Here are the finalists for the Lima/Allen County Chamber of Commerce's 2021 Athena Award.
Besides being a nurse and a pastor at Living Faith Temple, Julianne Burk helps women in crisis through Guiding Light Ministries, which she opened back in 2013. What started as a way to help teen mothers, has grown to help women and others in the community find ways to stand on their own two feet and become self-sufficient.
“We want them to have a new life, we want them to create new pathways, new ways of living. Like culturally, how can they make their life better and love themselves,” says Burk. “So, we just try to educate them, we try and give them the resources to other areas in the community that are going build their lives. So it’s like building blocks, we really encourage pulling out the best of each person.”
After overcoming difficulties in her past, Jessie Roark wanted to do the same for others and started the Saint Mark’s United Methodist Church Resource Center. She believes that helping those in need, is more than just free food or clothes, but guiding them down a new life path to personal success.
“I don’t count success as in the numbers of the people I serve. The success is in those who don’t come back,” says Roark. “Those you are really able to become self-sufficient. We have individuals who have come here, to work community service and they stay when their hours are done. They continue to stay because we have become like a family, a support system.”
Kathy Keller has spent most of her career helping businesses and communities thrive. After leading the Wapakoneta Chamber and Economic Development Council, she took over as the Director of the Small Business Development Center at Rhodes State College. There Keller helps those looking to start down a new life path of becoming a business owner and helps them blaze their own trail to success.
“I really believe that it is small businesses that are the backbone of our economy and help grow in the community. So, I love being involved and also serving my community and helping it grow the best way It possibly can,” says Keller. “There is no better place than Northwest Ohio, I truly believe that and want us to be successful in this area.”
