Heather began volunteering for Jack’s Caregiver Coalition early on as a Caregiver Klatch facilitator. She was a caregiver for her husband who lived with lung cancer for 7 years. She is a writer and an avid forager of mushrooms and other wild edibles. She has a dog named Molly and a cat named Kitty (who thinks she’s a dog).
Our organization has two bottom lines. One is financial and the other is the impact we've had on our community. They are equal in their importance.
Heather’s focus will be on strengthening our financial position. And with her support that will allow Jeff Myhre to shift his focus to strengthening the impact we have on the caregivers we serve.
While Heather is brand new to a role like this, she is not new to our coalition. She has been a supporter of Jack's since our earliest days. Primarily as one of our very first volunteer Caregiver Klatch facilitators. She has a deep understanding of caregiving that she wrote about recently in this blog post about her point of view as a woman supporting our coalition. She was also the genius behind one of our newest programs we call " Emptying The Boxes". Not only did she have that idea, she also showed Jeff Myhre what her idea looked like by helping him empty his boxes. Jeff wrote about that experience in this blog piece that brought me to tears.
A gifted listener and storyteller, what I value most about Heather is how consistently she lives our core values. She is a shining example of humility, reliability, curiosity, compassion, courage, and resilience.
I consider it among my greatest achievements that she chose to come to work at Jack's. And I consider it among my greatest privileges to support her as she strives for all of her potential in her new role.