EFN Staff Profile EFN is excited to welcome new staff member Elizabeth Chipps-Freeman. Elizabeth is our Associate Development Director, a new position created to bolster the organization’s efforts to gain more support throughout the community. Elizabeth comes to EFN on the heels of her return from managing an orphanage in Kenya for three and a half years. The Dunga Orphanage Project is a nonprofi t organization dedicated to providing for the basic human needs of roughly 40 orphan children within a small AIDS ravaged village in Kenya. Most of these children lost both of their parents to the virus. Elizabeth managed the fi nances of the orphanage and coordinated communication between sponsors and kids. In addition, she created many of the policies, set up a board, worked with the Children’s Department, and worked with teachers. Her passion for serving in Africa started when she was young, after seeing a video in school about children in Ethiopia. “It just stuck with me,” she says. Knowing this, her mother invited her to hear a Kiwanis Club speaker who ran a nursery school in Kenya. Elizabeth met with the speaker and agreed to volunteer to fulfi ll her childhood dream. After six months in Kenya, Elizabeth knew she wanted to stay longer and applied for a permanent position with the Dunga Orphanage Project. Abundance Auction OCTOBER 27, 2012 Abundance will feature a delicious dinner, exciting live and silent auctions, and a meaningful opportunity to give back to our community. Proceeds from this special night will provide food and essentials for low-income children, adults and seniors in Pierce County. $75 PER PERSON, $750 TABLE OF 10 $1,000 FOR A PATRON TABLE SPONSORSHIPS AVAILABLE SHARON MCGAVICK CENTER CLOVER PARK TECHNICAL COLLEGE LAKEWOOD, WA 5:30PM - 10PM RSVP TODAY! Call 253-584-1040 or email abundance@efoodnet.org Experiencing another culture and helping kids at the orphanage is something that Elizabeth values tremendously, along with the opportunity to see elephants, her favorite animal. Still, she was happy to return to Washington to enjoy familiar foods and to shower under hot running water. Why EFN? “It’s an organization that I believe is important and everyone working here seems very dedicated to the mission of the organization.” That is why after taking a month off after returning home, Elizabeth decided to interview and accept the position. It was easy for her to see the benefi ts of fi ghting hunger in Pierce County, and she found ties to the work she did in Kenya. “The guardians of the children, if they had them, couldn’t always provide basic essentials like food for the orphans,” she says, “so part of my job was making sure basic needs were always being met.” Prior to Kenya, Elizabeth worked at the Seattle Children’s Home for two years as a Primary-2 Residential Counselor, working with children who were not yet ready for the foster care system. Many were teenager dealing with trauma, so the nurturing she provided would help get her clients to a place where they could succeed in foster care. Elizabeth grew up in Puyallup, attended Puyallup High School, and majored in Social Work at Seattle University. “Development” at a nonprofi t of EFN’s size and scope encompasses a range of activities, including fi nding and securing major gifts from caring individuals, sustaining annual giving, writing grants, coordinating events, working with volunteers, connecting with corporations and local businesses, creating newsletters and other publications, maintaining a donor database, managing social media, and community relations. Development Director Jeff Klein has worked with Helen and various support staff to expand the budget in order to meet the increased need in our community, but a healthy, thriving organization needs a solid balance of multiple funding sources. Elizabeth will write grants and help on the public relations side, allowing for more of a focus on individual giving as a greater source of revenue. Our goal? More money for more food to alleviate hunger in Pierce County! Saturday, November 17, 2012 1:00pm - 4:00pm Charles Wright Academy 7723 Chambers Creek Rd W, Tacoma WA 98467 Bowl Sales benifi t EFN Free soup from area restaurants