The Women’s Resource Center held it 2nd annual Leading the Way event on November 5th, 2015 at the Elon Community Church. In keeping with the WRC mission statement of empowering women to improve and enrich their lives; eight women were nominated for the Founders’ Award. Women who demonstrated the characteristics of our WRC founders, with their outstanding contributions in the areas of Philanthropy, Community Development and Mentoring. Three women under 40 demonstrating those same qualities were nominated as Rising Stars. The decision was difficult as we had some outstanding nominees, all contributing to the advancement of our community.
During our event, which featured keynote speaker, Shelley Roupas of Fox8 News who discussed the traits of success; the following winners were announced.
And the winners are…
Congratulations to our 2nd Annual Leading the Way Winners!!!
(Pictured l-r: 2015 Rising Star Recipient April Durr and Founders’ Award Recipient Susan Osborne.)
The 2015 Founders’ Award recipient was Susan Osborne. Susan’s extensive career in Social Service began in 1984 when she became a social worker here in Alamance County. She has since risen to her current position of Director and supervises a staff of 200+ employees for the last 15 years; with the vision of partnering with individuals and families in achieving prosperity, permanence and safety. She has also served as a sponsor through Leadership Alamance, and was elected to serve as president of the North Carolina Association of County Directors of Social Services. Additionally, she served as board chair of the United Way, chair of the Children’s Executive Oversight Committee and chair of Healthy Alamance Steering Committee in 2012.
The 2015 Rising Star Award recipient was April Durr. April is the Director of Community Impact at United Way, where she assures the wisest investment of donor dollars and co-leads community assessments used to set funding priorities. At the age of 28, April was was named the Executive Director of Healthy Alamance, a non profit affiliate of Alamance Regional Medical Center. She successfully coordinated the triennial Alamance County Community Assessment which identifies, prioritizes and funds community needs in the following areas: obesity, access to health care, substance abuse and mental health. Ms. Durr’s greatest vocational (and civic) achievment comes from the creation of FAST, a movement to raise awareness about the need for public transportation in Alamance County.
Congratulations to our winners and all our nominees for their outstanding contributions to our community.
Winners are congratulated by WRC Director and previous winners.
(Pictured l-r: WRC Executive Director, Susan Watson; 2014 Rising Star winner, Rebecca Parks; 2015 Rising Star winner April Durr, 2015 Founders’ Award winner Susan Osborne; 2014 Founders’ Award Winner Heidi Norwick)
