Ophelia Averitt has been a life long member of the NAACP active from her childhood in Alabama and continuing today in her adopted home in Akron, Ohio. She is a graduate of the Patterson School of Nursing as well as the Vogue Academy of Hair Design and an Herbal Nutritionist. Her sincere and caring nature as well as the entrepreneurial skills of her professional training is also reflected in her NAACP and other volunteer service activities. She operates Simon’s Salon and Health Boutique. For years, she has given free monthly seminars on health, “You are what you eat and think,” taking her community on a journey into better health.

Her pleasant disposition, dogged determination, and passion for the NAACP, together with her exceptional mastery of sales techniques, have made her the premiere solicitor of NAACP memberships, especially Life Memberships. She has consistently brought hundreds of NAACP Life Memberships and tens of thousands of dollars to the Association every year for the past 20 years.
She is a member of the NAACP National Board of Directors where she serves as the National Life Membership Chairperson.

She was the President of the Akron, Ohio Chapter of NAACP for 14 years after serving as the 1st Vice Chair of the Ohio State Conference of the NAACP for 10 years. She is currently the 3rd Vice Presidnet for the NAACP State Conference and Vice President for the Barberton NAACP in Barberton, Ohio. Mrs. Averitt almost single handedly established five new NAACP college chapters: the University of Akron; Kent State University; Rice University; The College of Wooster and Youngstown State University. Over the last five years, she was also instrumental in procuring 70 college scholarships from the Carrie Simon NAACP Scholarship Fund. She is an active and devoted member of the Wesley Temple AME Zion Church in Akron and has been honored and recognized as one of the most influential women in Northeast Ohio by the prestigious Cleveland Foundation.