There's a kind of person you've probably met before. Someone who, no matter what their job title says, is really just taking care of people.  That's what they do. That's what they've always done. That’s who they are. The title just took a while to catch up.

Susan Titus is a Lafayette-area entertainer, nonprofit founder, and — by her own description — a woman whose life has had more than a few unexpected turns. She grew up in Franklin, Louisiana, earned a theater degree and at one point had designs on medical school. Instead, she spent fifteen years in retail management and corporate America before walking away in 2015 to become a full-time face painter and balloon artist.

Under the name Susie Q, Susan performs at roughly a hundred events a year — from birthday parties to corporate fairs to weddings — across Louisiana and as far east as Florida.

But Susan's second act may be her most important one. Growing up in Franklin, she watched too many girls become mothers at too young an age. Her family even took in a pregnant teenager who had been kicked out of her house. That never left her. So in 2022 she founded The Confidence Campaign, a nonprofit that delivers hands-on hygiene education and self-advocacy workshops to young women. In 2025 alone, more than fifteen hundred girls attended a Confidence Campaign workshop.

Frankie Dabney's career started in health and led her to a different kind of care. Frankie is originally from Georgia, and she trained as a nurse. But once she got into the work, she found the clinical side wasn't the right fit. A friend told her she had a gift for marketing. She listened.

That pivot eventually led her to a niche: marketing for senior living communities. It turned out to be a perfect match. Frankie had watched her own mother suffer a stroke and saw firsthand how hard it is for families to navigate care. 

Frankie spent years traveling the country and internationally for a marketing firm based in England that served senior living communities. Then a project brought her to the Vincent Senior Living in Lafayette — just for a month, to create a brochure. She fell in love with the city and the Vincent.

So when the Vincent’s executive director offered her a job, she didn't hesitate. Today, as Community Relations Director, Frankie oversees all marketing and advertising for the Vincent — a resort-style senior living campus on twenty acres right here in Lafayette.

Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. You can find photos from this show by Astor Morgan at itsacadiana.com.