 "Photo: COURTESY OF EMMA LEE")
The executive director of Dress for Success in Huntington has come a long way from Canada to have finally realized her biggest motivation in life in giving to others.
Jessica Graham moved to Toronto when she was in sixth grade and stayed there through high school.
Both of her parents were professional musicians and still continue to teach.
Her mother is a music director at an anglican church in Toronto. Her father teaches music at the University of Toronto.
“I grew up singing,” Graham said. “It was mandatory.”
She was very involved with different activities both inside and outside of school but spent most of her time singing.
“Jessica sang a recognizable tune at the age of three,” said Fred Graham, Jessica’s father.
After graduating high school, Graham attended McMaster University in Ontario, Canada where she studied history and English.
“I had no idea what to do with a history and English degree,” Graham said. “But I had the good fortune to go on a study year abroad my third year and spend a year in Germany. I loved it. So, I went back and, to pay the bills, I started teaching English over there.”
After Graham returned from Germany she continued to teach English, but said it wasn’t fitting to her.
She decided to attend Humber Community College in Toronto where she enrolled in a 10-month program and received her certification in arts administration.
After completing her certification, she began working for a dance company and a music festival.
“Most arts administration is nonprofit,” Graham said. “This kind of work I was doing for this dance company and this music festival is also the work that’s done for charities that aren’t artsy.”
In 2006, Graham received devastating news. Her father was diagnosed with terminal congenital liver disease.
Fred Graham, has had a liver condition since birth.
“By 2007 he needed a liver transplant or he was going to die,” Graham said. “It turned out I was the perfect candidate.”
In June 2007, both Jessica and her father went into surgery.
“They took the big part of my liver and gave it to him and left me with the small lobe,” Graham said.
“Both parts of the liver grow back to 100 percent size so we now both have normal livers.”
After a very long and extensive surgery, Graham and her father survived but were in for a long recovery.
“It took me four months before I could really go back into the world and it was six months before I was walking the dog,” Graham said.
Graham’s father was out of work for seven months but was very thankful for his daughter.
“She’s a very selfless person,” Fred Graham said. “With only one day’s notice, she offered to give part of her body to rescue my body.”
Although she and her father were making a great but long recovery, Graham said she felt like the music world was passing her by.
“I got a call when I was lying in the hospital bed to play at a musical festival but I had to turn it down because I couldn’t sing for six months,” Graham said.
A job counselor told her to go to Dress Your Best Toronto.
“They put me in really sharp clothes with personal attention,” Graham said. “I had never worn a pinstripe suit before.”
After receiving help from Dress Your Best, Graham began working at the University of Toronto.
Her boyfriend was attending Marshall University, so Graham decided to come to Huntington where she began working at Marshall.
“In all the time I temped at Marshall, I only saw one nonprofit job advertised and that was for Dress for Success,” Graham said. “So I applied for the job and got it.”
After receiving the job, Graham was eventually promoted to executive director.
“They gave me a chance,” Graham said. “They thought I had the talent that the job needed. Before I had always been an assistant of some sort.”
Through all the events Graham has endured, she said music is what gets her through everything.
“If I don’t write I get cranky,” Graham said. “Singing is really my core identity. I did a lot of writing during the surgery.”
Graham has written more than forty songs. She released a solo record in 2005 and a three-song demo in 2006.
“She’s a tremendous teacher and a fabulous singer,” Fred Graham said.
Graham said Huntington has been very good to her.
“There’s room to grow here,” Graham said. “I started temping here two weeks after I moved to Huntington and then I got the job at Dress for Success and now I’ve been promoted so now I’m the executive director. That’s an opportunity that would have been very hard to get in Toronto.”
In addition to Dress for Success and writing music, Graham sings every Wednesday at Shamrock’s.
Jayme Meadows can be contacted at meadows130@marshall
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