How Ashanti Tate is Making an Impact

Ashanti Tate has long understood her community. She began her career in social work at the age of 19, with an initial focus on drug and alcohol addiction. By the time she had worked her way up into a regional director position, she and her husband had adopted two children with one on the way.

Maternity leave provided an epiphany for Tate: She wanted something different. Her husband was having lunch with a friend, who told him about an open position. “I said, ‘You know, I think I can do this,’” Tate says.

The position, as the executive director of Agape of the Ozarks, LLC, led her to a new world. She started working with Medicaid reps in the city and learned that a lot of clients have issues with their spend down (paying a certain amount of money before services go into effect). “I thought, what if I work to help them meet that?” Tate says.

While receiving that aid was beneficial to countless clients, Tate wasn’t finished. “I started working with Medicaid on an initiative that pays caregivers to provide care for their loved ones,” Tate says. “The goal of this program is to keep individuals in the comfort of their homes, avoiding unnecessary nursing home placements and ensuring they can live independently. This is about so much more than getting a spend down waived. We are changing lives.” Learn more on the Agape of the Ozarks website.