Meet the Architects Behind Birmingham’s Women Under Construction Network (WUCN)

By Je’Don Holloway Talley | For The Birmingham Times Women Under Construction Network was founded in 2014 and became an established 501c3 in March 2015. The group supports women, their children, and the elderly living in underserved communities. It uses actual tools combined with corresponding life parallels to teach basic home repair and life repair and work with contractors to perform minor repairs for low-income elderly. Here’s a closer look at its leadership. Shellie Layne, founder/ CEO, as a wife, and mother with a corporate career Layne was living the good life — until the 2008 recession. “When the market crashed, I crashed with it,” said Layne. “In the midst of all of that, I ended up going through a divorce, becoming a single parent for the first time, foreclosure, and bankruptcy…I was going through several experiences that I never thought I’d go through,” she said. One of those experiences was shopping for a new air conditioner in the sweltering Alabama summer. “I went to Walmart because I needed an air conditioning unit… I didn’t have the money or the expertise to do the fix-it things that I needed but the heat was bearing down and I needed to take...