Yolanda Adams

Motherhood didn’t slow Yolanda down. With baby in tow, she continued to bring her praise songs to sold-out stages. In 2001, she entered the studio to record the richly satisfying Believe. That album - like her newest effort, Day By Day - reunited Yolanda with the innovative group of producers who had created Mountain High…Valley Low. “Whenever you work with people that you’re familiar with, they know your heart and what you like,” she notes. “They know what your message is and that you want to help people. So it’s pretty cool to be able to work with your friends, and I’ve been blessed to do so in the past and on my new album.”

2005’s Day By Day marks Yolanda’s first album for Atlantic Records. Due to restructuring at her label, she found herself on hiatus for nearly four years, though as she notes, “The great thing about Gospel is that you don’t have to have an album every year in order to keep working.” Yet despite the time off, Yolanda was far from idle. She kept touring and began to lay the groundwork for her Voice of an Angel Foundation, which focuses on mentoring high school students nationwide in order to help them find a career in education. The foundation received its non-profit certification in the winter of 2005 and will hold its maiden mentoring camp next summer. “Education is one of the greatest rewards for me - not only to instruct young people but also to mold them into great thinkers.”

Yolanda is also heavily involved in other children’s issues. She works closely with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources to ensure that kids in low-income areas receive immunizations. Along with that nationwide program, Yolanda lends her energy and commitment to a number of other child-based organizations, including The Children’s Defense Fund and Houston charities such as juvenile diabetes and The Escape Center. ”I’m very involved with kids because after being a teacher for seven years, I just can’t stop loving the kids. I am a teacher forever.”