Katherine

“For as long as I can remember, service has been a part of my life. My parents set the example for me by their own volunteer efforts and I always knew that giving back to one’s community was an important part of a life well lived.”

A native Iowan, Katherine spent her career as a teacher in middle and high school, eventually segueing into her “first love” of special education. After moving here in 2001, she became Disabilities and Academic Support Coordinator at the Kanas City Arts Institute in 2004. After retiring in 2013, she now has the freedom to give time to the organizations she values. Katherine is an active volunteer with Jewish Family Services, serving as a volunteer at the JFS Food Pantry in Brookside and as a Spiritual Care Volunteer, visiting Jewish eldercare residents every week. She also volunteers weekly at her synagogue, The Temple Congregation B’Nai Jehudah, and volunteers weekly at a first grade classroom at Pawnee Elementary School, where her daughter is the teacher. Katherine also has been mentoring a young woman in the community for the past eight years, since she was a struggling sophomore in high school. And during the months of the COVID shutdown, when many of her volunteer activities were curtailed, she made more than 500 masks for her family, friends and clients at JFS. Katherine and her husband Dwight have been married for 49 years and have three adult children and four grandchildren.