Julie Brinker, Doing What She Loves
in Service to the Community of Nashville, Tennessee
Scientologist Julie Forney Brinker has been making a difference in people’s lives through community service for most of her life.
Julie Brinker, née Forney, is carrying forward a family tradition of service. And she is having the time of her life.
Now 21, Julie was only 4 when she first insisted that her mother, Ellen Maher-Forney, President of the Church of Scientology of St. Louis, Missouri, swear her in as a Drug-Free Marshal. That way, she could help other kids pledge to live drug-free lives.
By the time she was 16, Julie had clocked enough volunteer hours in service to the community to be honored, along with her mother, with a Presidential Volunteer Service Award by President George W. Bush.
Always precocious, at 19 Julie embarked on a career of her own, coordinating community affairs for the new Church of Scientology & Celebrity Centre of Nashville, Tennessee, which was dedicated and opened April 25, 2009.
But being in the public eye was not always easy for Julie.
“I loved doing community work but my whole life I had trouble communicating to others—I was timid, reserved, wouldn’t speak up. And I didn’t like having to talk in front of a group,” she says.
All that changed when Julie enrolled on a Scientology communication course at age 16.
“Suddenly, I didn’t get nervous around people,” she says. “I no longer had a problem saying what I wanted to say.”
Once in Nashville, Julie energetically took on her new responsibilities. In May 2010, when the Cumberland River overflowed its banks, engulfing downtown Nashville and flooding thousands of residents from their homes and tourists from their hotels, Julie mobilized the Church’s Scientology Volunteer Ministers Corps. They staffed shelters and helped the city reunite evacuated hotel guests with their luggage and find flights home. And when the floodwater receded, Julie personally led the Church’s cleanup brigade, helping flood victims salvage their possessions and begin putting their homes back together.
In 2010, Julie moved on from disaster relief to establish the “Foundation for a Drug-Free Tennessee,” a grassroots drug education initiative. In its first year, volunteers have taken its “truth about drugs” message to 15,000 students in 12 counties across Tennessee.
Nashville is also special to Julie for another reason. The day she arrived, she met Jesse Brinker, and they married in March 2011.
“The moment I saw him, I knew I was looking at my future husband,” she says.
Looking forward to many more years of service, Julie is cheerful, energetic and focused. She describes it this way:
“Here I am now, doing a job I adore in a city I love and married to an amazing man.”
To learn more about what Scientologists are doing to create a better world, watch “Meet a Scientologist” videos at www.Scientology.org.
The popular “Meet a Scientologist” profiles on the Church of Scientology International Video Channel at Scientology.org now total more than 200 broadcast-quality documentary videos featuring Scientologists from diverse locations and walks of life. The personal stories are told by Scientologists who are educators, teenagers, skydivers, a golf instructor, a hip-hop dancer, IT manager, stunt pilot, mothers, fathers, dentists, photographers, actors, musicians, fashion designers, engineers, students, business owners and more.
A digital pioneer and leader in the online religious community, in April 2008 the Church of Scientology became the first major religion to launch its own official YouTube Video Channel, which has now been viewed by millions of visitors.