Leadership Athens County Graduation

Dani Esperanza • June 26, 2025

Leadership Athens County Celebrates Class of 2025

The Athens County Foundation graduated its 2025 class of Leadership Athens County in May. In total, 17 members of the Flagship LAC program and 18 members of LAC Youth were recognized, bringing the total number of program graduates to more than 400 over 19 years of the program.


“Leadership development – especially inclusive, courageous and hopeful leadership – is a long-term investment,” said Kerry Pigman, ACF executive director, “Through mentorship, training and experiential learning, we’re building a pipeline of changemakers ready to take on complex challenges and create equitable, lasting solutions.”

 

Leadership Athens County is a place-based and asset-focused leadership program, aimed at developing a corps of informed citizens to provide dynamic community leadership. LAC brings together emerging leaders to inform, connect and inspire community-minded individuals to engage in service. LAC also helps participants develop and understand their own leadership styles.


Dani Esperanza, ACF program director, reflected on the strengths of the program and its graduates. “We don’t need a ‘hero’ leader who will save the day and come up with all the solutions. We need to identify our individual and collective strengths, harness them to make change and support one another throughout the process,” Esperanza said, “LAC is one tool in our community’s toolbox to do this.”


Members of each cohort took turns introducing one another and presented certificates of LAC completion. Common words used to describe fellow graduates included kind, creative, passionate, wise, persistent, caring and funny.


Leadership Athens County Youth graduates are Abbi Elliott, Abby Chase, Adam Sheehan, Andrea Davis, Aris Bashaw, Asher Martin, Avery Sullivan, Enrique Ulloa, Jack Rutter, Julia Borovicka, Kate Kotses, Max King, Mya Shultz, Noah Logue, Raquel de Abreu, Theo Smucker, Walker Stone and Wally Meek.


Leadership Athens County Flagship graduates are Ahmed Hamed, Avery Snyder, Brittany Eckert, Crissa Cummings, Hannah Louck, Jean Marie Cackowski, Jeannine Alexander, Jonah Hess, Josie Gogel, Kalynn McCoy, Liana Flores, Mel Koslovic, Naomi Calkins-Golter, Nick Magruder, Olivia Degitz, Tamarine Foreman and Zoey Bryson.


ACF is currently accepting nominations and applications for LAC Flagship 2026 through July 31. LAC is an eight-month course, typically offered from October through May, that develops a corps of informed Athens County leaders who provide dynamic community leadership. Participants explore Athens County’s economic, political, social, and cultural landscape through discussions, tours, meetings with public officials and interactions with community leaders.


ACF invites applicants who live or work in Athens County, have a commitment to the community, and an interest in assuming a more significant role in their community. For more information, review the FAQs or email staff. Interested candidates can apply online or request a paper application.


The Leadership Athens County Fund enables adult participants to access the program through reduced tuition and keeps the program free for all youth participants. If you would like to support this, contribute to the Leadership Fund or LAC Youth Support Fund.

Pull up a Chair: September Newsletter

By Emily Prince • September 17, 2026
After the Storm: What Community Resilience Looks Like

Stacy Strauss is ACF's new Director of Finance and Administration

By Emily Prince • September 1, 2026
Please join us in welcoming our new Director of Finance and Administration, Stacy Strauss. Stacy looks forward to using her skills to strengthen our community! She brings energy, creativity, and a thoughtful approach to her work, along with a genuine ability to bring people together around shared goals. Her experience spans financial management, fundraising and grant writing, program development, business strategy, and developing materials that tell a clear, compelling story.  Just as importantly, she enjoys helping others grow. She has experience leading and training teams, building collaborative cultures, developing recruitment strategies, and finding practical, creative solutions to complicated challenges. Whether working with colleagues, community partners, or other stakeholders, she builds relationships rooted in trust, communication, and a shared commitment to advancing good ideas.

Fall Grant Applications Open

By Shayne Lopez • August 28, 2026
Athens County's greatest asset is its people. Every day, neighbors, organizations, and local leaders bring skill, creativity, and deep knowledge of this place to the work of building a stronger community. Our grantmaking invests in those strengths, because the best solutions are already growing here, led by the people who call Athens County home. Our grantmaking builds on the strengths already here by investing in the initiatives, people and organizations, relationships, skills, and ideas working to address longstanding challenges and pursue extraordinary opportunities. The deadline for applications for the Senior Fund has been extended to October 18, 2026! The Athens Jaycees Senior Fund The Athens Jaycees Senior Fund supports organizations and programs working to improve the lives of older adults (60+) in Athens County. This year, approximately $65,000 is available through ACF’s Fall Grant Cycle. We want to encourage organizations to think broadly about what supporting people as they age could look like. The Jaycees fund has deep local roots. In 2014, Housing for Athens Senior Residents donated $1 million to the Athens County Foundation to establish the fund following the sale of Heritage Commons Senior Housing. Heritage Commons itself began as an Athens Jaycees project in 1981, created to expand housing opportunities for local seniors. To date, the Jaycees Senior Fund has awarded more than $415,000 to support programs and services benefiting older adults across Athens County. What could an Athens Jaycees Senior Fund project look like? We’re inviting applicants to consider how their work could help make Athens County a community where people can remain active, connected, independent, and supported as they age. Projects might address housing, transportation, community and health services, social connection, healthy living, accessibility, caregiver support, or other needs and opportunities identified by older adults. The Jaycees Senior Fund intentionally remains flexible so that organizations can bring forward ideas grounded in what they are seeing and hearing in their communities. If your organization has an idea that could improve the experience of aging in Athens County, we encourage you to consider ACF’s Fall Grant Cycle to access the Jaycees Senior Fund. The deadline for grant requests supporting senior-related programs has been extended to October 18, 2026. For more information, please visit athensfoundation.org/grants. -------- If you’d like guidance in developing or strengthening an age-friendly program idea, we encourage you to reach out directly to Amy Lipka with Age-Friendly Athens County at alipka@athenspublichealth.org. The Athens City-County Health Department will also sponsor Healthy Aging Community Grants in early 2027.