My Life

Rasheda La bella

I was born and raised in the Bronx, New York to Cuban and Jamaican immigrant parents. As a child, I attended Barbizon Modeling School in Midtown Manhattan where I learned to do print modeling, commercials, runway shows, and more. I loved Barbizon and getting booked for jobs, but my parents felt that I was too young for the modeling industry at the time. I also (until this day) prefer writing and speaking to doing anything else in this world.

At age 13, I told my father that (in addition to becoming a wife and mother one day) I want to be an author and to run my own own business that does something good for the world. A few weeks later, he bought me a desk, computer, typing software, and we started looking at high schools.

I enrolled into Norman Thomas Business High School in Midtown at the age of 14. I really wanted to go to college and would be the first person in my family to do so. In college, I fell in love with traveling and helping communities around the world. I learned how to fundraise and was able to raise thousands of dollars to do projects like rebuilding houses that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, volunteering at an asylum seeker shelter in Israel, participating in a female empowerment program in Morocco, and to do a host of other poverty alleviation service projects throughout U.S.   

Becoming Dr. Rasheda

In 2013, I was accepted into Rutgers University’s PhD program in Public Affairs-Community Development. I spent years studying social entrepreneurship (the process of using entrepreneurship to combat social problems). My dissertation is the 1st large-scale study of the social, economic, and legal activities of social enterprises in the United States.  

I was an Assistant Professor in academia for five years. I was an Assistant Professor of Community Entrepreneurship at the University of Vermont and an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Iona College (now Iona University). I have taught entrepreneurship to over 1,000 students globally. In 2018, she created Weaver’s Social Enterprise Directory, Inc. to study and track social enterprise activity across the United States. I recently renamed it “The International Institute for Social Entrepreneurship” and revamped it into becoming a training institute for aspiring and early-stage social entrepreneurs. My textbook entitled “Social Entrepreneurship: A Practical Introduction” was released in 2022 and is now being used in over 10 university classrooms around the world. In 2023, I became sponsored by the Biden-Harris Administration’s Global African Descent Social Entrepreneurship Network (ADSEN). ADSEN is currently in the beginning stages of its development.

MARRIAGE and family

I met my now late husband Alex Weaver the week that I moved to Philadelphia to do my PhD. After our first date, I called my friend and told her that I wanted him in my life. We got married one year later and had our son one year after that. We now have two beautiful children together. Alex and I lived on a farm in Vermont where our son would collect eggs from chickens in the morning for breakfast, we visited castles throughout Europe, and made unbelievable memories.

I am grateful for the 9 years that I spent with him. However, he passed away in 2022. I will never forget how loved, appreciated, and taken care of Alex made me feel from our first date and on.

In honor of Alex, my organization, the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurship (IISE), donates some of our profits to Teen Challenge, an organization he participated in as a teenager.

Life Passions and Hobbies

As a person, I have a vibrant, positive, and outgoing personality. Some people call me “a beam of light.” I love love, people, and culture. Humanity fascinates me and I believe that Earth is a beautiful place.

My absolute favorite activity is to be on the beach. So, I try to go as much as I can.

I am also an avid salsa dancer, I love to travel, and being a homemaker to my little Weavers brings me joy.

Last, but never least, I am a strong believer in God and spirituality. Not a day goes by that I do not make time for God.