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Young Guns: Jennifer Holder and Shawanda Mason-Moore turn The Chattery into Chattanooga learning hub for adults

The Chattery co-founders Shawanda Mason-Moore, right, and Jennifer Holder.
The Chattery co-founders Shawanda Mason-Moore, right, and Jennifer Holder. The Chattery co-founders Shawanda Mason-Moore, right, and Jennifer Holder.

By Mark Kennedy 3 min read

The Chattery, Chattanooga’s homegrown adult-education non-profit, celebrates its fifth anniversary this month.

That’s five years of cooking classes and calligraphy workshops.

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Shawanda Mason-Moore› Age: 36› Hometown: Franklin, Virginia› College: George-Mason UniversityJennifer Holder› Age: 33› Hometown: Dayton, Tennessee› College: Middle Tennessee State University

The two 30-something founders, Shawanda Mason-Moore and Jennifer Holder, provide a case study in how to transform a friendship into an enjoyable enterprise.

Earlier this decade, the two met when Holder was a property manager at Mason-Moore’s apartment complex. The pair became friends and eventually decided to try to replicate The Brooklyn Brainery in New York, a crowd-sourced educational club. Timing was perfect as many colleges and universities were moving away from lifestyle-based adult education programs to more career-oriented continuing-ed classes.