A longtime, friendly face at the Kent Downtown Partnership hung up her calculator last week.<\/p>\n
Libby Seidel, a volunteer financial wizard for the nonprofit for the past eight years, resigned her duties June 30. She\u2019s leaving to take some time off for summer, then embarking on another opportunity \u2013 volunteering for the Kent Police Department.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a great experience,\u201d said Seidel of the years she spent getting to know the close-knit downtown business community of Kent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you walk down (the business district streets) shop owners will literally come out and say \u2018hi\u2019 to you. It was really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Seidel, volunteering is a way of life, and that penchant for wanting to get in and make things run has dictated her direction, first to KDP, and now this September to the Kent Police.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them I\u2019d do whatever they needed me to do,\u201d said Seidel of Kent P.D. Police-oriented work isn\u2019t new to her \u2013 Seidel has had considerable experience volunteering with the Everett Police Department, where she handled their false-alarm billings and helped with National Night Out, among other things.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just loved doing the work,\u201d she said. \u201cI had my own key, and I was self-sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seidel, who lives in Panther Lake area, explained the timing of her resignation dovetails in part with the annexation of Panther Lake into the city. She\u2019s a big fan of the improved police protection that\u2019s expected to result from the annexation.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because she knows from personal experience the trauma of a home invasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked into it – they were still there,\u201d she said of the robbery, which happened last October. \u201cThey were upstairs and I grabbed the phone and ran out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took the sheriff a half hour to get to it, and they (the robbers) were long gone by then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seidel\u2019s leave is a major loss for the KDP.<\/p>\n
At the annual KDP Banquet June 26, she was honored with a Special Recognition award for her efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s an incredible person,\u201d said Executive Director Barb Smith. \u201cI know for myself, she had a great grasp of accounting practices. She would keep track of the deposits and how they were dispersed, and she handled accounting (with Treasurer Rick Rolland.)\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith also lauded Seidel for taking on the big job of organizing KDP\u2019s \u201cWine, Women, Wow!\u201d show the past two years. It\u2019s one of the organization\u2019s major fundraising events – not to mention popular – activities. Seidel, she said, gave unstintingly of her time getting the show organized in the two years it has operated at the Kent ShoWare Center.<\/p>\n
And then there was the fact Seidel just seemed to know everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was an absolute wealth of knowledge for me when I came on board,\u201d Smith said, noting those connections made it easier to do her job.<\/p>\n
Seidel had never planned to jump into the KDP as deeply as she did. At first, it was just a way of getting acquainted with Kent, and helping out in a small way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started working every week on Tuesdays,\u201d Seidel said, noting she got her start working in the office with KDP\u2019s then-Executive Director Jacquie Alexander. \u201cThere was lots to do,\u201d Seidel said, in something of an understatement.<\/p>\n
But while she was there for bookkeeping, it was the human connections that kept Seidel with the KDP.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came here, I didn\u2019t know anybody,\u201d Seidel said of her move to the area from Everett 10 years ago with husband Dave Seidel. \u201cRight away (through KDP) I met the merchants. It made me feel like I was part of a community again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seidel now is looking forward to a quiet summer – and a relaxing trip to the tropics before volunteering again in earnest this fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to Hawaii in August,\u201d Seidel said of her plans with husband Dave. \u201cWe\u2019re renewing our vows on the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n
And even if she\u2019s not in the KDP office, she\u2019s not gone entirely.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell them I\u2019m still a phone call away,\u201d she quipped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A longtime, friendly face at the Kent Downtown Partnership hung up her calculator last week.
\nLibby Seidel, a volunteer financial wizard for the nonprofit for the past eight years, resigned her duties June 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":21677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21676"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}