professor who makes the food itself approachable, a 36-year nursing veteran who keeps the health claims honest, a project management professional who keeps programs on schedule and on budget, and an educator already building community wellness infrastructure elsewhere in Fredericksburg.
Your place in the story
Help create pathways that last.
Learn, volunteer, partner, give, or share resources with someone who needs encouragement.