Honoree – Tembi Locke

Tembi Locke

Honoree

Tembi Locke has been a part of the Soaring Spirits community since she attended her first Camp Widow in San Diego during the summer of 2012, after the death of her husband, Saro. That initial connection to the Soaring Spirits community led Tembi to join our team first as a presenter, then as a member of the Board of Directors and as an Advisory Board Member. Tembi’s broadest contribution to the Soaring Spirits community has been in the representation of widowhood she proudly and courageously shares with the world through her memoir From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home which was then developed by Tembi and her sister Attica Locke, into the award winning Netflix series From Scratch. This honest portrayal of love, life, grief, and resilience powerfully reflects Soaring Spirits core values, and provides an opportunity for the world at large to better understand the complexities of the widowed experience.

Soaring Spirits is deeply grateful for the difference Tembi has made for our community, and for widowed people around the world with her courage, honesty, creativity, and grace. She will be accepting the Soaring Spirits Founder’s Award at the Hope Takes Flight Anniversary Gala in recognition of the many ways she Acts as a Force for Good for widowed people.


Tembi Locke

Tembi Locke is a New York Times best-selling author, TV producer, actor, and screenwriter with a passion for connecting with her audience both on the page and on the screen. Alongside her sister Attica and the team at Hello Sunshine, Tembi served as co-creator and executive producer for the adaptation of her memoir, “From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home,” for Netflix. The series, “From Scratch,” became an instant global hit, spending weeks on Netflix’s Top Ten List in over thirty countries around the world and earning six NAACP Image Award nominations and the prestigious Los Angeles Film Italy award. Her aforementioned memoir was also a Reese’s Book Club pick and an instant bestseller.

In addition to her accomplishments as a writer and producer, Tembi is an accomplished actor with over sixty film and television credits. She most recently held a recurring role on Netflix’s hit show, “Never Have I Ever.” Offscreen, she is a nationally recognized speaker, delivering keynotes on resilience, loss, and motherhood, and her TEDx talk has been viewed by individuals and nonprofits around the world. This year, she launched her podcast, “Lifted,” which features dynamic women sharing their stories of what and who have lifted their lives. Through her work as a storyteller, producer, and podcaster, Tembi aims to inspire people to embrace resilience, love, and the power of community.