Ainee Lynnette Taylor

A grown man, in dirty clothes is asking for food on the side of the road, he sleeps on the steps of public buildings in Downtown Durham. A pre-teen attending Performance Arts classes at the Durham Art’s council couldn’t understand why he and others like him, didn’t have a place they called home. That question has stuck with Ainee Lynnette Taylor all her life. It could be the reason, Lynnette Taylor, as she’s known,  became a storyteller.

Now, she’s following her heart to not just share their stories but help get them out of homelessness. The Durham, NC native, made Greenville home when she joined WITN after graduating East Carolina University. After five years at WITN, she moved to the Sunshine State to become the morning and noon anchor for WCJB-TV 20 in Gainesville, Florida. It was there, where she began working with a local missionary, Sister Hazel Williams, who became her spiritual Godmother.

Through Williams’ leadership, they held a nighttime feeding program on the streets where they prayed over each person and shared the word of God. They were blessed to serve restaurant food that would have been thrown out at  the end of the day, to the homeless men and woman for free.

Lynnette and her husband, Frederic Fladenmuller, returned to Eastern NC in 2006. A year later, Taylor returned to WITN and co anchored the news at 6pm with Dave Jordan.  In June of 2018, Lynnette decided it was time to pursue her passion in missions. She is currently setting up a foundation in honor of her Godmother,  to focus on homelessness, hunger and the children of the incarcerated.

Taylor is also a business owner with Mary Kay Cosmetics.  Taylor is moving up into leadership after working, part time, in her business for the past 8 years. It’s through her business she could send funds to her Godmother until Sister Hazel’s death in July of 2016.  Taylor is expecting to move to Florida to help continue the mission and hopefully, change the narrative that impacted Taylor’s young life. Changing the life of those less fortunate, for the better.