Tiffany Love, an ETSU alumna, recently received the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award from President Joe Biden. She received his award for her work in teaching people how to free themselves from “mental incarceration and self-imprisonment” with conferences hosted throughout the United States.
Love has a passion for teaching about mental health and showing people how to make positive choices that will change their lifestyle for the better. The idea for her organization, Beauty Behind Bars, came about after witnessing her brother’s struggle after a brain injury lead him to prison and seeing how mental health had taken a toll on him.
“I said, ‘What can I do to help my own family who’s going through this in the penal system,'” said Love. “Whenever I received my track scholarship to East Tennessee State University, that’s when I discovered that I wanted to be a social worker. I wanted to be an educator and a social worker. And mental health was something that I just had a passion for because of my brother. And that’s how I ended up doing the work that I do.”
Love explained that in order to receive a President’s Lifetime Achievement Award, you have to make an impact on your community that is considered a notable improvement to our world. Tennessee Senator, Marsha Blackburn had supported Love’s work for years and reached out to her with the news of the award.
“I was able to receive that award because of the work that I’m doing through mental health with these particular conferences, helping people. So that Lifetime Achievement Award came from the White House,” said Love. “I was so shocked.”
Love was a student athlete at ETSU, with a drive to create change. She was highly active in the community and on campus as Miss Kingsport. She would also soon become the first black Miss Tennessee.
“I want this award to show people that they can do the same thing too,” said Love. “You have so many people that feel like their lives are limited, like they can’t reach anyone, but I started on a (street) corner. I took a bucket and I would raise funds and reach people right where they were in the community. You can start right where you are, and that’s what I did with this program.”
Love showed keen interest in bringing her conferences to ETSU, noting the importance of creating an outlet among students
“I want people to know that they can be free from their own mental thinking. It’s never too late to pick up the pieces,” said Love.
