Kathi Jaworski
Executive Director
• About Me:
I was born and lived in New England for all my life until 1998, except for 4 college years in Pennsylvania and my year as a VISTA volunteer in Chicago. In college, I majored in economics and minored in fine art. When I was a young mother, I was fortunate to have a scholarship to attend graduate school in planning at MIT. I have worked as a community organizer, an economic development planner and director at an Economic Development District in Maine, a community development corporation director in western Massachusetts, along with many other colorful jobs and entrepreneurial ventures! I came to Oregon in 1998 with my family specifically to join RDI in my current role. It was a great decision
Most of my very large extended family still lives within 100 miles of Boston. My house was on an unpaved road in a town full of fields and blueberries and box turtles. My town changed radically as I grew up-- into a suburb that few of my schoolmates could afford to live in. This sense of “community lost” is what propelled me into rural development. What keeps me passionate about this work is the opportunity to support and celebrate the tenacious and innovative people in small communities who are successfully sustaining and strengthening their communities.
My husband John and I live in Eugene; the youngest of our five children, twins Kevin and Alivia, graduated from college in 2006. They are interesting fun adults who have inherited their mom’s love of travel.
• What I do at RDI:
I am the Executive Director, which back in 1998 meant a bit of everything- facilitating, training, grant writing, filing and phone answering. Since RDI is much larger now, I focus more now on identifying and supporting talented people to advance our mission. I aspire to cultivate an organization that walks its talk; that is truly connected with rural community leaders, effective in its leadership and partnership roles, innovative and useful in helping rural communities set and reach their goals. What this involves is lots of communication, cultivating partners and good project ideas, building understanding, testing ideas and observations to guide our efforts,. My parents still can’t quite explain my job!
• State where I was born:
Massachusetts. I think in a past life, though, I was born in the Northwest!
• What I wanted to be when I was 8 years old:
An artist or a nun, but also for sure a mom. Some internal paradoxes there!
• Interesting previous job(s) I've held:
One summer, to add to my minimum wage job earnings, I started a small summer arts camp for neighborhood children. The dried apple head dolls and potato print t-shirts were a big hit, but making rice paper on an old window screen only resulted in 8 disappointed faces around a mushy gray heap at the bottom of a bucket. Early training in improvisation!
• One of my personal goals for :
Well, I didn’t quite write a poem a week in 2007, as was my goal, so I’d like to keep that goal. I’d also like to be healthy and regain my lost Spanish language facility- it is a beautiful expressive language.
• A place I want to visit at least once in my lifetime:
So many many places, the list of where I don’t want to visit is much shorter!! I would like to visit the South Pacific and sleep in a hut that juts over the water- at a locally owned sustainably developed place of course.
• My favorite book and why:
I LOVE to read so it is very hard to pick one. I do love “Yo” by Julia Alvarez, which is about a woman between two cultures (US and Dominican Republic) and how, told through the eyes of different people in each chapter, her life has made a difference in ways she doesn’t even know, and probably won’t ever learn. As an avid gardener, I also love Michael Pollan’s “The Botany of Desire”
• My favorite board game:
I am not a big game board person. Even my children had to suffer with “cooperative” games because I didn’t like the whole winners-losers thing!
• The coolest thing someone has done for me:
This is the hardest to answer of all- because I have been blessed by the kindness of strangers and friends more than one person deserves. It feels trivial to single out one thing- so I won’t!
> Click to Return to Staff Listing
Executive Director
• About Me:
I was born and lived in New England for all my life until 1998, except for 4 college years in Pennsylvania and my year as a VISTA volunteer in Chicago. In college, I majored in economics and minored in fine art. When I was a young mother, I was fortunate to have a scholarship to attend graduate school in planning at MIT. I have worked as a community organizer, an economic development planner and director at an Economic Development District in Maine, a community development corporation director in western Massachusetts, along with many other colorful jobs and entrepreneurial ventures! I came to Oregon in 1998 with my family specifically to join RDI in my current role. It was a great decision
Most of my very large extended family still lives within 100 miles of Boston. My house was on an unpaved road in a town full of fields and blueberries and box turtles. My town changed radically as I grew up-- into a suburb that few of my schoolmates could afford to live in. This sense of “community lost” is what propelled me into rural development. What keeps me passionate about this work is the opportunity to support and celebrate the tenacious and innovative people in small communities who are successfully sustaining and strengthening their communities.
My husband John and I live in Eugene; the youngest of our five children, twins Kevin and Alivia, graduated from college in 2006. They are interesting fun adults who have inherited their mom’s love of travel.
• What I do at RDI:
I am the Executive Director, which back in 1998 meant a bit of everything- facilitating, training, grant writing, filing and phone answering. Since RDI is much larger now, I focus more now on identifying and supporting talented people to advance our mission. I aspire to cultivate an organization that walks its talk; that is truly connected with rural community leaders, effective in its leadership and partnership roles, innovative and useful in helping rural communities set and reach their goals. What this involves is lots of communication, cultivating partners and good project ideas, building understanding, testing ideas and observations to guide our efforts,. My parents still can’t quite explain my job!
• State where I was born:
Massachusetts. I think in a past life, though, I was born in the Northwest!
• What I wanted to be when I was 8 years old:
An artist or a nun, but also for sure a mom. Some internal paradoxes there!
• Interesting previous job(s) I've held:
One summer, to add to my minimum wage job earnings, I started a small summer arts camp for neighborhood children. The dried apple head dolls and potato print t-shirts were a big hit, but making rice paper on an old window screen only resulted in 8 disappointed faces around a mushy gray heap at the bottom of a bucket. Early training in improvisation!
• One of my personal goals for :
Well, I didn’t quite write a poem a week in 2007, as was my goal, so I’d like to keep that goal. I’d also like to be healthy and regain my lost Spanish language facility- it is a beautiful expressive language.
• A place I want to visit at least once in my lifetime:
So many many places, the list of where I don’t want to visit is much shorter!! I would like to visit the South Pacific and sleep in a hut that juts over the water- at a locally owned sustainably developed place of course.
• My favorite book and why:
I LOVE to read so it is very hard to pick one. I do love “Yo” by Julia Alvarez, which is about a woman between two cultures (US and Dominican Republic) and how, told through the eyes of different people in each chapter, her life has made a difference in ways she doesn’t even know, and probably won’t ever learn. As an avid gardener, I also love Michael Pollan’s “The Botany of Desire”
• My favorite board game:
I am not a big game board person. Even my children had to suffer with “cooperative” games because I didn’t like the whole winners-losers thing!
• The coolest thing someone has done for me:
This is the hardest to answer of all- because I have been blessed by the kindness of strangers and friends more than one person deserves. It feels trivial to single out one thing- so I won’t!
> Click to Return to Staff Listing