Hood Theological Seminary has appointed Mrs. Sandra B. Crowder to serve as a member of its Board of Trustees. Mrs. Sandra Bennett Crowder was elected as the eighteenth International President of the Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society at its twenty-ninth Quadrennial Convention held in Orlando, Florida on Thursday, July 18, 2019. Mrs. Crowder is a life-long member of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and is a member of Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Norfolk, Virginia. On the local church level, she is a member of the deaconess board, and the Annie B. Pollard Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society. She serves as a board member of MetroImpact1, a non-profit 501C3, which focuses on Eldercare and Youth initiatives. On the district level, she is the Norfolk District President of the Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society. On the conference level, she is President of Overseas Missions for the Virginia Conference. Her overseas missions work has extended to Ghana, West Africa; India, England, and the Bahamas. Prior to her election as International President, Mrs. Crowder served on the Connectional level as a member of the Global Missions Board. She has also served as the National Health Director for the A.M.E. Zion Church to the Balm in Gilead, Incorporated in partnership with other Methodist bodies. She was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Balm in Gilead. Inc. in May 2019. Additionally, she has served as the A.M.E. Zion denominational representative to Church Women United. Ecumenically, she is active with the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women, the National Council of Negro Women, the Black Women’s Agenda, Incorporated, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, Virginia Beach Alumnae Chapter. Mrs. Crowder is a career educator, and retired on July 1, 2017, after thirty years with the Virginia Beach City Public School System as a Secondary English teacher. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina and pursued the Master of Arts degree in English and African American studies at Howard University, Washington, District of Columbia. With the vision to promote “Powerful Ministries for Powerful Living,” Mrs. Crowder was elected as the Third General Coordinator of the Young Adult Missionary at the Twenty-fourth Quadrennial Convention of the Women’s Home and Overseas Missionary Society held in Dallas, Texas in August 1999. Upon her election, this vision to promote ministries that met the needs of the total life of the young adult came to reality and set the course of the Young Adult Missionary Society for the twenty-first century. Mrs. Crowder was elected to serve a second term as General Coordinator of the Y.A.M.S. at the Twenty-fifth Quadrennial Convention of the W.H. & O.M. Society held in Rochester, New York in August 2003. Out of her love for writing and the spoken word, Mrs. Crowder authored Y.A.M.S. Food for the Soul, a compilation of quotes and proverbs written by young adults. She also led the young adults of the A.M.E. Zion Church in the publication of Y.A.M.S. Prayers for the Soul, a compilation of prayers written by young adult missionaries that focused on various areas of life. Mrs. Sandra B. Crowder is the wife of Kenneth W. Crowder, Presiding Elder of the Norfolk District, Virginia Conference, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. They are the parents of three sons: Dantae, Justin, and Antoine, and the grandparents of four: Amyah, Nascir, Dylan, and Xavier