The Lexington social worker is building community through a women’s dinner series, intimate experiences, and a podcast launching in January 2027
Yolanda McCray, LMSW, knows what it feels like to arrive at midlife and realize the village you need is nowhere in sight. Rather than wait for one to appear, the Lexington, South Carolina, social worker built it herself. Through Skyler M Wellness, McCray creates experiences that help women between the ages of 35 and 60 get out of the house, connect, and pour back into themselves, and her work places her among the Black women in business, turning a personal season of life into a community for others.
For many Black women, sisterhood was something we first saw on screen. Joan, Maya, Lynn, and Toni made Girlfriends must-see television, and the four friends of Waiting to Exhale showed what it looks like when women carry each other through heartbreak and reinvention. Sex and the City added its own chapter to the story of women navigating life side by side. Today, those episodes are still being rewatched, dissected, and debated online, often by women who quietly wish they had a circle like that of their own.
McCray’s gatherings may offer women in midlife a real-life slice of that sisterhood, and she speaks about where it began with disarming honesty. “No one told me midlife would hit like this,” McCray said. “I was struggling. I was grieving my youth and didn’t know how to step into who I was becoming. I needed answers. I needed sisterhood. I needed to understand what was happening in my body. So, I started building what I needed, and I realized so many women need it too.”
Yolanda McCray Joins the Black Women in Business Building Real Community
McCray brings nearly a decade of community health experience to her work as a licensed master social worker, a career spent showing up for others long before she launched a business of her own. In 2023, she founded Skyler M Boutique and Gifts, and in September 2026 she graduated from the year-long Intuit IDEAS program. The program strengthened her business and helped it evolve into something stronger and more beautiful: Skyler M Wellness, a brand built on connection. At the heart of it all is McCray’s desire to connect women with the resources, support, and sisterhood they need.
That desire comes to life in gatherings designed to help women slow down and reconnect. At one, a perfume experience, every guest created something just for her, a small but meaningful act of care for women who spend so much energy caring for everyone else. McCray also partnered with Jan Mayes of Golden Bloom Events to host The Bloom Table, a women’s dinner series built around deep conversation and community and supported by Soul Dinner cards. The response has spoken for itself. The series held its first dinner in September 2026, and the women who gathered around that table left asking to return.
Girl, What About You? and the Future of Midlife Sisterhood
McCray is now bringing that sense of sisterhood to women wherever they are with Girl, What About You?, a micro podcast premiering Thursday, January 7, 2027, with a companion interactive workbook coming soon. Episodes will run 10 to 15 minutes and release every other Thursday, covering faith, healing, and community in a format made for busy lives. The podcast carries a message written for every woman who has spent years showing up for everyone around her: “She gives. She carries. She matters too.” Listeners can subscribe now on YouTube at @girlwhataboutyou.
As Bacon Magazine celebrates National Women’s Small Business Month, McCray stands among the women entrepreneurs proving that some of the most meaningful companies begin with a personal need. She went looking for sisterhood, and when she could not find it, she started setting the table. For Black women in business and the women they lead, love, and mentor, her work is a warm reminder that sisterhood does not have to live only in reruns. It can be built, one gathering at a time.
About Skyler M Wellness
Skyler M Wellness is a faith-based wellness brand in Lexington, South Carolina, serving women in midlife. Founded in 2023 as Skyler M Boutique and Gifts by Yolanda L. McCray, LMSW, the brand creates experiences, gatherings, and content that help women connect, heal, and pour back into themselves.
Website: www.skylerm.com
